Narrated in Lincoln’s own voice, the tragicomic I Am Abraham promises to be the masterwork of Jerome Charyn’s remarkable career.
Since publishing his first novel in 1964, Jerome Charyn has
established himself as one of the most inventive and prolific literary
chroniclers of the American landscape. Here in I Am Abraham, Charyn
returns with an unforgettable portrait of Lincoln and the Civil War.
Narrated boldly in the first person, I Am Abraham effortlessly mixes
humor with Shakespearean-like tragedy, in the process creating an
achingly human portrait of our sixteenth President.
Tracing the historic arc of Lincoln’s life from his picaresque days
as a gangly young lawyer in Sangamon County, Illinois, through his
improbable marriage to Kentucky belle Mary Todd, to his 1865 visit to
war-shattered Richmond only days before his assassination, I Am Abraham
hews closely to the familiar Lincoln saga. Charyn seamlessly braids
historical figures such as Mrs. Keckley—the former slave, who became the
First Lady’s dressmaker and confidante—and the swaggering and almost
treasonous General McClellan with a parade of fictional extras:
wise-cracking knaves, conniving hangers-on, speculators, scheming
Senators, and even patriotic whores.
We encounter the renegade Rebel soldiers who flanked the District in
tattered uniforms and cardboard shoes, living in a no-man’s-land between
North and South; as well as the Northern deserters, young men all, with
sunken, hollowed faces, sitting in the punishing sun, waiting for their
rendezvous with the firing squad; and the black recruits, whom
Lincoln’s own generals wanted to discard, but who play a pivotal role in
winning the Civil War. At the center of this grand pageant is always
Lincoln himself, clad in a green shawl, pacing the White House halls in
the darkest hours of America’s bloodiest war.
Using biblically cadenced prose, cornpone nineteenth-century humor,
and Lincoln’s own letters and speeches, Charyn concocts a profoundly
moral but troubled commander in chief, whose relationship with his
Ophelia-like wife and sons—Robert, Willie, and Tad—is explored with
penetrating psychological insight and the utmost compassion. Seized by
melancholy and imbued with an unfaltering sense of human worth, Charyn’s
President Lincoln comes to vibrant, three-dimensional life in a
haunting portrait we have rarely seen in historical fiction.
PB Publication Date: February 9, 2015
Liveright Publishing Corporation
Paperback; 480p
Genre: Historical Fiction
audiobook provided by publisher/author as part of this tour
***1/2
This was an audio read for me, coming in at 14 hours, 33 minutes. The reader was Arthur Morey and he did a great job, he actually sounded like I imagined President Lincoln would. Audio books told in first person are one of my favorites, it's like the person is right there telling their story, which this book was.
I really don't know a lot about the life of Abe Lincoln, other then the ending. With I Am Lincoln it showed a real glimpse of Lincoln, getting into his head with his fears and inner turmoil. The synopsis above explains what takes place in this book, definitely a sign that the author has a passion for this time period and knows how to express it in an entertaining manner.
His relationship with his wife, Mary and his children were an interesting part of this story. As well as Mary's bond with her sons and even Mrs. Keckley. Mary was not without her own struggles and the author conveyed that situation in a real and believable manner.
I enjoyed this audio book, it brought to life a real chapter in US history and humanized Abraham Lincoln as a man that struggled with the state of his country, his people while dealing with his family at the same time. And with any good book I would have liked it to continue to see the ramifications of his assassination.
