Customer Reviews

Grant and Twain: The Story of a Friendship That Changed America

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This book gives real insights into these two figures - their character, motivations, and particularly their personal and professional relationship, and how they dealt with adversity. Quite fascinating. The juxtaposition of their lives in this book is a mirror on America, on slavery, on the Civil War, on the Gilded Age, and on a generation of men who achieved more and struggled much in a guts and gore America. This author really researched these men. He has a nice style, too. He creates scenes that put you into the daily river of their lives, yet it's not fiction or historical fiction. Bottom line, you see into their souls. I am just astonished at Grant's spiritual depth and strength. Remarkable man. Until recently I had seen him as a doleful dolt. He was mostly a silent and inward man, but liked being in the presence of friends and family. He apparently was a reader. He knew the times and he knew the spirit of the age. On a personal level he implicitly trusted people, even when they did him dirt, and when they did, he never returned the animus, but continued moving on. Yet he was not naïve in the least about human nature. This new book gives you a real appreciation of how deep he went into his soul to write his "Personal Memoirs," book one of which I finished last night. He knew he was dying and still wrote through excruciating pain and loneliness. The Mississippi River comes across as the force of life that bonds these two guys together and becomes a metaphor for the spiritual experience that is uniquely American. It is also a metaphor for the current of their lives, because neither man liked to retrace his steps. Grant had a lifelong superstition against returning on the same path. That's why so many of his military campaign follow strange routes around the enemy. Creating a biography was particularly painful for this reason. He never liked to look back. It was an obsession.

Note: Random House should edit its books better. Their are some typos and sentences that are not English.

Mark Perry's Grant & Twain, The Story of a Friendship That Changed America is a good book burdened with an unfortunate title. Perry tells the story of the relationship between U.S. Grant and Mark Twain in the last years of Grant's life. The story describes in great detail the circumstances surrounding the writing by Grant and the publication by Twain of Grant's Memoirs.

Perry describes Grant's rise from obscurity, a string of commercial failures, and an otherwise undistinguished military career before becoming commander of the victorious Grand Army of the Republic in the U.S. Civil War. Grant went on to serve two relatively undistinguished terms as President of the United States. Subsequently, Grant retired to New York, entered the business world, made a small fortune, lost it, and declared bankruptcy. In an act requiring great personal integrity, Grant promised to pay back all his creditors in full, something not required of him under the bankruptcy laws. He also set out to earn sufficient money to ensure that his family could live in ease in comfort. It was here that Twain enters the picture.

Perry also provides an overview of Twain's life in a fashion similar to that set out about Grant. By 1884, when Perry's story begins in earnest, Twain was already one of America's most famous authors. Twain had his finger in many pies, he was an inventor, investor, and, critically for this story, a publisher. As did most Americans of the age, Twain idolized Grant. He had met Grant before and they had struck up something of a friendship. Grant had begun work on a series of articles for a then highly popular magazine, Century Magazine. The first of the articles enjoyed great success and Grant agreed to write his memoirs. Competition for the publishing rights was fierce. Twain prevailed.

The rest of the book focuses on Grant's struggle to write and complete his memoirs. He had just been diagnosed with throat cancer. Knowing full well that death did not lay far down the road for him, Grant set to work. Perry is at his best when describing the courage and determination of Grant. The pain he must have felt as the cancer spread was palpable. The completion of Grant's memoirs pretty much coincided with his death. Those Memoirs are thought of by most who have read them as perhaps the most compelling, well-written Presidential memoirs written.

Perry's book consists of two parallel stories, that of Grant and that of Twain. Surprisingly, given the title, there is little evidence of more than a modest amount of contact. There is little material support for the proposition that there was anything so special about the relationship that it could reasonably be said to have changed America. There are some interesting tidbits here. Twain had started his masterpiece, Huck Finn, some time ago but seemed to hit a road block around Chapter 16, when Huck & Jim make their way down river to Cairo. Twain, during this time re-traced Grant's battles that took him down river from Cairo to Vicksburg and points south. Perry theorizes that this trip may have provided Twain with the story-line for the rest of Huck Finn. Perry admits he has no direct support for this proposition so it is merely that, a proposition.
Where Perry excels is his discussion of race in America as a focal point for Grant, for Twain and for America both in mid-19th century America and today.

There is probably nothing in Grant & Twain that anyone with a deep and abiding interest in either Grant or Twain does not already know. To that extent, this book is probably not for Twain or Grant scholars. However, it is a well-written account of a chapter in the lives of two famous men, each of whom made and changed history in his own way and is well worth reading.

