A book unlike any I have read. It is certainly a new and unique take on the Revolutionary War. I appreciate it for its literary creativity but I would not recommend it as a must-read. ( )

The best thing about Jerome Charyn’s fictional “tale of the American Revolution” are the portraits of some of those figures which we have been reading about, in one form or another, since….well, since we learned to read. This George Washington, this Alexander Hamilton, and this Benedict Arnold are familiar to us, without question. But here they’ve stepped out of the history books and taken up temporary residence in our living rooms. The alabaster has become flesh. The granite has softened.

These founding fathers have become human - as they should have in a good historical novel. So Charyn has it half right. The novel never scales the heights beyond that, though. It’s trajectory is flat, though at a high enough level to keep the readers interest. Just on the next page we expect a little more. But the Washingtons and Hamiltons never connect with the John Stocking’s, with the Clara’s, with the Gert’s of the novel - never connect with the fictional creations that have helped bring them to life for the reader.

So in a way, Charyn’s novel is only half successful. Benedict Arnold does his job, but Johnny One-Eye never quite does his. ( )