All Other Nights

by Dara Horn

A gripping epic about the great moral struggles of the Civil War.

How is tonight different from all other nights? For Jacob Rappaport, a Jewish soldier in the Union army during the Civil War, it is a question his commanders have already answered for him - on Passover, 1862, he is ordered to murder his own uncle in New Orleans, who is plotting to assassinate President Lincoln. After this harrowing mission, Jacob is recruited to pursue another enemy agent, the daughter of a Virginia family friend. But this time, his assignment isn't to murder the spy but to marry her.

Based on real personalities such as Judah Benjamin, the Confederacy's Jewish secretary of state and spymaster, and on historical facts and events ranging from an African American spy network to the dramatic self-destruction of the city of Richmond, All Other Nights is a story of men and women driven to the limits of loyalty and betrayal. It is also a parable of the rift in America that lingers a century and a half later: between those who value family and tradition first, and those dedicated, at any cost, to social and racial justice for all.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, Jewish, Civil War, Book Club, Judaism, Historical

363 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

Dara Horn is the award-winning author of six books. One of Granta magazine’s Best Young American Novelists (2007), she is the recipient of three National Jewish Book Awards, among other honors, and she was a finalist for the Kirkus Prize, the Wingate Prize, the Simpson Family Literary Prize, and the Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction. Her books have been selected as New York Times Notable Books, Booklist’s 25 Best Books of the Decade, and San Francisco Chronicle’s Best Books of the Year, and have been translated into twelve languages.

Her nonfiction work has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, Smithsonian, Tablet, and The Jewish Review of Books, among many other publications.

Horn received her doctorate in comparative literature from Harvard University, studying Yiddish and Hebrew. She has taught courses in these subjects at Sarah Lawrence College and Yeshiva University, and held the Gerald Weinstock Visiting Professorship in Jewish Studies at Harvard. She has lectured for audiences in hundreds of venues throughout North America, Israel, and Australia.

She currently serves as Creative Adviser for The Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History.

She lives in New Jersey with her husband and four children.

Reviews

[Dale Harcombe · Rating 3 out of 5]

Three and a half stars.
Set in the Civil War this is an interesting read that, no doubt, involved a lot of research. Faced with an arranged marriage he feels he cannot say no to, Jacob Rappaport flees and joins the Union army. His first mission sees this young Jewish soldier ordered to kill a family member. But his second mission leads him into more danger as he has to infiltrate a spy ring. It is here he meets Eugenia and her sisters and Jacob falls in love. That love complicates matters, forcing him to make decisions that may endanger lives and to choose between his belief and his love. Which will he choose?
This book raises issues about beliefs, duty, choices and consequences, identity, love, family and loss. I found Jacob and Eugenia interesting characters, if not always likeable. I liked the way Eugenia was an actress and a sleight of hand and escape artist. I found all the information about the Civil War and conditions of interest, especially to someone like me who is an Australian with not as wide a knowledge of the civil war as some others might have. However this was also one of the problems. At times I felt it was being overloaded with information and background details, when I just wanted the author to get on with the story of Jacob and Eugenia and her family. While I enjoyed this novel, I would have been happy to see it bit shorter. I also wasn’t enamoured of the ending.

[Kiersten · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was so disappointed with this book! It had a great premise--Jewish espionage during the Civil War--but it didn't pan out.

Probably the most disappointing aspect of this book was Jacob. I can't think of the last time I read a book with such a weak, sapless main character. Other than running away to join the Union army, Jacob did not once act of his own volition. Every step he took was forced upon him by another person. And even signing up for the army was something Jacob did only as a last resort, after he was forced into it by the prospect of an arranged marriage. Jacob is constantly having misgivings about what he is doing, but he does it anyway, every single time. Pretty major spoiler coming up right here, but if Jacob was so in love with Jeannie, why didn't he do anything about it? Why did it take two years and the combined efforts of his father and hers to get him finally track him down? I honestly just wanted to shake him, "wake up man and do something!" To be fair, I think that what the author was going for was a discussion on choosing between competing impulses: love and honor, self and society, justice and emotion. However, the debate never fully played out, because the only choice Jacob consciously made was to not act. The rest of the time he was just swept along in the machinations of characters who actually had backbone.

