‘You, Me, and Ulysses S. Grant: A Farcical Biography’
By Brad Neely
Keylight Books, 290 pages

While Reading Brad Neely’s “You, Me, and Ulysses S. Grant,” I kept thinking of Norman O. Brown’s writing about the excremental vision, as employed by Jonathan Swift and James Joyce, and applied to a great American general in the tradition of a comic book superhero adventure story, overlayed with a satirical take on the stuffy genre of presidential biography, full of the kind of anachronisms you would find in Ishmael Reed’s “Flight to Canada,” which makes the whole product seem at once hip and heartfelt.

Mr. Neely appropriates the familiar story of Sam Grant, as he was known before joining the army, mired in the stink of his father’s tannery, and miraculously elevated on the reeking battlefields of the Civil War into a national figure, created as much by the soldiers and president who need him, as he is by his own dogged determination to defeat the seemingly invincible General Lee.

This scatological novel that is never more than a passage away from naming some bodily function or sexual practice may be difficult for some readers to stomach, but it is a more visceral representation of biography and history than you will ever find in books that respect the decorum of those genres.

A case in point is Lee’s surrender at Appomattox Court House. The Confederate general appears in full dress uniform while Grant, without his formal duds, only has time to have an aide brush his hair.  But it is Lee who stinks, the Lee that so many in the South and North lionized, who appears rigid, perfectly mannered but also saturated in the foul convictions of his cause. 

Mr. Neely’s title conveys the idea that readers of biography, as much as the authors of it, create a false, cosmetically smooth rendition of a rotten reality, a beautifying of corporeal corruption, which goes beyond the book’s ostensible subject matter, as noted in the “Prologue”: “Have you ever risked your body for love? Have you ever ruined a body for power? Oh, you will, you will; together we will. This is a biography, after all.”

For all its flippant, farcical tone, the vision of this biographical novel is grim: “How do you make an American? One third depression, one third anxiety, one third narcissism, and you shake like hell. Because in reality, the American Dream is just to survive the American Reality. Yes, to avoid the American Nightmare of ruin, we must keep dreaming that we might simply survive this Biblical Wilderness.”

Nonetheless, Grant emerges plangently, almost as in awe of Lee as anyone else, and yet defiantly sure he will eventually beat him. How does Grant do it?  By simply remaining in charge, never backing down, and realizing he cannot succeed without the likes of Sherman and Sheridan, and, occasionally, the thoughtful advice of General George Meade who, in his own words, fought Lee to a draw at Gettysburg.

Several scenes are silly wonderful, as if they happened today.  Here is Grant overhearing the conversation at a party: “I never talk about race because I know I’ll say the wrong thing, or use an outdated term, and I couldn’t bear looking ever so behind the times, whatever they might be at the moment. So I never talk or think about race. Because I don’t want to hurt anyone with the wrong words, you see.”

Here is Lincoln quizzing Grant:

“Now, let me ask you point-blank: Is this about licking Lee? Or is it about bringing on a More Perfect Union? I heard you were anti-slavery; I heard your father was a progressive. That that was why you fought. Or am I thinking of Sherman?”

“No, no. That’s me, Sir. But the way we stop the war—and to roll into that new More Perfect Union—is for me to beat Lee. It’s the only way. It’s a win-win. And I’m ready to die for it.”

“Okay. Bag your boogeyman. I think you and I have the same ultimate goals.”

The fixation on Lee, the Lincoln of this book knows, detracts from the greater good that is at stake.  He needs to know that Grant understands that, even if, in the end, of course Lee has to be beaten.

By all means, read this original book, even if you have to hold your nose.

Mr. Rollyson is writing “Making the American Presidency: How Biographers Shape History”