The setting for The Wars Between Us and Them (Back Bay Books, 2025) by P. V. LeForge is Detroit, Michigan—his birthplace. So why is a Southern publication reviewing a novel set so far north? Because LeForge’s parents moved to Florida when he was just an infant and he remained there most of his life. He currently lives in Mobile, Alabama, with his wife, Sara Warner. That makes him Southern enough for us.
The author dedicated the book to his father, who was actually shot in the riot almost exactly as it is described in the book. Set in 1943, with World War II raging overseas, the novel follows the intertwined lives of three men—two White, one Black—against the backdrop of a turbulent and segregated Detroit.
Eddie DuPre, a White police officer, is troubled by his decision not to enlist. He’s a man who generally tries to do the right thing. Though not without flaws—he avoids visiting his wife and newborn in the hospital—his moral compass usually points north, and any misstep eats away at him until he tries to make amends.
In contrast, Eddie’s friend Stanislaw Winowsky is a hard-drinking womanizer who neglects his wife and children, leaving them to live in an unheated, abandoned boxcar. His wife, Lena, eventually finds work as a nurse’s aide to support them. Compared to Stanislaw, Eddie seems almost saintly. Yet despite Stanislaw’s many faults, Eddie finds something irresistible in his zest for life:
“He knows that Stan is an asshole and likes him anyway. He always exudes such a peculiar joie de vivre that Eddie is charmed over and over again . . . ”
The third central character, Alphonse Brown, is a Black infantryman sent home after a wartime injury claims part of his leg. He collapses near Lena’s boxcar, and she saves his life by bandaging him with a first-aid kit. Alphonse’s story reflects the harsh treatment many veterans—especially Black veterans—faced upon returning home. He lives in Black Bottom, a historically Black neighborhood of Detroit:
“A river used to pass through the place. There was a swamp, too, and deposits of rich bottomland soil. Black Bottom. Trouble is, only thing ever grew here was black folks. Not many white asses in Black Bottom.
The river became a dumping place that was so fetid that it was encased in stone and turned into a sewer . . . Black Bottom is one of the only places in Detroit that black folks can afford to live. Growing up here, Alphonse remembers the flock of migrating workers who poured into Detroit during the Depression from Georgia and Mississippi and Tennessee. All were flushed into the sewer that Black Bottom had become.”
The city of Detroit is the novel’s true central character. LeForge paints a vivid, gritty portrait of wartime life—from bustling streets and smoky jazz clubs and bordellos to the desperate poverty of displaced families and the opulence of Detroit’s upper class. The details ring true—many of which the author gleaned from conversations with his father. The corruption, the music, the rising tension—all build steadily throughout the book until they explode in the 1943 Detroit race riot. The violence feels both shocking and inevitable: thirty-four people dead, hundreds injured, and widespread destruction.
This is historical fiction at its best. The Wars Between Us and Them doesn’t romanticize the past—it exposes it, reminding us that America’s history includes deep racial and social wounds that are too often overlooked or forgotten. It’s the kind of history we need to confront.
P.V. LeForge
P. V. LeForge has published four books of poetry, two books of stories, a volume of plays, and four previous novels. Three of these, the North Florida Series of mystery novels, were written with Anne C. Petty. All are available in both paperback and ebook form.
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