Days Without End by Sebastian Barry

They find each other in hardship and begin a relationship that lasts the rest of their days.  Thomas McNulty has come to America as his family flees the famine in Ireland.  The journey is horrendous and Thomas is the only survivor in his family.  John Cole has a similar story, fleeing an unhappy family that is destroyed by poverty.  The two swear loyalty to each other and set out to find a way to survive.

Their first job is out West where they dress as women to provide some solace to the rough life that miners endure.  The men know the boys are not women but the chance to hold someone dressed in lovely clothes and dance for a while provides an escape from their brutal existence.  Thomas finds he enjoys dressing as a woman and the finery and comfort of being seen as a woman.

Their next job is as soldiers and their assignment is fighting the Indians still in the territory.  John Cole, in particular, is a sharpshooter and the two men spend several years fighting for their major for whom they would do anything.  After this assignment, they drift north and become players in a troupe in a bar where again Thomas recreates his role as a woman.

But history waits on no man and the two are swept up in the Civil War and then, when captured, in Andersonsville Prison.  Released, they end up going to Tennessee to help out a former friend from their regiment on his farm.  With them is the daughter they have adopted, an Indian girl who was the sole survivor of a massacre of her tribe by the Army.  When her life is threatened, a situation is put into motion that will threaten everything the two have managed to create.

Sebastian Barry has written a history of the American West that shows how difficult the life was and what men would do in order to survive.  The two men's relationship is the only stable thing in a life that could change overnight and where violence could arise quickly out of nowhere.  They fight not only on the field but to carve out a place where they can feel safe and have a family and the love every human needs.  This novel was nominated for the Booker Prize and is recommended for readers of historical fiction.