At the conclusion of the novel, Dara Horn includes a fairly lengthy author's note, in which she discusses her motivation for writing All Other Nights as well as the historical sources for her novel's characters and plots. The information contained here is really interesting--she lists off a number of Civil War spies and also gives some background on Judah P. Benjamin, a major player in both Horn's novel and in the actual Civil War. Reading this, I came to a realization about the plot of All Other Nights, which at first seemed like nothing more than a messy, soupy mix of random detail and far-fetched characterization: there are simply too many incredible stories to tell. The historical details Dara Horn mentions in her author's note are fascinating, even though they're only the barest outlines of the stories. In trying to pull them all together, the spy who could dislocate her jaw at will, the slave in General Longstreet's camp who relayed messages through laundry, and the riding crop used to transport messages, Dara Horn tries to do too much. It feels like she was so enamored by the many stories she came across in her research, that she forced them into the novel

[Jan Rice · Rating 4 out of 5]

All Other Nights is a Civil War story of espionage and counter-espionage in which the main characters--the spies (and their families)--are Jews. Judah Benjamin, the Confederate Secretary of State, also makes an appearance. The novel begins with the nineteen-years-old protagonist, Jacob Rappaport, running away and joining the Union army after his father tries to force an arranged marriage to the homely and intellectually challenged daughter of a business associate. The next thing you know, three Union officers are asking Jacob to go behind enemy lines and use his family connections to assassinate his uncle--on Passover, no less. The uncle is said to be a Confederate spy.

The book is also a romance.

In this book, the author is better at creating female than male characters. She gives her four main young woman characters unusual characteristics, but it works: the women ring true in the same way that truth can sometimes be stranger than fiction. The male protagonist sometimes doesn't quite work, but, no matter--the book is a rollicking good read.

This is my third Dara Horn. I still haven't read the one many readers think is her best. This was a book club selection, though. From my current vantage point, Dara Horn is beyond simple entertainment but not quite literature. In reading her, you do learn.

Dara Horn writes about Jews unapologetically. In trying to figure out what I mean by that, I found this useful Harvard Magazine article with the telling subtitle "Dara Horn breathes life into classical Jewish sources."

Growing up, she sensed what she describes as a thinness to American Jewish literature. “In the 1980s and ’90s, when you told someone you were interested in Jewish literature, they’d hand you a book by Philip Roth. This whole generation of Jewish writers from the last century were really writing more about the first-generation American experience, the experience of Judaism as a social identity. And I was like, ‘This is so not what I’m looking for.’” Those authors dwelled on questions about assimilation and authenticity.... ... Since her college and doctoral work, she has come to link this thinness to the disappearance of Hebrew and Yiddish context from contemporary American Jewish writing. "When you’re reading modern Hebrew, there are references to ancient Hebrew embedded in the work—you can’t avoid it. So many figures of speech are linked to ancient sources and the commentaries on them."

... (T)he realization that “books don’t come out of nothing”—that they’re in conversation with other books—gave her the confidence to make up stories of her own, to fill the gaps in modern Jewish literature.

... Unlike a Jonathan Safran Foer or a Michael Chabon, she fills the void of “Jewish identity” with a deep knowledge of Jewish sources.

Yes, she's dared to criticize even Philip Roth--has done so elsewhere on his portrayal of women--but does so evenhandedly and without moral hysteria. May those who criticize her--often males--do so in kind.

The author has a doctorate in comparative literature. She's very good with history, both ancient and modern.

And in between: I think her scene of the burning of Richmond late in the book is well researched. Aspects remind me of the scene of that 1903 Kishinev pogrom I read about in another book (Pogrom). I'm planning to send this book on to my daughter who's living in Richmond now.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

