After having read Dara Horn’s previous novel, “A World To Come,” I was really looking forward to her latest, “All Other Nights.” Unfortunately, despite being intrigued by the plot, which involves a Jewish presence during the Civil War, I was disappointed.
The novel follows the story of Jacob Rappaport, a young man from a prominent Jewish family in New York. Having learned that his father has arranged a marriage between him and a woman he does not like, Jacob flees home and enlists in the Union Army.
When his superiors learn that Jacob’s Jewish uncle is plotting to assassinate President Abraham Lincoln, they send him to New Orleans in time to murder his uncle. After he succeeds, Jacob is then dispatched to Richmond, Va., to the home of Philip Levy, his father’s former business partner. His mission: to marry one of Levy’s daughters, who are suspected Confederate spies.
He marries Jeannie, an actress and magician, and eventually falls in love. Mutual betrayals, however, land Jeannie and her oldest sister in jail, and Jacob is reassigned to the Union-occupied Western territories. Tragedy follows and Jacob discovers what’s important in life.
Regrettably, the novel’s characters and the plot seem contrived at times. As an example, when Jacob is sent to the Western territories, he meets Abigail Solomon, a Jewish woman. After a brief affair, he discovers that Abigail is related to the Levy family.
In addition, Ms. Horn’s characters, such as Jeannie, often are an amalgamation of real characters that lived during the Civil War. Unfortunately, Ms. Horn takes too many characteristics from these multiple sources, making them, at times, implausible.
What is interesting, however, is the role Jews played during the Civil War. Ms. Horn explores the personality of Judah Benjamin, the Confederacy’s Jewish secretary of state. She also mentions lesser-known facts, such as the expulsion of the Jews from conquered areas of the South.
Finalists for the 2007 Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature, administered the Jewish Book Council, have been announced. The $100,000 prize, the largest of its kind in the Jewish literary world, honors an emerging author in the field of Jewish literature who has written a book of exceptional literary merit that stimulates an interest in Jewish themes.
Finalists are: Ilana M. Blumberg for "Houses of Study: A Jewish Woman Among Books"; Eric L. Goldstein for "The Price of Whiteness: Jews, Race and American Identity"; Lucette Lagnado for "The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit: My Family's Exodus from Old Cairo to the New World"; Michael Makovsky for "Churchill's Promised Land: Zionism and Statecraft"; and Haim Watzman for "A Crack in the Earth: A Journey Up Israel's Rift Valley."
The inaugural Rohr Prize, awarded in 2006, went to Tamar Yellin for "The Genizah at the House of Shepher.”
2006 Jewish Book Winners
The National Jewish Book Association announced its 2006 award winners and finalists in a variety of categories. The winners are:
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