Stephanie Dray's "My Dear Hamilton" Historic/Romatic Biopic on Eliza Hamilton

HAMILTON, for those living under a rock, is a Tony Award play on Broadway written by Lin-Manuel Miranda.  As Oscar Eustis, artistic dir. of The Public Theater said, "He's Shakespeare - there I've said it."  I say, Stephanie Dray has a way of teaching history, but it's no mystery - she's no Shakespeare.  Dray is a fictional writer with a proclivity for women whose lives are imbedded in monumental epochs & been overshadowed by the omnipotent men with historic legacies.  Miranda paid an immense homage to Eliza Hamilton (EH), in his show.  EH outlived AH 50 years & proved altruistic in many ways.  She created an orphanage which flourishes today in NYC known as Graham-Windham, cared for impoverished widows despite her own minimal means, & established the first school to educate Native American youths whose lives were & continue to be decimated by non-indigenous people.  I offer a smattering of applause for the immersion into our country's birth; pre, during & post Amer. Revolution.  We're offered a front row seat to the founding of our nation.  I don't offer a zealous ovation for the novel despite its interesting narration from Eliza because her frippery morphs the novel into a Harlequin romance.  Our founding fathers' pre-eminence; in particular Alexander Hamilton (AH), are quashed by the flirtatious & feeble depiction Dray portrayed EH.  Perhaps, Dray's intent was to present an early female pioneer in a prominent fashion but she doesn't pay EH any  great honor.  While AH's role in birthing, nurturing and solidifying our nation is imminent, she lavishes too much adulation on EH (which subjugates women as subservient).  EH speaks throughout in 1st person to the reader.  Towards the end of her life's diatribe Washington is being canonized & EH tells us "Washington might be first in the hearts of his country men.  But this is AH's country."  She lauds her husband' "I live in a better world because of Alexander Hamilton.  And so do we all.  It's the promise he fulfilled while other men took credit for it."  AH did accomplish much in helping found our nation's and was privy to the lives of other extraordinary men of this epoch.  I admire EH's candor for calling out the disingenuous foundation of equality "...the great project of securing human rights through our revolution remains unfinished."  Still, EH is shamefully hypocritical for retaining slaves as did members of her family.  Reminders of our significant history is all too easily forgotten.  Dray's enrichment of our past is valuable.  In summary, AH's brilliance & essential contributions and  failings are measured & the sum of his life is deemed with great esteem.  Dray's novel is merely admirable.  

Melinda's Top Ten Literary Picks for 2019

The following novels, non-fiction works are my top ten picks for 2019 in alphabetical order by author.  Included in my picks are two Pulitzer Prize winning poets and two literary semi-autobiographical novels:

1.  Be With - Pulitzer Prize Winning Poet Forrest Gander

2.   The CAPITAL by Austrian author Robert Menasse

3.   The RESIDUE YEARS - a semi-autobiography by Mitchell Jackson

4.  An ORCHESTRA of MINORITIES by Nigerian author Chigozie Obioma

5.  The GHOST CLAUSE by Howard Norman

6.   The BEST of US - Pulitzer Prize winning poet Kay Ryan

7.   10 Minutes and 38 Seconds by Turkish author Elif Shafak

8.   OLIVE, AGAIN - by Pulitzer Prize winning novelist Elizabeth Strout

9.  On EARTH WE'RE briefly GORGEOUS - semi-autobiographical novel by Vietnamese/American
         Ocean Vuong

10.  From GENEROSITY to JUSTICE - Non-Fiction by Darren Walker, Pres. of the Ford Fdtn.

OLIVE, AGAIN - Elizabeth Strout"s Reprisal on Olive

Elizabeth Strout (b Amer. 1956) is a Pulitzer Prize winning novelist.  Her 2nd novel "Olive Kitteridge" received the Pulitzer for Fiction ('09) and was made into an Emmy winning mini-series starring Bill Murray and Frances McDormand.  Strout's innovative style morphs short stories into a novel intertwining characters with our unique central figure, Olive Kitteridge.  Then as in now, Kitteridge and the sharply drawn people in the novel are all intriguing; even more so for the interactions and spin Olive puts on these quirky people residing in Crystal Falls, ME.  The reprisal of past characters from previous novels are delightfully brought back to life.  Most beguiling, off-putting and endearing is the gristly Olive.  Olive is a modern day anti-heroine.  She is irksome, lovable, cantankerous, compassionate, opinionated and someone we want to spend time getting to know although "She's not everyone's cup of tea."  You can't help but wonder how Olive might regard us, if at all.  Thankfully, Strout brings revives Olive as she's aged although still obdurate, she's become more sagacious.  Olive is more outgoing and reflects back on her life.  She concedes regrets and is  more open-minded with a willingness to make accommodations for others.  We catch-up with Olive a decade later; after her husband Henry has passed and her estranged son Chris is now a father of four.  This time Olive is shaken, but not stirred away from broaching others and mending fences.  Jack returns in this novel as an important companion in Olive's life.  Jack serves as her sounding board, voice of reason & catalysis to experience new things.  Jack enables Oliver to consider matters from different points of view.  This exquisitely written novel about an obstreperous, older woman is moreover a lugubrious lament on loneliness.  "It should never be taken lightly, the essential loneliness of people, that the choices they made to keep themselves from that gaping darkness were choices that required respect."  Interspersed within the melancholic motif of loneliness are highlighted moments of elegance and utter beauty.  Olive is observant & elegiac about the world around her.  "There was a kind of horrifying beauty to the world:  The oak trees held their leaves, gold & shriveled...everything sort of ghastly and absolutely gorgeous with the sunlight that fell at an angle, never reaching the top of the sky."  OLIVE, AGAIN delights us once again.