The title of this book is taken from the question "How is tonight different from all other nights?" This is the question asked on Passover. And what made this book interesting to me is that author Dara Horn presents a Jewish perspective on the American Civil War. As she notes in her afterword, there were 130,000 Jews living in the US in 1860. The great Southern port city of New Orleans had a large Jewish community, second only to New York's. The Jews found themselves as divided by the Civil War as the rest of the American population.
Horn's story is about Jacob Rappaport, son of a successful Jewish businessman in New York, a youth who seeks to escape his father's tyranny by joining the Union Army. After being in combat, he becomes a spy who will make use of his Jewish connections in the South. His first assignment takes him to New Orleans to participate in an uncle's Passover dinner--and to murder him, as the uncle is plotting to assassinate President Lincoln. I think most readers would find Jacob a rather reprehensible character for carrying out orders to kill his own relative. He does seem to be a strange character. A much more interesting character is the woman he marries, Eugenia Levy, a Confederate spy and sleight-of-hand artist, certainly an unusual Southern belle! But most interesting to me was the historical character who plays a role in the story--Confederate Sec. of State Judah Benjamin, the first Jew in an American Cabinet. An incredible person and possibly the most brilliant Confederate leader, I'd like to read more about him.
Dara Horn also brings up a forgotten aspect of the war--Gen. Grant's General Order Number 11 in 1862, which expelled Jews from his military department in the Mississippi Valley. The reason for the order is that Jews were viewed as war profiteers. Lincoln overturned the order. In conclusion, the book drags somewhat in the middle but the ending--the burning of Richmond--is a slambang ending. Dara Horn tells a good story, based on solid research.

[Valerie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I just read some of the other reviews of this book and I totally agree. Very well written historical story about the Civil War era. I learned some things that I didn't know, and I always enjoy that! At first, you don't really care for Jacob, but he finally learns some lessons about life along the way. There are plenty of twists and turns that do keep you guessing!

[Michael Austin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the fourth of Dara Horn’s five novels that I have read in the last few months, and she is quickly becoming one of my favorite writers. Her novels are both entertaining and thought-provoking, and she handles big ideas and small details with equal facility. I keep expecting to be underwhelmed by the next of her novels I read, but it hasn’t happened yet. All Other Nights is every bit as good as books like Eternal Life and Guide for the Perplexed. And it is more unified than these novels--more narratively coherent. It tells only one story, with one timeline, and one set of big ideas. But they are really, really big.

The sort-of hero of the novel is Jacob Rappaport, a Jewish New York native from a wealthy family who becomes a Union soldier and a spy behind Confederate lines. The Union spymasters seize on Rappaport because he has family and business connections to prominent Confederate Jews. On his first mission, he is tasked with killing his own uncle, who is involved in a plot to assassinate Lincoln. Then he is told to infiltrate a family of Jewish merchants whose daughters have been operating a spy right. He does so and marries one of the daughters.

These situations set up a series of impossible moral conflicts. There is simply no way that Jacob can satisfy all of his divided loyalties--to his religion, his family, his country, to the cause of freeing the slaves, to a wife that he comes to love and adore, to his sister-in-law who is a Confederate spy, and to his father-in-law--who is also revealed to be a Union spy but who only wants to try to save his family. Jacob stumbles, early and often, but he also succeeds spectacularly. And Horn deftly manages the environment to show us that these are the same thing. Each moral success is, simultaneously, a grave moral failure.

Moral decision making is, as I read it, the novel’s main theme. It’s title ”All Other Nights”--becomes a haunting refrain. It comes originally from the Passover liturgy, which embeds the question, “"why is this night different from all other nights?" Jacob asks this question when he murders his own uncle at a Passover feast, and he characterizes his actions as exceptional. Towards the end of the novel, though, the Jewish Confederate Judah Benjamin tells him that he will act in a crisis the way that he acts on “all other nights”--or that one’s moral code is essentially the same in exceptional situations and in normal ones.

But what Horn ultimately shows us is that moral choices are relatively easy when there is only one set of factors at play. It is not that difficult to choose between pure archetypal good and unalloyed moral evil. But those aren’t the choices that most of us get to make. And they are especially not the choices that the characters in this novel make. There are no black and whites here, only various greys. Everybody in the novel suffers as a result of Jacob’s choices, but, had he made different choices, everybody would have suffered in different ways. The situation he is in is something like a “Choose-Your-Own-Adventure” version of Dante’s Inferno.

I would call this a morally realistic novel, but not an actually realistic one. It is more of a fantasy than a narrative of uncompromising realism. There are no magic spells or space aliens, but the plot relies on an unimaginably improbable series of coincidences. And Jacob becomes a sort of Jewish Forrest Gump who manages to intersect with almost everything important that happened to Jews during the Civil War. He was in Mississippi when Grant expelled the Jews. He becomes an assistant to the Jewish Confederate Secretary of State, Judah Benjamin. He gets tangled up with John Wilkes Booth and the plot to kill Lincoln. And he manages to run into exactly the right people to give him information that he needs every time he needs it.

