” A remarkable novel, utterly gripping.”— Library Journal (starred review)

“My God, Jon Clinch can write. This is the best book I’ve read in an age. “ —Robin Oliveira, author of My Name is Mary Sutter

“Epic in perspective and feeling…sublime prose…Superb historical fiction.” —Booklist (starred review)

“A graceful, moving narrative…affecting…an empathetic portrait of a towering figure.” —Kirkus (starred review)

“Not since All the Light We Cannot See have I read such a perfect example of what historical fiction should be. I predict that every book club will soon be reading this book.”— Elizabeth Letts, #1 New York Times Bestselling Author of A Perfect Horse and The Ride of Her Life

Ulysses S. Grant reflects on the crucial moments of his life as a husband, a father, a general, and a president while writing his memoirs and reckoning with his complicated legacy in this epic and intimate novel from the author of the “masterly” (The New York Times Book Review) novel Marley. 

Barely able to walk and rendered mute by the cancer metastasizing in his throat, Ulysses S. Grant is scratching out words, hour after hour, day after day. Desperate to complete his memoirs before his death so his family might have some financial security and he some redemption, Grant journeys back in time.

He had once been the savior of the Union, the general to whom Lee surrendered at Appomattox, a twice-elected president who fought for the civil rights of Black Americans and against the rising Ku Klux Klan, a plain farmer-turned-business magnate who lost everything to a Wall Street swindler, a devoted husband to his wife Julia and loving father to four children. In this gorgeously rendered and moving novel, Grant rises from the page in all of his contradictions and foibles, his failures and triumphs.

Moving from blood-stained battlefields to Gilded Age New York, the novel explores how Grant’s own views on race and Reconstruction changed over time.  Another work of “must-read modern literature” (Charles Frazier, New York Times bestselling author) from historical fiction master Jon Clinch, this evocatively crafted novel breathes fresh life into an American icon.