Divided Nation, United Hearts

In 1862, Wilhelmina “Wil” Fredericks passes as a man to be a soldier in the Union Army, and is mustered into the western campaign. Clara Summers is left running her family’s farm near Shiloh, Tenn., while the men in her family are away in the Confederate Army. Wallace (24/7) eventually brings the two together with a fair amount of chemistry, but the historical background doesn’t feel lived-in, and the characters’ attitudes towards gender and sexuality are far more 1960s than 1860s. The larger ramifications of the Civil War matter to the book only as much as they affect the plot, which winds up disconnecting the love story from the history it tries to incorporate. In particular, Wil’s decision to leave the army to stay with Clara while remaining socially male is ill-considered, because Wil’s original motivations were abolitionist, and she leaves them entirely unfulfilled and undiscussed. Lifeless prose does not assist Wallace’s project. (Mar.)