I would not consider this a weakness in the novel, more a genre marker of non-realistic fiction. Horn is not trying to tell a plausible story. She is setting up a series of controlled experiments in divided loyalties to see what her character--a genuinely decent and intelligent person who would make the right choices if they were available to be made--does. He becomes a lab rat in a huge moral puzzle that does not have a solution but that does have better and worse options. And he experiences a very limited and tentative sort of redemption at the end of the novel with his final choice.

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am, if anything, even more puzzled about this book than I was about _World to Come_ (the other Horn novel I read). I mean, I really really am not too much of a snob about genre fiction-- I have some genres that I like more than others, but whatever-- but I'm pretty sure this isn't being sold, marketed, or treated like genre fiction. Except that's what it is. I think. Like I said, I'm confused.

I think this maybe works best if you read it as a historical romance, the sort of complicated relationship between a Civil War era spy for the Union and his Confederate sympathizing wife that he initially romances and marries as part of an undercover mission. Because that's too outrageous, right, for a literary novel? And anyway, there's no actual depth to the way the relationship is portrayed, and really, not even any, I don't know, doubt that maybe it's wrong to romance the woman you plan to marry as a form of espionage. And I think that would be part of a novel that took itself seriously.... But this book does take itself seriously, painfully so, at least on certain topics, like the Jewish issues, and of course the abolitionist issue-- because it's, I don't know, sort of obvious now that slavery was wrong, so why not make all the people who didn't see that into raging stereotypes, and while you're at it, make all the actual africans into stereotypes, too.

Sarcasm filter off, this has some good parts to it-- I think the last sequence, dealing with the Richmond mission and the end of the war is pretty crackling. I do like some of the reflections on Jewish self-understanding, and think, in the final sections especially, Judah Benjamin is really interesting, a rich, conflicted, articulate and fascinating character. There are some good moments here, and the action sequences sometimes work out really well. But this feels like an odd duck, not this and not that. I felt kind of similarly about _World to Come_, and I'm not sure what that means.

[Jennifer · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book over the weekend and literally could not put it down--I actually finished it while reading by candlelight during a power outage!

Horn tackles the moral ambiguities of the Civil War in this first-rate historical thriller, this time from the perspective of a young Jewish soldier, Jacob Rappaport, who joins the war effort to escape an arranged marriage to the mentally disabled daughter of his father's business associate. Jacob's connections, both family and business, become useful to the Union army when he's recruited as a secret agent. His first assignment--to assissinate his own uncle, a New Orleans businessman with plans to assissinate Lincoln.

Jacob's mission is so successful that then assigned to marry Eugenia Levy, a daughter of another of his father's business associates. Eugenia, an actress and slight-of-hand artist, is suspected of being involved in a ring of Confederate spies. Of course, 19-year-old Jacob falls in love with the beguiling Miss Levy, even after learning that she and her three sisters are deeply involved and partly responsible for the deaths of countless Union soldiers.

Jacob and Jeannie are imperfect, even dispicable, characters, but they are so compellingly real and the plot has more twists and turns than a march to battlefield. I found it stunning.

[Erin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reviewed for Luxuryreading.com

Coming of age for any young man is a turbulent experience. Coming of age in the Union Army during the Civil War is even more tumultuous. Coming of age in the Civil War when the young man is Jewish is Herculean. Jacob Rappaport joined the Union Army to escape the pre-ordained life laid out by his father. Jacob agrees to become a spy and assassin for the Union Army to win the approval of his replacement fathers (the Army generals). But, can Jacob win his own approval and stop running from his past? Perhaps the love of a Confederate woman can teach Jacob the lessons that can’t be learned behind the butt of a rifle.

“There were approximately 130,000 Jews living in the United States in 1860” and “were dispersed throughout the nation, with the largest Jewish community in New York and the second largest in New Orleans.” In fact, some of the Civil War’s most prominent figures were members of these two Jewish communities. Dara Horn incorporates some of these historical people into the characters she created for All Other Nights. Judah Benjamin, the first Jewish Cabinet member in American history (and the second Jewish United States Senator), appeared in the book as himself while Lottie Moon, Confederate spy with unusual talents, is split into two very riveting characters involved in Rappaport’s life.