This is a well-written and entertaining acocunt of the relationship between Mark Twain and General Ulysses Grant. For people who know little about the subject, this might be an intriguing and interesting read. However, if you've studied this subject it will offer nothing new and quite possibly irritate you to the point of distraction.

Twain and Grant's friendship has always intrigued people who are interested in these two icons. They possessed very different backgrounds and personalities, but their relationship caught fire in the last year of Grant's life, and remains an intriguing subject. It's interesting that an irreverent genius like Twain got along so well with the self-contained and shy Grant. The alliance between the extroverted author and the modest General defies logic, but miraculously, it worked. Grant relied on Twain to publish his memoirs in 1885, allowing him to keep a large percentage of the profits, and Twain enjoyed a personal intimacy with the Civil War's biggest draw. The author attempts to reveal the relationship between the two men but his efforts are wide of the mark. Actually Twain and Grant's friendship was substantial and surprisingly human, but the book fails in conveying this feeling to the reader.

Perry attempts to sort out the lives of USG and Clemens; he succeeds on some levels, but struggles in others. Twain's rapier-like wit and restless excitability are present, but not in sufficient quantity. Twain also takes a back seat to Grant, who dominates most of the book which actually amounts to a description of the General's last year. Previous authors have done a much better job with this subject, notably Horace Green, Tom Pitkin and Richard Goldhurst. Undoubtedly the human story of Grant writing his book ranks with some of the great American stories, but it's all conveyed here in a seemingly pedestrian fashion, there's no urgency or much depth displayed.

Perry doesn't succeed in fleshing out the personalities of the men themselves. As any student of them knows, they were totally unlike in temperament, background and personality. Whereas Twain was an exuberant extrovert, Grant was taciturn, self-contained and a man of few words. The fact they were opposites is an intriguing area for study, but the case just isn't made here.

Their early lives are given rather flat treatments, and there's nothing new. The book improves as Twain becomes better friends with USG during the last five years of the General's life. The heart of the story is Grant's heroic race with death in order to complete his book and Twain's role as his publisher.

A big problem is that Perry gives opinions which are not only inaccurate, but they're annoying. Repeatedly he offers views which simply aren't supported by scholarship or eyewitness reports. Another area that needs improvement is the realm of personal relationships. Both men were intensely affectionate, devoted fathers who adored their children. You'll find little of this in the book. The author is especially weak in revealing much about Twain's wife, Livy, who remains an almost non-existent presence.

The author improves with his portrait of Julia Grant, the General's wife, and correctly emphasizes Grant's emotional dependence upon her and their extremely happy marriage. However, he commits a huge mistake when he describes Julia's treatment of her husband as he lay dying as alternating between "a hovering and suffocating concern and distant emotional rejection" None of the many eyewitnesses during the USG's last months ever described his wife as distant or rejecting. Again, the offering of personal opinions creates minefields throughout the pages.

The errors in the book are numerous. Julia Grant did not die in 1904, Georgetown is not in Kentucky. Grant and Vanderbilt never appeared in court together, Grant's wife never read aloud to her husband because she suffered from a slightly crossed eye. Men who were enemies of Grant are described as "close friends." These are a small fraction of the mistakes whose weight becomes oppressive. A decent editor and better research could have prevented most of these blunders.

Ultimately this is a book of missed opportunities and the credibility of the narrative is compromised by its many errors. Though it's well-written, there's absolutely nothing ground-breaking or new. I wanted so much to enjoy the book but I did not. Though I would recommend it to people who are new to the subject, for anyone with a solid background in either man, it's all old hat.

This book sports one of the most pretentious subtitles I have ever encountered. "The Story of a Friendship That Changed America." Beyond the title, Perry doesn't make much of a case to support it. What he does say, is that from these two men emerged the greatest non-fiction book "Grant's Memoirs" and the greatest fiction book "Huckleberry Finn" this country has ever produced. Let's not argue the merits of these two books, but let's look at the facts as Perry presents them. Grant was close to signing a book deal with a publisher other than Twain, when Twain convinced him to go with his firm. But, Twain had very little to do with the actually writing of Grant's work. It would probably have been done anyway, with the same high quality, if Grant had chosen to honor his unwritten agreement with the initial publisher. So, their friendship really had nothing to do with the creativity displayed in Grant's book. As regards Huckleberry Finn, Perry tells us that Twain had stopped writing the book at the point where Huck and Jim were going into the south. He had determined that was the direction they should go, but couldn't rationalize why, because going south certainly would have made Jim's quest for freedom almost impossible. Therefore, Twain shelved the book with what seemed an insurmountable problem. Then Perry surmises, with very little evidence to back it up, that Twain came to the resolution of his quandry by analyzing Grant's military victories when he pressed southward to win the war, and so concluded that Huck and Jim could go south to win freedom. And thus, "Huckleberry Finn" was finished. Okay, enough about the over-stated title. As for the book itself, it is a very interesting tale of the meeting and friendship of these two men, of the struggle Grant bravely fought while facing dehibilitating and eventually life-consuming throat cancer while trying to write his book. To write the book was crucial, because it was the only financial security he could offer his family after his post-President business interest went bust. So, a good deal of the book involves the Grant death watch. Perry does an excellent job creating the flavor of the time and place, presenting the historical aspects we need to fully understand the lives of these two men, and introducing a wealth of personalities that surrounded their lives. It is a well organized book, and I highly recommend it. Just don't judge the book by its title.

