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Review by James Neal Webb
I am a Tennessean. I was born and raised and, most important, educated in Nashville, our capital city. What this means is that before I was ten years old, I knew all about Andrew Jackson: I had visited his home, the Hermitage, three or four times, viewed the huge equestrian statue of him in front of our capitol building, seen countless advertisements, products, and billboards with his face staring back at me. Oh, we learned about those other great Tennesseans in school, from Davy Crockett to Alvin York, but they all stand in the shadow of that stern, skinny, ramrod-straight soldier. Max Byrd's new novel Jackson brings that icon I grew up with to vibrant, colorful life, and while I loved the book, I'm not so sure the Ladies Hermitage Association will.
When a novelist focuses on a real person, especially one as public a figure as a president, there's a quandary -- whether to make events up out of whole cloth, or trust that the true events will prove dramatic enough. As with his fine novel Jefferson, Byrd does a little bit of both by focusing on the minor characters in the main players' lives, in this case telling the story through the eyes of one David Chase, an American expatriate living in Paris who returns to his native land to write a biography of the future president at the behest of a political enemy. As he delves into Jackson's past, so do we, and the portrait of a complex and driven man emerges.
As he undoubtedly did in real life, Andrew Jackson lights up the book whenever he is on stage, casting everything else in stark relief. Yet it is those around him who reflect that light, and their lives give Jackson's its relevance and meaning.
There is, first, Rachel Donelson Robards Jackson, the controversial spouse of the General, and the dichotomy between the woman and her reputation is striking -- Hillary Clinton has seen nothing to compare with the calumny Rachel endured. In contrast to them are David Chase and his lover, the English-born writer's daughter, Emma Colden; they are both cast from the same mold, both alienated from their homeland -- Emma from England and David from America, yet the decisions they make by book's end may surprise you. And swirling around them are the names that are familiar to any Tennessean, names like Overton, Coffee, Houston, and Donelson, as well as those of our national history, such as Jefferson, Washington, Clay, Hamilton, and most important to Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams.
Greatness is so rare that its flash of brilliance is unmistakable, and it remains with us always. Jackson does a great job of capturing that brilliance. And come to think of it, I think the Ladies Hermitage Association probably will like this book.
James Neal Webb is a native Tennessean and frequent contributor to this publication.
©1997, ProMotion, inc.