Throughout the book, the characters were constantly faced with the difficult topics of slavery and prejudice and how these issues and actions play out in the moral compass inherent in the Jewish identity. Just as there were many Jews who were abolitionists, there were just as many who owned slaves and felt entitled to do so, yet both celebrated the Passover feast (which deals with the history of the Jewish people escaping bondage) without guilt. Rappaport specifically is forced to confront his own culpability in the bondage of other humans and the guilt over the sins committed in the cause of freedom for all.

All Other Nights is a gripping tale that engages the reader to consider the ever perplexing relationship between father and child, the ethics of political strife, the morality of slavery and prejudice, and the loyalty of love and family.

[Tara Chevrestt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good novel. I had a hard time putting it down. The choices and moral dilemmas Jacob is constantly facing makes for an intriguing story. Jacob, is a Jewish living in America during the Civil War. To avoid an arranged marriage to a mentally incompetent woman, Jacob runs away from home and joins the Union army. From there, it is one difficult choice after another. Can he kill his own uncle? Can he infilterate a family and marry one of the daughters? Can he turn in his own wife? I found myself pondering his choices as tho I myself had to make them. What would I do?? For a war novel, however, it really lacks much in the way of fighting. There was little or no detail about the fighting techniques or gruesome details of war. What this book shows it mostly "behind the scenes" of the war, the spying, the decisions, the money changing hands. Jacob does not even become wounded in combat, but an explosion. He simply is in the wrong place at the wrong time. I loved the character Jeanne, but found her "magic tricks" a bit preposterous and unexplained. I really enjoyed this book, but due to way too many coincidences within the story and an ending that left me hanging, I give it four stars instead of 5. I do, however, recommend it.

[Melinda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Continuing my Civil War HF trend, this book focuses on a yet another minority group and how the war affected them: Jews. The main character in this novel is Jacob, son of a wealthy NYC merchant who wants to further his business by arranging a marriage between his son and the retarded daughter of a fellow mercantile business man. As a son who respects and obeys his parents, Jacob feels obligated to go along with this until the last minute when he opts to make his own place in the world by enlisting in the Union army. From then on, the decisions he makes take him on a journey in to espinonnage and deceit, eventually connecting him to the most powerful Jewish man in the nation, the first one ever elected to the US Senate, Judah Benjamin. What starts out as a spy mission turns into something much different as Jacob ends up falling hopelessly in love with the woman he is assigned to marry in order to break up a ring of female spies. How is tonight different from all other nights? For Jacob Rappaport, a Jewish soldier in the Union army, it is a question his commanders have answered for him: on Passover in 1862 he is ordered to murder his own uncle, who is plotting to assassinate President Lincoln. After that night, will Jacob ever speak for himself? The answer comes when his commanders send him on another mission—this time not to murder a spy but to marry one. A page-turner rich with romance and the history of America (North and South), this is a book only Dara Horn could have written. Full of insight and surprise, layered with meaning, it is a brilliant parable of the moral divide that still haunts us: between those who value family first and those dedicated, at any cost, to social and racial justice for all.

[Heidi · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was determined to finish this book despite a slow start so I forged ahead and completed it. I don't often do that-- if I don't 'feel' the book immediately I usually stop. This time, however, I was really afraid I was the problem and to some extent I think that remains true. I just wasn't as into the subject (Civil War espionage from the perspective of a Jewish soldier from NYC) as I could have been. I resisted Horn's narrative in ways and didn't allow myself to go with the flow of the book.

This is disappointing because I think All Other Nights is a genuinely good and compelling read, but perhaps just not for me. I'll be analyzing why that is for a long time. It's got the elements that should, and probably will, grab anyone else who picks this up-- it's an historical novel of the civil war but the protagonist is a Jewish Union soldier who must go undercover in the deep South to marry a Confederate female spy. Surprisingly it was the female characters that I didn't really 'get' in the book. They were a strange combination of vapid Southern Belles and Jewish Scarlett O'Haras. Very odd. I don't know enough about American Judaism in this period and region to know if they are really plausible.

What I did connect with, however, was the anti-Judiasm that was so prevelant in the South at that time as well as the ways in which prejudice reared its head within the military. I had no ideas Jews were expelled from American towns during the Civil War. That alone should have make this compelling reading for everyone. At this point in our country's history I think many readers know about and respect the service of african american civil war combatants, but I know I had never considered the role Jews might have played in the Civil War.

