Days Without End by Sebastian Barry

It has been a difficult time for Americans internationally.  We have a long history of being a country of immigrants who once settle in their new land want little to do with the outside world.

This is the story of Tom McNulty, which begins in the Irish famine of the 1840s. His family has died. He has stowed away on a ship crossing the ocean.

For a living he becomes a teenage saloon entertainer, dressed as a woman to dance with gold rush prospectors. Another skinny boy got up for the dancing was John Cole, fleeing famine in Massachusetts. They are friends by day and lovers by night.

What Tom has observed among the Sioux is that men can choose to dress as squaws at home but, in battle, still be warriors. This thought becomes his guide. He feels at home in a dress but, as a soldier, follows orders even when they are treacherous, learning that there are good men and bad on any side. He survives even when captive in Andersonville.

America, seen through the lens of the Indian Wars and the Civil War, does not come off well, but at the same time the story is as real and believable as it is gritty and shameful.