The Unexpected President

When it comes to the Presidency of Chester A. Arthur, he is very closely tied to his predecessor, President James Garfield. This is because Garfield was shot 4 months into his first term and then died two months later, leaving Arthur to pick up the pieces. Ironically, Arthur was one of the few people in American history who did not want to become President, content with the office of Vice-President. Yet, he was asked to help put the country back together after the death and unrealized potential of Garfield, when seemingly the whole country was against him, a member of the spoils system, becoming the leader of the Executive branch. Arthur managed to surprise everyone, however, by emerging as a competent President, paving the way for major reformers like Teddy Roosevelt and Taft to really shake up the spoils system. As for this text, however, I cannot help but see the parallels between this book and Garfield's Presidency with the novel, Destiny of the Republic, in that I wished this book was as good as the one I read about James Garfield.

This is a very well researched biography, considering what Greenberger had to work with. Towards the end of his life, Arthur requested that the paperwork made from before his Presidency be burned, leaving little for modern historians to study. Yet, despite this, Greenberger manages to try and paint a fair portrait of his subject, relishing in the corruption before Arthur became Vice-President, and the turn around afterward. This helps to show how Arthur was a product of the era and was merely an acceptable President in his time, and a forgetful one today.

As I was reading this book however, I could not help but compare it to the book I had read before this, Destiny of the Republic by Candice Millard. There, Millard explores the lives of Dr. Doctor Willard Bliss, James Garfield, and Alexander Gram Bell, and how they all intersect during Garfield's Presidency, or lack thereof. If you twisted my arm and asked me which I would recommend, this book or Destiny of the Republic, I would have to say Destiny. This is because of a few reasons, none of them really being the fault of Greenberger.

The first is that the structure of Destiny is superior. Millard takes a chance and writes about all three lives as though she is combining three mini-biographies into one. This risk pays off and it works brilliantly. Greenberger, sadly, does not do this, and most of the book suffers as a result. It is a book that rehashes the basic plot points of much of Destiny, and it does it well, but overall this text just seems to pale in comparison.

The second problem is that when this book does deviate from what was told in Destiny, it is not done very well. Take Arthur's father-in-law. As Arthur was headed to Kansas, his father-in-law was killed in a storm as he tried to save people from a hurricane while out at sea. Instead of devoting a paragraph or two to the incident, Greenberger instead devotes whole pages to the endeavor, to the point that it takes up what feels like half a chapter. Perhaps it was just due to the fact that Greenberger did not have enough information on Arthur himself, but these deviations from the main story can seem excessive, and often left me wondering how we got onto this topic, and how Arthur fit in. Other readers may feel the same way.

And this may be due to that I listened to this on audio. While I have nothing against the narrator- he has a good voice for the job- he seemed a bit off in his performance. It was as though they went for only the first take, which left some lines feeling a bit rushed, with them ending on a more hesitant-sounding note than I am used to.

Either way, this was still an excellent biography, considering what Greenberger had to work with. Not holding Destiny of the Republic against it, I think this would make for a fine addition to any biography library. I give it a four out of five.