Anti-Judiasm gets overlooked or trivialized today in ways that are inexcusable. This book would definitely be a fascinating starting point to discuss religion, ethnicity, and war. In the United States we pride ourselves on our heritage as a "melting pot" -- but this book forces the reader to wrestle with questions of identity and allegience. Which is more compelling-- Religious identity? Family connection? Love? Ethnicity? Regional heritage? Politics? I definitnely appreciate Horn's book for allowing me to consider these questions.

[Shana · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this book more than I could, but the writing--its lack of imagination and its overly literal bent--really distanced me from the characters and made me reflect a lot more on style than on the story, which was pretty interesting in and of itself.

The author can't keep herself from describing the curling of every finger in the making of a fist, for example, often to no purpose, and this goes on and on throughout the book. The thing that bothered me the most, though, because it could have been great if done well, was her "he was losing hair, as if he was going bald" syndrome. Completely and irritatingly redundant where there could have been real poetry or an attempt at an imaginative analogy.

(People may hate this, and they may reflect on an incident in Small World by David Lodge, but since I read this book on the Kindle and I found that type of construction so irritating, I can report that there are over 150 instances of it, most of which restate the obvious/prosaic. Forgive me! I still buy a lot of books.)

[judy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Had this book been written by anyone other than Dara Horn, I would have enjoyed it more. This is the third book of hers I've read--in a row. Based on the previous two, I expected something more intellectually challenging and almost mystical. This was a darned good piece of historical fiction, however. It is a genre I avoid because I'm fussy about history. I'll take mine straight, thank you, right from the non-fic shelves after checking the credentials of the writer. Dara Horn is the exception to my rule. She's as meticulous as she can be about history and historical personages (in all 3 books). To my great joy she included an author's note at the end that left me feeling good about the history she used and her sources. Not surprising because under this excellent novelist is a Jewish scholar. She has a PhD in comparative literature from Harvard and, if I remember correctly is fluent in Hebrew and Yiddish. I'll happily read anything she puts out, knowing that whatever I learn will be accurate and she'll give me a great story.

[Lauren · Rating 2 out of 5]

I LOVED "The World to Come" by Dara Horn. I am reading her latest novel, but I am less enraptured. The writing is solid, but the plot feels... like a B Movie or something, like she is above that. With "The World to Come" she really reached a transcendental place, and the book had a magical quality, like the writing of Nicole Krauss and Jonathan Safran Foer. This book feels very different, and although I respect her willingness to write a very different book, I don't she is quite as good at this genre (historical fiction? spy/war novel?).

Jennifer Egan ("The Keep" and "Look at Me") is another writer who isn't afraid to go for very different genres, but I liked both of the books I read by her more than I am liking this one... although "The Keep" was sort of a genre novel, and I thought "Look at Me" was a finer piece of literature.

--

I had to stop reading this. It was just too silly, too light.

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this author's other book (The World to Come), which I liked until its bizarre last chapter. Still, when I heard this historical fiction novel was coming out, I put it on my to-read list - especially since it sounded very different from the other novel. One of my friends read it before I did and was able to tell me that it lacked the weird ending (phew!).

The book is a neat glimpse into an interesting time period from an unusual perspective -- a Jewish soldier during the Civil War who's asked to be a spy for his country. The action starts on the very first page and doesn't let up. This book has it all, and as a result, I literally could not put it down!

[Tzippy · Rating 4 out of 5]

The name of the book is "All Other Nights," but the Passover theme sizzles out after the first few chapters. I would have preferred if the parallel to the four sons had been applied to the Levy girls, who were major characters, instead of being an Easter egg (I mean, a korban chagiga) describing the Hyams boys, who were mentioned once and never heard from again. But the rest of the book worked really well for me. (And I was grateful for having read The Day Lincoln Was Shot, since I actually recognized the names of some of the historical characters.)

[Margaret · Rating 4 out of 5]

As she does in her first two novels (In the Image and The World to Come), novelist Dara Horn chooses to write against a backdrop of historical settings and characters while focusing on Jewish themes. Unlike her first two novels, this one is told from a single point of view that proceeds chronologically. That may sound less ambitious, but to me it sounds more challenging to keep the reader’s interest as the plot proceeds and the true natures of its characters are revealed while using a single third person partially-omniscient narrator who may not dance across time, space, or different human consciousnesses. We see only what Jacob Rappaport, our protagonist, sees and only when he sees it. (I suspect he is less interesting a character than he might have been had Horn not burdened him with being the only eyes and ears of her readers.)

