Command Performance

by P.J. Wright (Illustrator)

CROSS-DRESSING TO CONFOUND THE CONFEDERACY The Confederate Navy is building an ironclad river boat to end the Charleston Blockade, which could ensure the South wins the Civil War. And the only two Union people who know this are a man playing a woman, and a runaway slave. Months earlier, Nathan VanHorn was a stage actor in 1862 Connecticut. He was skilled at playing (short) leading men, also teen boys—but what he was famous for was playing young women. Theater critics described his portrayals of ingénues as “uncanny.” Nathan’s acting talents got him recruited as the perfect Union spy. What Southerner would believe that a moustached German man, an Irish crone, a panhandler twelve-year-old stripling, and a Southern belle were all the same Connecticut man? Nathan and Hattie Hamundsen, a smart and educated Negress, are sneaked into South Carolina. Soon they arrive at Belle Bois, where Nathan impersonates Katherine Bonveneau, the young, flighty heir to her father's plantation. Soon after, Nathan and Hattie get the Rebels are shipping lots of iron to a South Carolina swamp; “Investigate and report.” But soon they This ironclad is a serious threat, and things are happening too quickly. Nathan and Hattie must do more than report the ironclad, they must destroy it. acting and actors, American Civil War, Charleston (SC), Civil War, Confederacy, Confederate Navy, Connecticut, cross-dressing, female impersonator, ironclad ship, New Haven (CT), no sex, plantation life, South Carolina, spies, tg, theater, transgender, transvestite PUBLISHER’S All ebooks by this publisher are free of DRM (Digital Rights Meddling).

170 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 31, 2014

Reviews

[Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's a transvestite fantasy, in that a five-foot-one stage actor is able to successfully pass as a young woman in 1862 Connecticut. But the story is much more than that, once he is recruited to be a Union spy in the South -- impersonating a particular Southern belle.

I can't judge how well it succeeds as Civil War historical fiction, but it is brainy as transvestite fiction. And P.J. Wright, the author, has an ear for nineteenth-century speech. If you're a transvestite -- or at least, you don't gag at the thought of a cross-dresser as the central character in a story -- you'll be glad you read this.

Full disclosure: I'm the publisher of the book. But I'm not telling you it's written well because I published it, I published the book because it's written well.