Available:*
Library | Call Number | Status |
|---|---|---|
Searching... McMinnville Public Library | 923 SICKLES, DAN | Searching... Unknown |
Bound With These Titles
On Order
Summary
Summary
On the last Sunday of February 1859, Dan Sickles, a charming young congressman from New York, murdered his good friend Philip Barton Key (son of Francis Scott Key)--who was also his wife's lover--in Washington's Lafayette Square. The shooting took place directly across the street from the White House, the home of Sickles's friend and protector, President James Buchanan. Sickles turned himself in; political friends in New York's Tammany Hall machinery, including the dynamic criminal lawyer James Brady, quickly gathered around. While his beautiful young wife was banned from public life and shunned by society, Dan Sickles was acquitted. American Scoundrelis the extraordinary story of this powerful mid-nineteenth century politician and inveterate womanizer, whose irresistible charms and rock-solid connections not only allowed him to get away with murder -- literally -- but also paved the way to a stunning career. Once free to resume his life, Dan Sickles raised a regiment for the Union political elite and went on to become a general in the army, rising to the rank of brigadier general and commanding a flank at the Battle of Gettysburg in a maneuver so controversial it is still argued over by scholars today. After losing a leg in that battle, Sickles fought on and after the war became military governor of South Carolina, and later was named minister to Spain, where he continued astonishingly to conduct his amorous assignations. With great brio and insight -- and a delight in bad behavior -- Thomas Keneally has brought to light a tale of American history that resonates with uncomfortable truths about our politics, ethics, and morality.
Author Notes
Thomas Keneally was born in Sydney, Australia on October 7, 1935. Although he initially studied for the Catholic priesthood, he abandoned that idea in 1960, turning to teaching and clerical work before writing and publishing his first novel, The Place at Whitton, in 1964. Since that time he has been a full-time writer, aside from the occasional stint as a lecturer or writer-in-residence.
He won the Booker Prize in 1982 for Schindler's Ark, which Stephen Spielberg adapted into the film Schindler's List. He won the Miles Franklin Award twice with Bring Larks and Heroes and Three Cheers for the Paraclete. His other fiction books include The Chant of Jimmy Blacksmith, Gossip from the Forest, Confederates, The People's Train, Bettany's Book, An Angel in Australia, The Widow and Her Hero, and The Daughters of Mars. His nonfiction works include Searching for Schindler, Three Famines, The Commonwealth of Thieves, The Great Shame, and American Scoundrel. In 1983, he was awarded the order of Australia for his services to Australian Literature.
Thomas Keneally is the recipient of the 2015 Australia Council Award for Lifetime Achievement in Literature. The award, formerly known as the Writers' Emeritus Award, recognises 'the achievements of eminent literary writers over the age of 60 who have made an outstanding and lifelong contribution to Australian literature.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
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. (On-sale Apr. 9) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
Veteran novelist and historian Keneally (The Great Shame, 1999, etc.) examines the loves and intrigues of one of America's most colorful rogues. Born into an old New York family, Dan Sickles (1820-1914) was a brash politician with a reputation for headstrong action, fast women, and unpaid debts. As a young man, he joined Tammany Hall and prospered as an attorney with all the right connections. He also carried on a brazen affair with flamboyant prostitute Fanny White and even took her along when he was called to London as a diplomat in 1853, despite having recently married 15-year-old debutante Teresa Bagioli. In 1856, Sickles was elected to Congress; he and Teresa almost immediately became prominent in Washington society. He threw himself into the political tumult surrounding slavery and secession and made enemies as readily as he made friends. His neglected young wife was drawn into a romantic liaison with a popular attorney, who was shot dead by the outraged Sickles in early 1859. He was acquitted in a much-publicized trial but remained forever tainted by the case's notoriety. Using his Tammany influences and his friendship with Lincoln, he become a Union colonel and later a general. At Gettysburg, Sickles ignored an order from commander George Meade and moved his own troops ahead of other Union forces on the battlefield. Whether this independent decision helped win the battle or recklessly endangered the Union cause was debated hotly at the time, although Sickles lost a leg in the battle and was regarded as a hero. Returning to Europe as a diplomat after the war, he conducted an affair with deposed Spanish monarch Queen Isabella II and participated in a bold effort to convince Spain to sell Cuba to the US. Sickles died at 94, a grandfatherly legend who, in Keneally's view, "got away with it all." The captivating tale of a charming opportunist whose ambition and moral hypocrisy mirror those of mid-19th-century America.
Booklist Review
This well-respected Australian writer could have easily turned the subject of his latest book into another of his admired and avidly read historical novels, a list that includes The Confederates (1980) and Schindler's List (1982). Instead Keneally has chosen to present his material as a biography, but he brings to it an unerring instinct for letting colorful characters shine in all their created or--as in this case--natural vibrancy. Dan Sickles was "urbane, intellectually gifted, a skillful lawyer." In 1853, at the age of 33, he was appointed first secretary to the American legation in London, under the wing of the new American minister to the court of Queen Victoria, future president James Buchanan. Sickles represented lower Manhattan in Congress and later was drawn into the circle of Mary Todd Lincoln's favorites; President Lincoln himself stood behind Sickles' appointment as a brigadier general in the Union forces. After the war, Sickles served as the military governor of South Carolina and American minister to the court of Spain. Certainly an interesting resume, but what makes the story of his life doubly interesting is his volatile personality, which led him to make "extreme gestures." The worst consequence of his overly excitable nature was his murder of his wife's lover, Philip Barton Key, the federal district attorney for Washington, D.C. (and son of Francis Scott Key of "Star-Spangled Banner" fame). Yet throughout Sickles' life, despite whatever trouble he got into, no one could help but "forgive him everything." --Brad Hooper
Library Journal Review
The author of Schindler's List tells the real-life story of New York Congressman Dan Sickles, who in 1859 murdered his best friend (and his wife's lover), was acquitted, and rose to fame as a Union general. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.