BOOK REVIEW: The General and Julia by Jon Clinch

I received this book for free from Netgalley. That did not influence this review.

Ulysses S. Grant is at the end of his life, dying of throat cancer. His last task on earth is to finish his memoirs in order that the proceeds will provide for his beloved wife as well as his children and grandchildren. Otherwise, the family will be left destitute–a situation he sees as largely his own fault. How did such a thing come to pass for the hero of the American Civil War and one-time president?

The General and Julia by Jon Clinch explores Grant’s life through his own memories as he writes his memoirs, sometimes with surprising clarity and ofttimes in a drug/pain/sleep-induced haze. It is a beautiful, contemplative novel that focuses on the man himself rather than his achievements. Given the circumstances in which he finds himself and his own…humility, Grant seems more consumed by regrets and guilt than by pride or self-satisfaction.

I knew next to nothing about Grant. I thought of him as a brutally efficient Civil War general who became an unmemorable president. Maybe some financial scandal attached? And weren’t there rumors he was an alcoholic?

This fictionalized version sweeps that image away, replacing it with one that is much more rounded. Grant was a devoted husband and father. The fact that his beloved wife, Julia, who came from a Missouri slave-holding family, kept “her girl” Jule into the early days of the war until the woman escaped is one of the incongruities in his life. Grant makes excuses for slaveholding even as he is leading the Union forces. Those excuses, and the failure of the war to make the difference he’d hoped for, haunt him throughout his life. The war years are lightly remembered even though, as a general, he was most in his element. Likewise, he does not delve into the politics of his presidential years. He does ruminate over the scandal that left him financially ruined. Interestingly, here he portrays himself as a victim of his own naivete and gullibility: he is such a good man that he is unable to see evil in others. 

Like any biographical novel, there are certainly elements of imaginative license mixed in with the historical facts. Clinch does a superb job of immersing the reader into Grant’s mind-set, so that it all seems believable – or at least, we can believe that it is what Grant believed. And Grant is now, in my mind, an admirable and sympathetic human being.

Highly recommended.