A Tale of Two Sams: Mark Perry's Grant and Twain
Written: Apr 01 '05 (Updated Apr 02 '05)
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Pros: A bracing, sympathetic portrait of Grant in his final days.
Cons: Where's the Twain?
The Bottom Line: In which the author joins Ulysses S. Grant at his deathbed.
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| plorentz's Full Review: Grant and Twain: The Story of a Friendship That Ch... |
I’ve been rediscovering history lately in little bits and somewhat random chunks – I’d forgotten how much I enjoyed it – and I’ve found that some of my favorite moments are the little intersections between two great lives, the odd tangents, the momentary acquaintances, the monumental (however unlikely) friendships.
A couple weeks ago, for instance, I was reading a compact (and thoroughly charming) biography of Martin Van Buren, and the passage that has stayed with me more than anything else from that book involves the night the aging former President gets waylaid in a podunk Illinois town. The people, eager to impress their illustrious guest, introduce him to a local up-and-comer named Abe Lincoln. Politically speaking, it would have been something like introducing Jimmy Carter to the firebreathingest member of the local chapter of Young Republicans. But the two men - one former and one future President, one elder statesman and one young whippersnapper, one now long forgotten and one now gloriously revered - hit it off famously, spending hours together getting drunk and telling their wild political tall tales and war stories.
Ted Widmer, the author of that Van Buren biography, only spent a paragraph or two on the incident. I could have read a whole book on it.
And so my eyes lit up when I spotted Civil War historian Mark Perry’s new book entitled Grant and Twain: The Story of a Friendship That Changed America, based on the intersecting lives of one of our most interesting Presidents, and one of the America’s first definitive literary voices, two men who both, at one time or another, separately captured my imagination: Mark Twain was one of the very first writers I recognized as a personal favorite, and though it’s been ages since I’ve read anything by him, there was a time when I read little besides Twain. And as a Boy Scout (Troop 328, Salem, Wisconsin), there were several years when I made the annual springtime pilgrimage to Galena, Illinois honoring U.S. Grant - though I must confess, much of my adult interest in the man has had more to do with the fact that, going strictly by his official portrait, he is, without question – and this, in my most vapid Paris Hilton voice – the hottest U.S. President. Ever.
What I didn’t know approaching this book was that, largely at Twain’s urging, Grant (rugged good looks aside) had also produced one of the greatest military memoirs in American history (and some would argue world history). Not just that, but it was his relationship with Grant that would catalyze Twain to not only finish Huckleberry Finn, but also to transform it from a mere boys’ entertainment (in the vein of his previous hit Tom Sawyer) into a controversial work of epochal power and influence (not to mention, a commercial hit).
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But perhaps even more surprising (since we are speaking of the transformative power of a friendship, and the symbiosis that inspired two American literary masterpieces) is how rooted this story is in filthy lucre.
Perry’s book begins with a dark prelude, detailing the series of unfortunate events (read: extraordinarily naïve business decisions) which would ultimately bankrupt (and humiliate) the former President. It would not have been the first time “Sam” (as he had been known to friends since his days as a reluctant West Point cadet) Grant had fallen on hard times, but the crisis would take on a greater urgency when he was diagnosed with cancer mere months later. Reserved, thoughtful and proud, and possessed of a strange lifelong phobia of re-tracing his own footsteps, Grant had always adamantly dismissed the idea of writing his memoirs.
However, Grant also had a fiercely pragmatic streak - he was legendary among his soldiers for his cool-headed thinking in even the bloodiest conflict – and, determined not only to face mortality with dignity, but to ensure the financial well-being of his wife and family, he started to entertain offers to write of his Civil War experience.
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Twain was having financial troubles of his own in the mid-1880s. Though he seemed to live well, the fact was that Twain, as outspoken and immodest as Grant was stoic, had always lived at the edge of (if not beyond) his means, and he hadn’t really had a hit book in years.
When Twain first met the General he would later subtly memorialize in the disclaimer which opens Huckleberry Finn, having been a long-time, long-distance Grant admirer, Twain had suggested to Grant that if he were to ever write his memoirs, Twain would be interested in publishing them himself - an offer Grant initially spurned. So when Twain learned that the publishers of Century magazine, who had commissioned several Civil War-related articles from Grant, were ready to secure a contract for his memoirs, Twain saw a ready financial opportunity and eventually - through little more than largeness of personality - persuaded Grant (already ailing) to decline Century's offer.
On one hand, Twain had a point: the Century offer seemed meager considering the magnitude of celebrity involved, and Grant himself was both too naive, and too stubbornly proud to reject it of his own accord. But Twain's motives were hardly pure. In Grant's memoirs, he saw the ker-ching ker-ching that had eluded him since the publication of Tom Sawyer.
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Which is not to say that the friendship that developed between the two men was anything but sincere. As Perry points out throughout the book, the two men, the apparent disparity of their personalities aside, share much in common. Most notably, both men were deeply patriotic, and had not only lived through the Civil War, but (unlike many other famous Northern abolitionists such as Harriet Beecher Stowe) had lived with the slavery that inspired it; they had seen it up close and personal, and thus, their views of it were more conflicted and nuanced than was fashionable among the New England elite surrounding them. In the final months of Grant's life, mutual admiration had turned into faithful friendship, Twain eventually becoming Grant's closest advisor on his writing. In one particularly touching passage, Twain learns from Grant's son that Grant is feeling insecure about his work, and worries that Twain doesn't think much of his writing, a notion which couldn't have been further from the truth.
Still, as much as Perry makes an effort to draw the parallel stories of Mark Twain and Ulysses S. Grant together, Grant's struggle against the illness that would kill him, and the diligence with which he tackled the herculean task of re-counting his life in precise, unpretentious (and very strictly chronological) detail - work that, most likely prolonged both his life and his suffering - draws most of the reader's focus.
Perry's portrait of the ailing General is heartfelt, engaging, and intimate, as if Perry himself were a personal friend. The passages relating to Twain simply don't hold up. Tellingly, the book abruptly ends with the end of Grant's life, though Twain would survive him by 25 years. And aside from a few vague references to Twain's continuing love and admiration for Grant, and the General's continuing influence in Twain's life and work, Twain's side of the story goes largely untold, making the book's title feel a tad deceptive.
That said, Grant and Twain is a powerful and moving story, told with resurrecting grace and candor by a writer who has clearly "lived among" his subjects. This is a book not just for history buffs, but for people who simply love a good read.
Recommended:
Yes
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Member: Paul Lorentz
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