Luke Salisbury Books

Luke Salisbury

is an award winning author and Professor of English at Bunker Hill Community College in Boston. His interests range from Shakespeare to baseball, with the later including a book The Answer is Baseball, and time spent as both vice president and national secretary for the Society of Baseball Research (SABR).

No Common War, published in 2019, is his latest work.

Mr. Salisbury attended The Hun School, New College, and received an MA in Creative Writing from Boston University. He once taught third grade in the Bronx, and now lives with his wife Barbara in Chelsea, Massachusetts.

No Common War

No Common War is a fictionalized history of Moreau Salisbury, the author's great grandfather, and Moreau's participation in the abolition movement and the Civil War. Though fiction, the names of key persons and places are real.

Moreau has clashed with his father on the sin of killing, but when war comes, Moreau and his cousin join the 24th New York Volunteers—but not before Moreau falls in love with a woman he must leave behind.

The summer of 1862 hosts a succession of battles, Groveton, Second Bull Run, South Mountain, and then Antietam. The 24th is in the third wave on the bloodiest day in American history.

Battles are not only fought with swords and cannon. The survivors have lost friends, limbs, and innocence. War comes home with the warrior.

No Common War tells the story of battles, but also the story of Moreau's return, and the aftermath of the unthinkable.

Luke Salisbury on New York City's WFAN AM with Bob Salter talking No Common War and The Cleveland Indian.

Praise for No Common War

"No Common War is no common Civil War novel. There is battlefield action, yes, but it also digs into the emotional experiences of one family, the Salisburys. It shows how the war tears up the lives of two Salisbury brothers and the lives of the people who love them. These are historical characters, ancestors of the author, who brings them back to life for us."
— Tracey Kidder, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and author of Soul of a New Machine and Mountains Beyond Mountains

"I was thoroughly engrossed. Beginning to end. And often found myself completely transported. The prose is clean. Smart. Vivid. And tight."
— Tim O'Brien, winner of the National Book Award and author of The Things They Carried

"Author Luke Salisbury tells a compelling story about his ancestor Moreau, and it's 'as true as I can make it.' Slavery is America's original sin, and the Salisbury cousins are among so many who pay penance. An engrossing, well-told story by a writer with a unique perspective.
— Kirkus Reviews

"Beautifully written, No Common War ranks as one of the best war novels in decades."
— Foreword Reviews