Dolley

I have mixed feelings on Rita Mae Brown's Dolley. In the plus column, is that it's a fairly lighthearted work of historical fiction. Alternating between current action and dairy entries allows the story to be told from multiple angles. Certainly, there were echoes of Empire of Mud, with the references to streets so bad the British may break their ankles on the march into town, and the Congressmen gathered in, or possibly fleeing from, their boarding houses. All of which is to say, Brown has done a nice job of capturing the zeitgeist of the era.

In the minus column is that Dolley herself seemed to border occasionally on "whiny," (not a trait I've ever heard associated with her), and I wondered if the real individuals obsessed as much on Washington and Hamilton as the characters Brown created. In the balance, these are relatively minor flaws.

Certainly, this is no 1812: The War That Forged a Nation, but neither is that what Brown is looking to accomplish. If you're looking for a relatively mild, fictional account of the politics and presidency on the eve of the British laying waste to Washington, Dolley is your book. Just be forewarned: the more things change, the more they stay the same, in politics as in life...

Four stars.