Mark Perry's "Grant and Twain" may well be the only work in which the personality of Mark Twain plays second fiddle to another. Whereas Twain was a giant of literature, Grant was a giant of humanity and this book offers plenty of evidence in that regard.

U.S. Grant was such a mass of contradiction. He was a soldier with a distaste for war, yet he possessed little fear in battle and deployed his forces with vicious ferocity. He was a man of great ethical conviction, yet as president he headed one of the more corrupt administrations in our history. With a clarity no doubt inspired by Grant's writings, Perry explores those contradictions and how they made his relationship with Twain noteworthy.

A lesser historian might have just focused on Grant's final year of life, and how he approached his final illness with dignity and stoicism. But Perry finds deeper meaning in the ways that the mutual admiration between Grant and Twain came to influence them both.

Twain's effort to finish Huckleberry Finn dovetailed nicely with Grant's reluctance to write his memoirs. Grant's perspective on the South helped Twain flesh out some of the nuances within his work. The novel had stalled in the writing process and in fact had been shelved by Twain as having no promise. Meanwhile, Twain moved from basically looking for a publishing coup (that of winning the rights to Grant's memoirs) to a more nurturing role as writing mentor to the General. Twain's numerous business failures were legion, but Grant's writings were a notable exception. Perhaps that was due to the respect that Twain held for Grant prior to their association, or more a reflection of the admiration that he developed as the ailing ex-president applied himself to the task of putting his memories to paper.

Grant began his memoirs after being diagnosed with cancer of the tongue. As time elapsed, the effort to give his perspective on his military career and the Civil War became a counterpoint to his illness; perhaps even to the point of prolonging his life somewhat.

Grant and Twain is excellent history. It's informative, readable and enjoyable. And to it's credit, this book will (should) foster renewed interest in reading Huckleberry Finn and Personal Memoirs by U.S. Grant.

Readable and provocative, Perry's book won't necessarily change your mind, but it is written in an elegant contrapuntal style that will remind readers with long memories of Lytton Strachey and his long-age ELIZABETH AND ESSEX. We never manage to lose the thread of either man's life, but both Grant and Twain are given plenty of room on their own, like two kites that keep criss-crossing in a Currier-and-Ives print.

I don't believe that Twain influenced the writing of Grant's PERSONAL MEMOIRS. If you've read Jean Edward Smith's life of Grant you can see him working towards becoming a great writer from the time he was very young, deep in his subconscious where he found most of his convictions and truths. Julia Dent, too, made an impression on his aesthetic mind that, I think, comes out in the telling of his life story on such a grand scale. Grant was an unusual writer, particularly for an American president. We think of Jefferson and Lincoln as being particularly good writers, but neither of them gave us anything like Grant's MEMOIRS, with its peculiar combination of novelistic insight and sweep, with a kind of Hawthornean sense of all of US history in every page. Anyhow you can't imagine any modern president, from either party, being able to write a book that's good.

Perry's book also tries to show us that Twain, stuck for the ending of HUCKLEBERRY FINN, used the example of Grant's life and career to give him his EUREKA moment. It's possible, especially when you think of the way he absolutely idolized the former president, but I'm not convinced.

This is a decent book that was mistitled. It should be "The Last Days of Grant with a Little Twain Thrown In".

The vast majority of the book is devoted to Grant's life. There is some background biography, but really starts with his near bankruptcy and then his efforts to get his memoirs written - a truly compelling story.

There are a few short chapters devoted to Twain. Unfortunately, there was a disappointingly small amount of space devoted to the friendship between Twain and Grant. It obviously was addressed, but never in depth. It appeared that the two men were living parallel lives rather than experiencing a close friendship. This was the major short-coming of the book and where it did not live up to its billing.

