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A review by angelqueen04
Alexander Hamilton: The Graphic History of an American Founding Father by Jonathan Hennessey
1.0
When I found this at my local library, I jumped on it. I came late to the Alexander Hamilton craze drummed up by the musical, but like everyone else, I've been inspired to learn as much as possible about Hamilton himself, his family, and the times he lived in. I've been reading biographies, articles, anything I can get my hands on. So when I saw a graphic novel depicting his life, I was thrilled to add that to the pile of AH-materials I was assembling.
In the end, though, I didn't find it one of the better pieces that I've read. Though only 169 pages, it was far too densely packed with background information, and not enough dialogue. As a result, it was rather mind-numbing trying to read it all, and by the latter half, I was pretty much just thumbing through the book. It really just felt like this should have been a short biography, and that the artwork illustrating it was completely unnecessary.
What's more, I was disappointed that Hennessey seems to fall back on the old, outdated treatment of Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton, that she was essentially just an incubator for Hamilton's children and played no part at all in his public life. Many of his treatises are at least partially in her handwriting! She supported his ambitions, and played a huge part in the social whirl of the early days of the American government, which was no small thing! She conversed with and entertained the wives, daughters, and sisters of the men Hamilton had to work with, thereby helping to enlist their support for the measures he was trying to get through Congress. She witnessed his writing of Washington's Farewell Address (and even years later had to sue some of Hamilton's fellow Federalists for the return of his notes on the Address, as they had literally stolen them from her husband's papers in order to preserve the myth that Washington himself had written it)!
And I disliked the implication that Eliza was "often ill" (um, where did that assertion come from, exactly?), and how that implication was used to excuse or justify Hamilton's affair with Maria Reynolds. His wife is sick all the time so he's perfectly justified in getting some nookie on the side? WTF?
(Oh, and don't even get me started on the fact that we're still on the rumors that Hamilton had an affair with Angelica Schuyler Church. The woman was almost constantly in Europe (hence the rumors that she might also have had an affair with Thomas Jefferson during his time as Minister to France), and the fact that they wrote flirty letters to one another does not denote an affair.)
Overall, the pacing of the book left a lot to be desired. The American Revolution alone takes up almost half of the book, and there's very little in the way of transitioning from one aspect of the story to the other. More than once I had to go back to make sure I hadn't accidentally skipped a page.
In the end, I just couldn't really get into the story, which was a shame.
In the end, though, I didn't find it one of the better pieces that I've read. Though only 169 pages, it was far too densely packed with background information, and not enough dialogue. As a result, it was rather mind-numbing trying to read it all, and by the latter half, I was pretty much just thumbing through the book. It really just felt like this should have been a short biography, and that the artwork illustrating it was completely unnecessary.
What's more, I was disappointed that Hennessey seems to fall back on the old, outdated treatment of Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton, that she was essentially just an incubator for Hamilton's children and played no part at all in his public life. Many of his treatises are at least partially in her handwriting! She supported his ambitions, and played a huge part in the social whirl of the early days of the American government, which was no small thing! She conversed with and entertained the wives, daughters, and sisters of the men Hamilton had to work with, thereby helping to enlist their support for the measures he was trying to get through Congress. She witnessed his writing of Washington's Farewell Address (and even years later had to sue some of Hamilton's fellow Federalists for the return of his notes on the Address, as they had literally stolen them from her husband's papers in order to preserve the myth that Washington himself had written it)!
And I disliked the implication that Eliza was "often ill" (um, where did that assertion come from, exactly?), and how that implication was used to excuse or justify Hamilton's affair with Maria Reynolds. His wife is sick all the time so he's perfectly justified in getting some nookie on the side? WTF?
(Oh, and don't even get me started on the fact that we're still on the rumors that Hamilton had an affair with Angelica Schuyler Church. The woman was almost constantly in Europe (hence the rumors that she might also have had an affair with Thomas Jefferson during his time as Minister to France), and the fact that they wrote flirty letters to one another does not denote an affair.)
Overall, the pacing of the book left a lot to be desired. The American Revolution alone takes up almost half of the book, and there's very little in the way of transitioning from one aspect of the story to the other. More than once I had to go back to make sure I hadn't accidentally skipped a page.
In the end, I just couldn't really get into the story, which was a shame.