Jacob is the first-generation American son of a New York businessman who was a Jewish immigrant to the United States. Jacob joins the Union Army early in the progress of the Civil War and soon becomes involved in several very daring missions. He is asked to kill his own uncle who lives in New Orleans and who is discovered to be actively involved in a plot to assassinate President Lincoln. Should family obligations outweigh obligations to the state that Jacob wholly supports? Later Jacob is asked to go undercover and marry a woman who is one of four sisters suspected of spying for the Confederate Army. Jacob is chosen for that task because Eugenia “Jeannie” Levy is Jewish and would not marry out of her faith. Jeannie is one of the more interesting characters I’ve come across in fiction. And she completely outshines Jacob, who is a tad too passive and shallow. Though Jeannie is only about twenty, she has a notorious past as an actress, a magician, and an escape artist. Once the reader gets to the wedding between Jacob and Jeannie, there is no going back. The book becomes a true page-turner. Event after event keeps Jacob busy and our attention riveted. We travel across the Civil War South, ending up in Richmond as the city burns. We meet new characters, black and white, slave and free, Jewish and Christian, characters who grab our interest and forward the plot. And all this is told against the backdrop of the Civil War, of military intelligence, of slaves and freedom, and of secrets and the codes that hide those secrets.

While I very much miss the intertwining of vision and plot that she displayed in her first two novels, All Other Nights shows that Horn can create a plot thrilling enough to keep the reader eager to turn the pages. And she has not sacrificed quality of writing as she does so. She is a smart writer who does her research and finds interesting ways to let us in on some historical facts that those of us who are not Civil War buffs never knew. For example, I never knew that in 1862 General Grant ordered all Jews to leave his area of operation in Mississippi. President rescinded that order a few weeks later. Because of the suspense Horn builds about the fates of her characters, I’m this book might appeal to an even wider audience than her others do.

[Maggie Anton · Rating 3 out of 5]

Right from the beginning of All Other Nights I didn’t enjoy the novel, set in the South during the Civil War, but I couldn't seem to put it down either. Spies and counter-spies, Yankees and Rebels, Jews and non-Jews wove in and out of the story, but though some were based on real people, they seemed like caricatures. Even half-way in I still couldn't figure out the plot. It was neither a romance nor a spy thriller, and none of the white characters were admirable, especially the protagonist Jacob, a complete nebbish.

Only near the end did more clarity emerge. Yes, it was a love story. But it wasn’t your typical spy novel like those starring James Bond or Jason Bourne; it was more about the destruction of lives and futility of espionage like what John LeCarre wrote about. I could tell that Dara Horn did an immense amount of research into the lives of Jews during the Civil War—it showed—but it was way more than was necessary to set the scene. It seemed that much of what she wrote didn’t serve the purpose of moving the plot forward or revealing the characters’ arcs, but only showed off all her research. I did read the entire book, and learned a lot, but this novel is like a train wreck or giant auto pileup on the highway—death, disfigurement and devastation. I couldn’t look away, but I can’t say that I enjoyed it. Although what would you expect from a novel, set in the South, during the Civil War?

[Dick Reynolds · Rating 5 out of 5]

It’s early in our Civil War when Jacob Rapport, an enlisted member of New York’s 18th Infantry Regiment, is called before a panel of Union officers and given a secrete mission: kill another Jewish man, his own uncle, who is said to be a Confederate spy. Jacob agrees, travels to New Orleans and completes his mission. When he returns, he is complimented by the same officers for his success but is also criticized for not assassinating a more prominent Confederate Jew, Judah Benjamin who is the South’s Secretary of State, when he had the same opportunity.
Jacob is given another mission: marry a particular Jewish woman he’s never met, a woman who is suspected of being a spy for the Confederates. He agrees and it sets into motion a heartwarming love story and one of the most intricate plots of any historical novel that I’ve read. We follow Jacob as he travels to Richmond, Virginia, the Tennessee Territory under General U. S. Grant, and back to New York where he meets the actor Edwin Booth, brother of the infamous John Wilkes Booth.
Author Dara Horn has done considerable research on the Civil War and the role of Jews on the Union and Confederate sides of the war. The characters are well defined and the actions of the fictional characters are woven expertly with actual events and well-known real people. I could easily be accused of a big stretch here but, in my view, this novel could well be considered the Jewish equivalent of “Gone With the Wind.”

