Ulysses: A Biographical Novel of U.S. Grant

Historical novelist Skimin (whose Chikara won the Ohiana Book Award in 1984) divides this uneven but generally successful life of Ulysses S. Grant into three parts: Grant's West Point beginnings and early forays in the Mexican War, which established him as a soldier to be reckoned with; his illustrious career as a Union general; his political career, including two terms as president. While the dialogue and characterizations of Grant's colleagues, wife and family are sometimes pedestrian, Skimin keeps events moving briskly and sketches background details of the developing strains in Grant's personality. Though he adds little to existing accounts of the Civil War years, his depiction is absorbing, and the Mexican material is valuable because of its relative obscurity. The narrative really comes alive in considering Grant's later decades, however; the tales of his difficulties during Reconstruction are replete with compelling historical detail, and the final chapters, dealing with the cancer-riddled Grant's attempts to finish his biography under the tutelage of Samuel Clemens, are heart-wrenching. (Oct.)