Praise for I Am Abraham: A Novel of Lincoln and the Civil War
“Thoughtful, observant and droll.” — Richard Brookhiser, New York Times Book Review
“Not only the best novel about President Lincoln since Gore Vidal’s
Lincoln in 1984, but it is also twice as good to read.” — Gabor Boritt,
author of The Lincoln Enigma and recipient of the National Humanities
Medal
“Jerome Charyn [is] a fearless writer… Brave and brazen… The book is
daringly imagined, written with exuberance, and with a remarkable
command of historical detail. It gives us a human Lincoln besieged by
vividly drawn enemies and allies… Placing Lincoln within the web
ordinary and sometimes petty human relations is no small achievement.” —
Andrew Delbanco, New York Review of Books
“Audacious as ever, Jerome Charyn now casts his novelist’s gimlet eye
on sad-souled Abraham Lincoln, a man of many parts, who controls events
and people—wife, sons, a splintering nation—even though they often are,
as they must be, beyond his compassion or power. Brooding, dreamlike,
resonant, and studded with strutting characters, I Am Abraham is as wide
and deep and morally sure as its wonderful subjects.” — Brenda
Wineapple, author of Ecstatic Nation: Confidence, Crisis, and
Compassion: 1848-1877
“If all historians—or any historian—could write with the magnetic
charm and authoritative verve of Jerome Charyn, American readers would
be fighting over the privilege of learning about their past. They can
learn much from this book—an audacious, first-person novel that makes
Lincoln the most irresistible figure of a compelling story singed with
equal doses of comedy, tragedy, and moral grandeur. Here is something
beyond history and approaching art.” — Harold Holzer, chairman, Lincoln
Bicentennial Foundation
“Jerome Charyn is one of the most important writers in American literature.” — Michael Chabon
“Jerome Charyn is merely one of our finest writers with a
polymorphous imagination and crack comic timing. Whatever milieu he
chooses to inhabit, his characters sizzle with life, and his sentences
are pure vernacular music, his voice unmistakable.” — Jonathan Lethem
“Charyn, like Nabokov, is that most fiendish sort of writer—so
seductive as to beg imitation, so singular as to make imitation
impossible.” — Tom Bissell
“One of our most intriguing fiction writers takes on the story of
Honest Abe, narrating the tale in Lincoln’s voice and offering a
revealing portrait of a man as flawed as he was great.” — Abbe Wright,
O, The Oprah Magazine
“Jerome Charyn, like Daniel Day-Lewis in Steven Spielberg’s superb
2012 movie, manages a feat of ventriloquism to be admired… Most of all,
Lincoln comes across as human and not some remote giant… With that,
Jerome Charyn has given Lincoln a most appropriate present for what
would have been his 205th birthday this month: rebirth not as a marble
memorial but as a three-dimensional human who overcame much to save his
nation.” — Erik Spanberg, Christian Science Monitor
“Daring… Memorable… Charyn’s richly textured portrait captures the
pragmatism, cunning, despair, and moral strength of a man who could have
empathy for his bitterest foes, and who ‘had never outgrown the forest
and a dirt floor.’” — The New Yorker
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Jerome Charyn is an award-winning American author. With nearly 50
published works, Charyn has earned a long-standing reputation as an
inventive and prolific chronicler of real and imagined American life.
Michael Chabon calls him “one of the most important writers in American
literature.” New York Newsday hailed Charyn as “a contemporary American
Balzac,”and the Los Angeles Times described him as “absolutely unique
among American writers.” Since the 1964 release of Charyn’s first novel,
Once Upon a Droshky, he has published 30 novels, three memoirs, eight
graphic novels, two books about film, short stories, plays and works of
non-fiction. Two of his memoirs were named New York Times Book of the
Year. Charyn has been a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction.
He received the Rosenthal Award from the American Academy of Arts and
Letters and has been named Commander of Arts and Letters by the French
Minister of Culture. Charyn was Distinguished Professor of Film Studies
at the American University of Paris until he left teaching in 2009. In
addition to his writing and teaching, Charyn is a tournament table
tennis player, once ranked in the top 10 percent of players in France.
Noted novelist Don DeLillo called Charyn’s book on table tennis,
Sizzling Chops & Devilish Spins, “The Sun Also Rises of ping-pong.”
Charyn lives in Paris and New York City.
For more information please visit Jerome Charyn’s
website. You can also find him on
Twitter and
Goodreads.
I Am Abraham Blog Tour Schedule
Wednesday, February 25
Review at
Bookish