[Jill Madsen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This historical fiction book brings up great questions... what do we have choices in, what don't we have choices in, and how do we live with the choices we make... blended together with an interest plot of a Jewish solider during the civil war who happens to fall in love along the way. I read this for my work book club and can't wait to discuss it with them!

[Suanne Laqueur · Rating 4 out of 5]

That was one meaty story, the research must’ve been insane. I love a book that makes me keep a Wikipedia browser open on the side. I learned so much!

[Sally · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars. Unique story line in a well-written work of historical fiction. I was intrigued to see the Civil War from a Jewish perspective in both the North and the South, and I enjoyed being immersed in another time and place.

The ideas of loyalty, love of country, love of family, and of course, slavery, are strong throughout the book.

[Cori · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great story, in Dara Horn’s typical style — which is a good thing. After reading this, I went down the rabbit hole of reading about Jews during the Civil War and learned quite a bit.

[Katie Parker · Rating 4 out of 5]

All Other Nights is about a 19-year-old Jew named Jacob Rappaport, who is a Union soldier during the Civil War. One day, he is summoned before three of his officers who have an assignment for him: travel across the lines to New Orleans to kill his uncle, who is planning the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln. Thinking he has no choice but to accept, he makes the journey and completes the mission, much to his surprise. When he returns, he expects to be lauded for his efforts, but is instead met with a new mission: befriend a family known to his father, and marry one of the daughters, who is suspected of being a Confederate spy. What he doesn’t anticipate is to genuinely fall in love with her.

I won’t say much to ruin any more of the plot than I already have, but I will say that I became so engrossed in it that I stayed up well past midnight the last three nights reading it. It reminded me a lot of the many young adult historical fiction novels I read as a kid, primarily the books by Ann Rinaldi. I actually probably hadn’t actually read a Civil War-based novel since then! I enjoyed the book a lot and will almost definitely seek out the author’s other works, though what I really want is a sequel to this one.

[Melinda · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was such an interesting story, and it felt well-researched and "real" to me. I cringed at only one or two anachronisms, which is hard hard hard to avoid in historical fiction.

The story centers around a very young (I had to remind myself HOW young) New York Jewish man who runs away to join the army in the midst of the Civil War. I did not know about the historical figure Benjamin Judah and his role as an early and prominent Jew and advisor to the Confederacy. The main character is encouraged to become a spy, falls in love with his "target," and complications ensue.

The writing was terrific in places, overwrought in others. The story was compelling in places, exceedingly confusing in others. The characters were interesting in places, completely baffling in others. And the ending left me a little cold.

So, for a debut novel I think this was a solid read. It was fun, and I was not sorry I made it to the end.

[Jessica Russak-Hoffman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dara Horn has written a fun and beautiful story that dives straight into the Civil War and the complications of being a Jew with loyalty to the Union but also to your tribe and family. While the main character is tasked with doing horrible things, I'm the reader thinking, "Don't do it!" I loved it.

[Stewart · Rating 4 out of 5]

Generally I'm not a fan of novels where fictional people interacting with real historical figures, but I really enjoyed this fictional tale of a Jewish spy for the Union during the Civil War. At first I thought the first "mission" to New Orleans would be the whole of the novel, but then the sweep of the tale expanded, and it became a story about love and betrayal and death and slavery and at least one very fortuitous coincidence. And about being a Jew in America in the 1860s, which is to say living on both sides of the divide, but still never being accepted as a citizen of either.

Anyway, this reads a bit like a novel for a teen audience, but I thought it was a great read if you're looking for something a little different.

[Sally Koslow · Rating 4 out of 5]

After reading and recommending Dara Horn's thought-provoking, provocatively-named essay collection, People Love Dead Jews,I decided to listen to an audiobook of Horn's novels. I picked All Other Nights because the topic grabbed me: Jews fighting on both sides in the Civil War. Excellent story informed by interesting details. I would give All Other Nights' audiobook 5 stars instead of four if the reader didn't sound like Dustin Hoffman playing the role of Dorothy in Tootsie.

[KatieSuzanne · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had never considered the rolls of Jewish people during the Civil War so this was a really interesting plot line although it didn't play into the story that much in the end. I thought the main character was sort of a wuss and the audiobook reader only made it worse, so I'd recommend reading it yourself. I found it so much better than The World To Come by the same author.