A Man of Iron: The Turbulent Life and Improbable Presidency of Grover Cleveland

 

A Man of Iron: The Turbulent Life and Improbable Presidency of Grover Cleveland – Troy Senik

Several years ago I was on a quest to read at least one biography of every U.S. President. The hardest part was that the more obscure guys in the Oval Office didn’t really have a whole lot of offerings to choose from when searching through the pages on Amazon. One of those presidents was Grover Cleveland. I did find one book, but it was one of those offerings that if I had seen the actual book in its physical form, I would have passed.  It had a nice cover (all you can see on Amazon, mostly) but it wasn’t very detailed. Sadly, the writing came across as rather tepid, and not only was it a hagiographic conservative rant, but it read like a high school term paper.   When people ask me my opinions of all the biographies I’ve read on the U.S. presidents, I’m always happy to reply that the vast majority have been very good.  Sadly, the first Cleveland offering wasn’t one of them.

Well, fast forward several years later, and there is finally a ‘legitimate’ offering of the 22^nd (and 24^th) President of the United States. I’m actually a bit puzzled as to why.  This simply wasn’t an exciting man, nor an exciting president.  Even the fact that he ran for the office for three consecutive terms didn’t really make this book that interesting.  We can’t fault the author. In fact, Troy Senik (a former George W. Bush speechwriter) is rather colorful in his language and descriptions.  It was actually a bit much, but what else do you expect from a speechwriter trying to spin favor with his subject?

Yes, Senik points him in a rather favorable light, yet overall I thought the praise was justified. It’s always fascinating to me to discover that back in the 19^th century, those who are elected into the highest office in America never seemed to be particularly driven to hold such a title.  It’s almost as if they’re genuine when they say ‘I don’t want it, but I’ll do it if that’s what the people want.’

There wasn’t much that happened in the country’s history during his two non-consecutive terms as president that really warranted much interest.  I guess that’s actually good, but in hindsight it can make a rather bland read.  The best part of the book is when doctors were worried that Cleveland had a cancerous throat tumor, and they had to perform the operation on a ship out on the water somewhere.  Why?  They didn’t want the public to know.  I don’t exactly remember the reason why, but I guess it’s always a bit of a concern when a potential life-threatening illness can threaten a sitting president.

I’ve read a lot of biographies of presidents that were twice as long as this one (I seem to recall it was about 350 pages), but had the author attempted to make this one of similar length, it would have been quite the slog.  It’s just the right amount since the life and presidency of Cleveland simply wasn’t really that interesting.  The fact that the author could be quite descriptive with plenty of colorful adjectives adds to the somewhat mundane history.

I can’t imagine many people wanting to read such a biography, but if you’re a geek like me when it comes to reading about presidents, this one will scratch the itch just fine.