Hero, adulterer, bon vivant, murderer and rogue, Dan Sickles led the kind of existence that was indeed stranger than fiction. Throughout his life he exhibited the kind of exuberant charm and lack of scruple that wins friends, seduces women, and gets people killed. In American Scoundrel Thomas Keneally, the acclaimed author of Schindler’s List, creates a biography that is as lively and engrossing as its subject.
Dan Sickles was a member of Congress, led a controversial charge at Gettysburg, and had an affair with the deposed Queen of Spain—among many other women. But the most startling of his many exploits was his murder of Philip Barton Key (son of Francis Scott Key), the lover of his long-suffering and neglected wife, Teresa. The affair, the crime, and the trial contained all the ingredients of melodrama needed to ensure that it was the scandal of the age. At the trial’s end, Sickles was acquitted and hardly chastened. His life, in which outrage and accomplishment had equal force, is a compelling American tale, told with the skill of a master narrative.
From the Trade Paperback edition.
Amazon.com Review
Politician, man about town, war hero, and murderer: Dan Sickles led many lives, some of them improbable, turning disaster to advantage. Thomas Keneally, whose novels have been populated by heroes and outlaws alike, vividly captures Sickles's life and times. A Tammany politician, for good and ill, Sickles earned national notoriety for gunning down his friend Philip Barton Key, the son of Francis Scott Key, in what his peers in Congress took to be an excusable crime of passion. Sickles made a glorious comeback with the Civil War, when the regiment he raised distinguished itself time and again under fire at places such as Chancellorsville and Gettysburg--where, defying orders in a bold maneuver, Sickles helped secure the Union victory. "His tendency toward berserk and full- blooded risk was partly characteristic of the city he had grown up in, the age he lived in, and his own soul," writes Keneally. Admired by no less than Mark Twain, Sickles figures only as a footnote in many histories. Ably recounting his triumphs and defeats, Thomas Keneally brings him front and center in a tale that will delight Civil War buffs. --Gregory McNamee
From Publishers Weekly
Obviously intrigued by a minor character in his previous nonfiction title, The Great Shame, Keneally has written a largely fascinating biography of Tammany politician and Civil War general Dan Sickles. Sickles was famous in his time both as the cold-blooded killer of his wife's lover, the son of Francis Scott Key, and as the insubordinate commander who defied orders at Cemetery Ridge, instigating a still-raging debate among military scholars about whether his regiment's actions "won or nearly lost the war." The book's apt title suggests its major drawback: Sickles's mercurial charm and courage in battle notwithstanding, his flaws as a flagrant adulterer and a mendacious and neglectful husband and father make him a difficult subject; evidence of his violent temper and ill-disguised egotism further alienate the reader's interest. By his own admission, Keneally's sympathies lie with Sickles's wife, Teresa, whose temptation into adultery with federal district attorney Philip Barton Key was a direct result of her congressman husband's neglect. Her life was ruined by the scandal, whereas Sickles was acquitted of murder and remains a lionized figure. With the Clinton sex scandals in recent memory, it's ironic to read of the marital morality of the mid-19th century, and how a relatively short time ago, the double standard regarding the position of women and the obsession with personal honor could condone murder. Once past the dramatic events of Sickles's revenge and court trial, the narrative loses its momentum. In order to describe Sickles's further career in the military, Keneally is forced to condense and summarize Civil War history. The bifurcated narrative retains its intrinsic interest, however, since Keneally's sure grasp of the political, social and historical details defines an era, and the panache of his prose, even if it sometimes veers into sentimental excess in describing Teresa's plight, remains as seductive as ever. Agent, Amanda Urban.
Description:
Hero, adulterer, bon vivant, murderer and rogue, Dan Sickles led the kind of existence that was indeed stranger than fiction. Throughout his life he exhibited the kind of exuberant charm and lack of scruple that wins friends, seduces women, and gets people killed. In American Scoundrel Thomas Keneally, the acclaimed author of Schindler’s List, creates a biography that is as lively and engrossing as its subject.
Dan Sickles was a member of Congress, led a controversial charge at Gettysburg, and had an affair with the deposed Queen of Spain—among many other women. But the most startling of his many exploits was his murder of Philip Barton Key (son of Francis Scott Key), the lover of his long-suffering and neglected wife, Teresa. The affair, the crime, and the trial contained all the ingredients of melodrama needed to ensure that it was the scandal of the age. At the trial’s end, Sickles was acquitted and hardly chastened. His life, in which outrage and accomplishment had equal force, is a compelling American tale, told with the skill of a master narrative.
From the Trade Paperback edition.
Amazon.com Review
Politician, man about town, war hero, and murderer: Dan Sickles led many lives, some of them improbable, turning disaster to advantage. Thomas Keneally, whose novels have been populated by heroes and outlaws alike, vividly captures Sickles's life and times. A Tammany politician, for good and ill, Sickles earned national notoriety for gunning down his friend Philip Barton Key, the son of Francis Scott Key, in what his peers in Congress took to be an excusable crime of passion. Sickles made a glorious comeback with the Civil War, when the regiment he raised distinguished itself time and again under fire at places such as Chancellorsville and Gettysburg--where, defying orders in a bold maneuver, Sickles helped secure the Union victory. "His tendency toward berserk and full- blooded risk was partly characteristic of the city he had grown up in, the age he lived in, and his own soul," writes Keneally. Admired by no less than Mark Twain, Sickles figures only as a footnote in many histories. Ably recounting his triumphs and defeats, Thomas Keneally brings him front and center in a tale that will delight Civil War buffs. --Gregory McNamee
From Publishers Weekly
Obviously intrigued by a minor character in his previous nonfiction title, The Great Shame, Keneally has written a largely fascinating biography of Tammany politician and Civil War general Dan Sickles. Sickles was famous in his time both as the cold-blooded killer of his wife's lover, the son of Francis Scott Key, and as the insubordinate commander who defied orders at Cemetery Ridge, instigating a still-raging debate among military scholars about whether his regiment's actions "won or nearly lost the war." The book's apt title suggests its major drawback: Sickles's mercurial charm and courage in battle notwithstanding, his flaws as a flagrant adulterer and a mendacious and neglectful husband and father make him a difficult subject; evidence of his violent temper and ill-disguised egotism further alienate the reader's interest. By his own admission, Keneally's sympathies lie with Sickles's wife, Teresa, whose temptation into adultery with federal district attorney Philip Barton Key was a direct result of her congressman husband's neglect. Her life was ruined by the scandal, whereas Sickles was acquitted of murder and remains a lionized figure. With the Clinton sex scandals in recent memory, it's ironic to read of the marital morality of the mid-19th century, and how a relatively short time ago, the double standard regarding the position of women and the obsession with personal honor could condone murder. Once past the dramatic events of Sickles's revenge and court trial, the narrative loses its momentum. In order to describe Sickles's further career in the military, Keneally is forced to condense and summarize Civil War history. The bifurcated narrative retains its intrinsic interest, however, since Keneally's sure grasp of the political, social and historical details defines an era, and the panache of his prose, even if it sometimes veers into sentimental excess in describing Teresa's plight, remains as seductive as ever. Agent, Amanda Urban.
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