Beim’s novel Hymie and the Angel (1998) also has a religious theme, although this work deals with Judaism, not Catholicism. In the story, Hymie, a Polish immigrant during the Great Depression, has not lived a very happy life but still resists when he is visited by Death. An angel comes to Hymie’s rescue, beating Death at a game of cards. However, Hymie must find somebody to take his place in death.

My Family: The Jewish Immigrants (1997), a collection of Beim’s Jewish-plays, deals with the Jewish immigrant experience in America.

Charles Frazier’s novel Cold Mountain (1997) won a National Book Award for its sympathetic portrayal of a Civil War deserter. Inman, a Confederate soldier, is wounded near the end of the war but does not die as expected. He escapes from his Southern hospital bed before he can be sent back to the front and attempts to return home to North Carolina and the woman he loves.

• As Ella Lonn notes in her 1928 book Desertion during the Civil War (reprinted in 1994), many soldiers from both sides left their military units to return to their homes. Lonn’s book analyzes the reasons why these soldiers deserted and discusses the various punishments that they faced.

Jack Todd is an American journalist and soldier who fled to British Columbia during the Vietnam War. In his book Desertion: In the Time of Vietnam (2001), he details his life in Canada among other deserters and expresses regret for his desertion. He also discusses how he renounced his American citizenship, which made him ineligible for the future pardon by President Jimmy Carter and unable to attend his mother’s funeral in America because of fear of prosecution.