Citizen Washington

A Novel

De: William Martin

Narrado por: John Pruden

He became the nation's first hero.... But before that, George Washington was just a man. And in his youth, he was a man on the make. He wanted to serve the king, so he donned a red coat and fought the French. He loved another man's wife but yearned for status, so he married a rich widow. He dreamed of wealth, so he accumulated land and slaves. He accumulated enemies, too....

In Citizen Washington, one of those enemies - a newspaper publisher named Hesperus Draper - learns that Martha Washington has burned her husband's letters at his death. So Draper sets his nephew on a quest to find the truth about the letters and about the man himself. The younger Draper meets a dozen people, from Mount Vernon slaves and Iroquois Indians to Jefferson and Adams and the other giants of the era, and they tell their own stories as they tell Washington's: from his callow youth, through the harrowing battles of the Revolution, to the first American presidency.

What emerges is a remarkable, multi-faceted portrait of a society reeling toward rebellion, a nation rushing to be born, and a man rising to greatness.

©1999 William Martin (P)2019 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.

Historically accurate and engaging

Citizen Washington is written from the unique perspectives of historical figures surrounding George Washington throughout his life. William Martin has used this technique to successfully draw in the reader (listener). The book is historically accurate and inserts just enough “fiction” to amuse and expand the mind’s wonderings regarding interactions and conversations that could or may have taken place between the rich characters of America’s beginning.

Interesting story

I have an interest in all things revolutionary, so this book would interest me. I liked it but the narrative advanced by small vignettes told by the people in Washington's life. That would've been fine but the segments were often very short so sometimes I lost track of who was speaking. It would've liked it more if the segments had been longer.