THE THREAD COLLECTORS

This collaboration by longtime friends Edwards and Richman draws on the authors’ Black and Jewish family histories to build an expressly uplifting Civil War fiction.

The novel begins in 1863 New Orleans, showcasing the forbidden but abiding love between musically gifted William, a classically trained flutist who’s enslaved, and Stella, who lives technically free as the kept woman of William’s current owner. With Stella’s aid, William escapes to join the Union Army as a member of the Louisiana Native Guard. Meanwhile, in New York, trombonist and composer Jacob has been inspired by his wife, Lily, a suffragette and abolitionist, to join the Union forces on moral grounds. The novel balances three intertwining narratives: Pregnant with a child who could be William’s or his master’s, Stella struggles to survive in Union-controlled New Orleans, where food is scarce and Confederate insurrection a constant threat; William and Jacob experience wartime atrocities while their unlikely friendship deepens through their music connection; and in New York, Lily devotes herself to the Union cause with genteel moral certainty until she ventures South in search of Jacob and faces her naïveté about the war’s cost. Given that African Americans in the South had everything to gain or lose in this war, it is no surprise that Stella’s and William’s segments are the most compelling; the writing about New Orleans also creates a sensual, specific sense of place missing elsewhere. Lily reads like a mouthpiece for enlightened concepts, even in her love letters. There is no romantic chemistry between her and Jacob, who remains an undeveloped cipher. What should be an interesting twist, his discomfort as a Jewish outsider in the Union ranks, barely resonates, while his bonding with William comes too easily. All four protagonists are more noble symbols than characters, and key plot points—including Stella’s stitched maps and Jacob’s estrangement from his Confederate brother—border on Civil War story clichés.

Well-intentioned but overly familiar.