It is well-written, however. The account of Grant's struggles to complete the memoirs and what it meant to him was very well done. The accounts of Twain were equally good. The author just never really brought the two great men together in any meaningful way. Regardless of that shortfall, it is still worth the read for the account of the memoirs writing.

Mark Perry's Grant and Twain is certain to be a controversial read: it analyzes the Grant and Twain relationship in a new and different way -- casting Twain as Grant's alter ego, to be sure, but also casting Grant as the prospective model for Huckleberry Finn. For those readers interested in a new look at Huckleberry Finn, and for those readers who believe, as Perry certainly does in this book, that Grant is a great American -- then Grant and Twain will serve as more than a good introduction.

The book is not intended as a biography of two men, somehow melded together. Nor is it a hagiography of either. Gone are the endless praises for either. In their place is a straightforward analysis of their friendship, but without the frills. Grant here is what we know him to be -- enigmatic, but filled with greatness, and now fighting the most important battle of his life. Over and against him is Mark Twain -- as enigmatic, but certainly as great. But what Twain sees in Grant, and what Grant sees in Twain is the important part of this book. Both men, so very different, share one view -- that the question of race and racism is the question of their time. And their struggle to understand their time is the key to this book.

Those who wish an unvarnished triumphant view of American history need not read this book. It is deeper than that: it seeks to explain not just two men, or their families, but their views of their own time. By my lights, that makes Grant and Twain invaluable -- and why I give this tremendous read five stars.

I read this as a follow up to Jean Edward Smith's excellent biography on Grant. I wanted a book that focused on Grant's last year when he wrote his memoirs and then had perhaps the largest, most celebrated funeral ever in New York. The former was only lightly addressed in Smith's book and the latter was oddly absent.

I got what I was looking for and it was satisfying reading. Grant's dignity, humility, drive and heroic effort to write while suffering so badly from cancer of the throat is truly inspiring. I am reading his memoirs now and they are as fresh as the day they were published.

As a story this is well written and an easy, interesting read. But I found two things that bothered me. First was how much overlap there was with Smith's book. (Smith's book was published in 2001 about 3 years before Perry's). While he acknowledges Smith's book in the bibliography and he has clearly done a ton of original research it just seemed odd to see at least a dozen exact "quote for quote" anecdotes in both books .

Secondly, the relationship between Grant and Twain may have influenced Twain greatly but it's not clear it was a real two way friendship. Grant was very sick. Whatever energy he had was focused on his writings to give some inheritance to his family. It's not obvious that he was giving as much thought to Twain as the author would like to think. Obviously he deeply appreciated Twain publishing the book but he had other offers on the table anyway; albeit on much less generous terms.

What is very clear from Perry's book is that Grant did write his Memoirs. In debunking the myth that Twain or others wrote it he has done a great service to Grant and historians. Grant's Memoirs are regularly cited as amongst the best non-fiction writings in American history and perhaps the best first person account on war in all history. We are fortunate that he wrote it and he deserves all the credit!

This book is a perfect introduction for beginning history buffs. It's simple and written for the average lay-person who may not know much about Twain or Grant (that would be me, by the way). It is a quick read and thoroughly enjoyable. My dad warned me that it would be a dry reading but I found it pleasurable.

I don't know that much about U.S. Grant and Mark Twain, or also known as Samuel Clemens. I have read "Tom Sawyer" and "Huckleberry Finn" (but will admit that I read them as a kid and didn't understand all the nuances that Twain was referring to in this book, but plan to re-read them again sometime soon as an adult to see what I missed as a kid). But I know next to nothing about Ulysses Grant. All I know of him is that he was a great general and was one of the U.S. Presidents. And this book, written more about him and his last days, is absolutely fascinating in that regards. I was almost tempted to buy his memoirs when I was at Barnes & Noble yesterday. (I think my dad has the book already.)

However, like a lot of the reviewers in here, I find the subtitle of this book a bit misleading. I kept waiting to hear more about this deep friendship between the two men and waited in vain. Yes, they were good friends, but there were little mentioned about their friendship. This book was more about their two life-stories between two different men who were born a decade a part. Their life-stories run parallel to one another and Twain met Grant close to the end of Grant's life-time.

This is just a fascinating read on two men who shaped US history, one through war and one through his penmanship. Both have strong convictions and both seem to be men of interest.

Like I said, this is perfect for the beginning history buff. If you're a history buff, this book is a little gem for the library as well.

3/19/08