I, Eliza Hamilton by Susan Holloway Scott

 I, Eliza Hamilton was our book club pick for January.  

We follow a fictional account of Alexander Hamilton's boring spineless wife through the trials and tribulations of being married to a hotheaded man at the country's founding.

Here's my issue. Nothing interesting happens in this book until roughly page 375 (out of 432).  I propose that the first 375 pages be rewritten down to 50-100 pages and the author really starts the book at Hamilton's death. I found the afterword to make Elizabeth Hamilton much more of an interesting individual than the first 400 pages of the book and I don't mean to tell Scott how to tell her job, but I was not impressed with what seemed like a really boring textbook on the American Founding for such a huge chunk of the novel, and I think my solution would have improved this book greatly.

Basically everyone in my book club agreed with me on the structure of this novel. Her life after Hamilton's death seemed fascinating and we wished the focus had been more on that.  On the other hand, this was a great conversation starter and we had a lovely talk with lots of places for entry in our debates. It turns out I'm probably the person in the group who is married to a man most like similar to Hamilton (a secretly hot-headed political theorist who tends to spend more money on book and clothes than anything else).  

Lines of note:

1) "...I spoke up as often as I could in those elegant drawing rooms and parlors, and corrected as many ladies as I dared. I doubted they believed me, as people who are misinformed seldom do, and I'm certain they considered me ill-mannered, but at lease I had not given the impression of agreeing with them through silence." (page 74)

This is Eliza's response to people who thought soldiers were being overly dramatic about how little they had during the American Revolution. I keep thinking about it in context of how people today refuse to change their ideology when confronted with new facts and frequently will just refuse to believe truth.

2) "Instead, however, he'd found the entire process disillusioning and discouragingly slow, and the members of the legislature a dull-witted and selfish lot whose main concerns were not for their constituents, but only for their own personal gain." (page 216) 

Some things never change, I guess.

3) "Much of Congress appears to consist of half-wits and pea-brains, unable to figure their own reckonings in a tavern, let alone a nation's budget." (page 304)

Ha ha ha. I think this book does a good job of making Alexander Hamilton sharp-witted and sly.  It's too bad his wife is so dull.

4) "...I soon found the best way to communicate with him was through apples, gingerbread, and slices of pie with cheese, the common language of all boys." (page 358)

There's nothing spectacular about this line, but until recently I'd only ever heard of someone serving apple pie with a slice of cheddar in the context of a death row inmate's last meal, so apparently it's a thing?

5) "Perhaps it should be the 'United States' instead of America," I suggested.  "If he wishes to urge the country toward unity, then it cannot be stated often enough." (page 360)

I've literally never considered what name I call the place where I live. I thought this was one of the smartest things Eliza said in the whole book..