Rochelle Hollander Schwab

Rochelle Hollander Schwab's A Different Sin was, for me, a wonderful discovery of a little gem that has been pushed aside and has never been given the recognition it deserves. It's a well-researched Civil War story about David, a sketch-artist covering the battles of Grant's Wilderness campaign as a diversion to take him away from his "sin" of same sex attraction. In addition to his internalized homophobia, he is also struggling with his ingrained prejudices against blacks, which is one of the main sources of discord between him and his abolitionist lover, Zach. Living through the harrowing, bloody experiences of the war, David grows to realize that what he thought was perverse - loving another man - really isn't, but the real perversion is right in front of his eyes - namely slavery.

Schwab does an excellent job of intertwining realistic fictional characters into the pages of history. I'm not an authority on the Civil War, but everything felt authentic to me. I'll only briefly mention that there were a few editorial gaffes, such as the narrative appearing to switch to first-person, though the author was actually relaying David's thoughts, in which case italics would have solved the issue, but nothing so serious as to greatly distract.

A Different Sin is a worthy read and you are very likely to learn a few historical facts you probably didn't know. I look forward to reading Schwab's other novels and highly recommend A Different Sin.… (altro)