You Never Forget Your First

I was skeptical over the trendy nature of the book but I picked it up to see what it was all about. Coe is not honestly writing a deep biography. She is more interested in trying to find enough material for a gossip rag, and goes about it in the old “guilty until proven innocent” way...how cliche can it be that she proudly writes a book as a woman and then spends the entire time doing a thing women were historically stereotyped for: sitting down to tell all the salacious bits with little evidence and much imagination. Basically, to Coe it's likely that Washington made very sure he was sterile by raping a whole bunch of his slaves. Never mind that his peers wouldn't have believed it of him...he was just rather quiet about it and no one can prove he didn't, so he likely did. Well, he grumbled about not getting promoted in the British army. Must be a sign of bad temper, right? But the whole story was that it was happening to all Americans, that they had been declared disqualified from officer positions (which were all about who got money and were more political than merited, but Brits could on occasion win them in battle). There were many more instances of assumptions without context of the times or of a line or two from a larger letter that mostly were taken with a modern reading-into of the text. In all, she seemed to be focused on forming a view of his character more from the negative (from what she did not see or could not disprove) rather than building a picture off of the solid things we do know, and making smaller inferences based on known facts. This is a great way to blow any character out of proportion and the result is a caricature.I've got no time for a “biography” that incredibly un-scholarly. What a disgraceful way to try to grab kudos as a “woman biographer” and then prove oneself to be that flighty when it comes to research? Also, a very considerable portion of the book is dedicated to lambasting male biographers simply because they have produced large and scholarly biographies of Washington which she considers boring (and she ignores those lesser known ones which I don't consider boring). She also doesn't take time to record an exhaustive system of footnotes to show every source. What a way to cheapen the term of “female biographer” as a whole.I get that she's trying to be controversial, but Washington is almost completely unrecognizable and his legacy is more obscured than enhanced.For those looking for a quick and interesting read about Washington by a woman, pick up a copy of [b:George Washington: Our First Leader 107743 George Washington Our First Leader (Childhood of Famous Americans) Augusta Stevenson https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1347567121l/107743.SX50.jpg 103843], [b:George Washington: True Patriot 1650918 George Washington True Patriot Janet Benge https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1347790488l/1650918.SY75.jpg 1645450], or [b:George Washington, Man of Courage and Prayer 178579 George Washington, Man of Courage and Prayer (Sowers) Norma Cournow Camp https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1348134498l/178579.SY75.jpg 172518].

I ended up plowing through this. Confession time: the S.O. and I are huge GW fans. We have watched/listened to countless biographies and made many a pilgrimage to places where GW had strode across the grounds. To be fair, we live smack-dab in the part of the world where one can hit a GW historical monument with a paper airplane. I, myself, cross the Delaware several times a week. That said, I didn't go into this expecting to learn anything new but Coe did it. I loved how she framed the story. I learned more about GW's mother and stepson. I appreciated the hoecake recipe. This is not a stuffy, scholarly bio but a completely approachable biography that shows GW from many different angles, not all of them flattering and many of them myth-busting. He was a complex dude in a complex time and he was not some sort of God, but incredibly human and fallible. I'm so glad I live in a time when books like this and [b:Never Caught: The Washingtons' Relentless Pursuit of Their Runaway Slave, Ona Judge 30753748 Never Caught The Washingtons' Relentless Pursuit of Their Runaway Slave, Ona Judge Erica Armstrong Dunbar https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1483645814l/30753748.SY75.jpg 51303829] are being published so that, We the People, can see the whole story and not just the tall tales our history books have been spoonfeeding us for years. Well done and highly enjoyable.

I think of myself as someone who likes reading historical stuff, but I'm also too impatient to read biographical tomes of historical figures. So I usually stick to articles or any relevant items I come across during some other endeavor. So this book would ideally not even be on my radar, but I stumbled upon it when I saw that the first biography of GW by a woman historian in a long time is being criticized a lot, and I really wanted to see what the fuss was all about. I also really enjoyed reading the author's interview and wanted to know more of her writing style. And I'm so glad I picked up this book because I was in a slump and this might just have pulled me out of it.

The first thing I want to say about this book is that it's fun and accessible and once you start reading it, you will want to continue. Also unlike Chernow's biography or any of the others which have been written about Washington, this one is not intimidating and and is comfortably just around 300 pages. That makes it definitely much more enticing to a rare history/biography reader like me who just wants to gain some basic knowledge about the subject but doesn't need to do a deep dive into their entire life. The author has also been criticized for not being sufficiently reverential towards GW, and while I understand the place Washington has in American hearts, I don't know why she is expected to be reverential when she is in actuality not writing a hagiography.

The author spends a good amount of page time into aspects of Washington's life that we probably are not very familiar with (or maybe just I am not) like his relationships with his various family members, his worries about leaving a pristine legacy, his later estrangement with many of the members of his first cabinet, his handling of criticism during the presidency and ultimately his handling of the people he enslaved, and never actually freed. I thought the author managed to give a well rounded picture of the person behind the myth that is Washington and she makes it very enjoyable to read, and I never wanted to put the book down.

I also thought she was very objective in her writing, never overly praising nor criticizing where it wasn't due. But she does reserve a bit of criticism for the previous famous (male) biographers who are largely responsible for creating exaggerated stories about Washington, making him into a larger than life figure and she rightfully calls them out for being obsessed about his virility and athletic prowess, and some even misrepresenting his treatment of his enslaved people. She has a table listing all the derogatory terms various historians have used to describe Washington's mother, which left a lasting impression on me and it brought to mind one of my recent reads, Pretty Bitches, where many women authors talk about all the words that are used as weapons against women - I thought it was appalling that these biographers found it necessary to put Mary Washington down to elevate his stature.

To conclude, if you want to get started with some light historical reading about our first President but don't really want to begin with award winning large tomes, I promise you can't go wrong with this one. The writing is very easy to read, it's fun and very enjoyable while also being informative, and with a huge list of sources. I really loved reading it, but I think I would recommend it to readers unfamiliar with the subject rather than history nerds who are looking for more in-depth accounts.