{"id":1017,"date":"2012-09-01T17:40:04","date_gmt":"2012-09-01T22:40:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/?p=1017"},"modified":"2013-03-01T17:42:24","modified_gmt":"2013-03-01T23:42:24","slug":"purgatory-a-novel-of-the-civil-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/purgatory-a-novel-of-the-civil-war\/","title":{"rendered":"Purgatory: A Novel of the Civil War"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Cover<\/a><\/p>\n

Mann, Jeff. Purgatory: A Novel of the Civil War.\u00a0Bear Bones Books\/Lethe Press, 2012. Paperback. 273p. $18. 978-1-59021-375-9<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Toward the end of the Civil War, a small ragtag band of Confederate troops are retreating from an overwhelming number of Yankee soldiers. Ian Campbell, a small bookish soldier, is assigned by his brutish uncle \u201cSarge,\u201d the troop\u2019s leader, to guard \u201cHerculean\u201d Drew Conrad, a lone Yankee soldier whom\u00a0Sarge captures.\u00a0Sarge has a history of capturing handsome young Yankees, torturing and eventually killing them, and that\u2019s what\u00a0Sarge plans to do with Drew.<\/p>\n

For the next 225 pages, Ian recounts Drew\u2019s torture at the hands of\u00a0Sarge and some of his men, who focus their rage on a helpless foe. Drew is a Christ figure who is viciously whipped, kicked, punched, spit on, peed on, almost starved, bound, left in the elements, and \u201cbucked\u201d–tied naked in the rain around a wheel. Drew\u2019s torture is certainly not ritual bondage with\u00a0role playing and safe words.<\/p>\n

Drawn to Drew, Ian helps him by treating his wounds and providing shelter and food, despite Drew\u2019s impending death.\u00a0Sarge wants to make a man out of Ian and forces him to participate in the mistreatment. Once before when Ian had been interested in a Yankee prisoner,\u00a0Sarge strangled that prisoner with his bare hands. At the same time that Ian wants to comfort Drew, Ian realizes that he is sexually aroused by Drew\u2019s being bound and tortured.<\/p>\n

The reader has to suspend disbelief that Drew could take so much abuse and yet have enough strength to keep up with the daily marches. Moreover, Ian talks daily about trying to escape, but he keeps postponing any action even as Drew declines in strength.<\/p>\n

This is a difficult book to review. Some readers will see the book as an excuse for relating gratuitous violence and sex; others will find the violence too disturbing. I don\u2019t know if a\u00a0BDSM reader would find the book erotic.<\/p>\n

Yet Purgatory is well-written and well-researched. It\u2019s a romance like no other, and in the end the strange but believable romance is what Purgatory is about. Each reader must decide for himself whether he likes the book, but I recommend it to gay males who can accept the sadism that permeates the book.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Reviewer: Larry Romans<\/strong>
\nVanderbilt University Library<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mann, Jeff. Purgatory: A Novel of the Civil War.\u00a0Bear Bones Books\/Lethe Press, 2012. Paperback. 273p. $18. 978-1-59021-375-9. Toward the end of the Civil War, a small ragtag band of Confederate troops are retreating from an overwhelming number of Yankee soldiers. Ian Campbell, a small bookish soldier, is assigned by his brutish uncle \u201cSarge,\u201d the troop\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1164,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[27,18],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1017"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1164"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1017"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1017\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}