Hell or Richmond

During the 30 days of the Civil War that had "torn the country apart," the awful business of killing brings widespread suffering in Peters's impressive historical novel. Peters (Cain at Gettysburg) crafts a lurid spectacle of close, personal warfare; soldiers are drenched in scorching heat and humidity, soiled by rain and mud, choked by drifting smoke, exhausted from marching, and ill with dehydration and dysentery. The carnage is raw, violent, and frighteningly realistic, with deaths by bullet, bayonet, cannon shell, and fire. Some 70 real characters%E2%80%94including key officers Ulysses S. Grant, Robert E. Lee, George Meade, Edward Perry, Francis Barlow, and William Oates%E2%80%94debate strategy and try to get along. An introspective Robert E. Lee ponders slavery and war: "Madcap fools had made this war, not soldiers. Now the soldiers must win it for the fools." Although the language is coarse, crude, and blunt, Peters can also wax eloquent on the nature of battle, the causes of the war, respect for "blood spilled and brethren lost", and offers occasional profundities: "There was no beauty, no %E2%80%98poignancy,' in lives cut short in grim ways once unthinkable...Just this wanton slaughter, this enticing, seductive butchery, irresistible and revolting." This is an insightful, epic novel that nonetheless requires a high tolerance for gore and grit. (May)