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Johnny One-Eye: A Tale of the American Revolution
by Jerome Charyn

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<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1002727.Johnny_One_Eye_A_Tale_of_the_American_Revolution?utm_medium=api&amp;utm_source=blog_review" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img alt="Johnny One-Eye: A Tale of the American Revolution" border="0" src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/photo.goodreads.com/books/1180134705m/1002727.jpg" /></a> <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1002727.Johnny_One_Eye_A_Tale_of_the_American_Revolution?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">Johnny One-Eye: A Tale of the American Revolution</a> by <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/53408.Jerome_Charyn">Jerome Charyn</a><br/><br/>
  <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/21579288?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review"><h3>My review</h3></a>
  rating: 5 of 5 stars<br/>The last novel I read about the Revolutionary War was Johnny Tremain (more recently, visits to Saratoga battlefield and hearing about Benedict Arnold's exploits, Ron Chernow's excellent Hamilton biography, and HBO's John Adams have fleshed out my imagination of the period). Jerome Charyn writes about a young Johnny, too - a few years older, I believe, at 17 in 1775 - but he moves the action from Boston to his home city of New York, to the side of George Washington as he flits around Manhattan, soon occupied the Brits, keeping his thin armed resistance alive among intrigue. Oh, and Johnny One-Eye (he lost it with brave Arnold in Quebec in a brief bit of service) might be Washington's bastard with Manhattan's premiere whorehouse madame. The word nunnery is used instead, the girls are "nuns." Scandalous? It shouldn't be. Charyn takes a few bits of historic evidence to try to flesh out the character of the quiet warrior and a wily man devoted to his country, not his rich widow wife, with a strange wartime family. It's a lot like what Kazantzakis did with Jesus in the Last Temptation of Christ. Washington is a great man, but Charyn makes him human, whereas history has not portrayed him as well as accurately as it has Jefferson, Hamilton, Adams, Burr and others whose pens told us a little more about them (and who left sex scandals, vicious politics, and duels in their wakes).
<br/>Johnny grows up among the nuns and loves the star of the nunnery, the beautiful blonde octaroon Clara, who like Johnny takes to spying, a bit more successfully than our main protagonist. Johnny likes King George just fine, but he loves his mother and soon General Washington, he loves Benedict Arnold too, a bond that transcends the treason. He's personally loyal. He makes his enemies too, and is whipped around by fates and plots in picaresque adventures, a Jack Sparrow-esque pirate boy in the middle of the American Revolution, a character out of a Decemberists song. Decemberists fans, read this book. Johnny One-Eye fans, pick up Picaresque if you don't have it already.
<br/>The book should be treasured for its imagination and description, bringing the New York of 230 years ago to life, including the black denizens and soldiers often left out of history books as well as fiction, and for making George Washington a man not a saint. 
  <br/><br/><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/41489?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">View all my reviews.</a>

Ted's review
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The last novel I read about the Revolutionary War was Johnny Tremain (more recently, visits to Saratoga battlefield and hearing about Benedict Arnold's exploits, Ron Chernow's excellent Hamilton biography, and HBO's John Adams have fleshed out my imagination of the period). Jerome Charyn writes about a young Johnny, too - a few years older, I believe, at 17 in 1775 - but he moves the action from Boston to his home city of New York, to the side of George Washington as he flits around Manhattan, soon occupied the Brits, keeping his thin armed resistance alive among intrigue. Oh, and Johnny One-Eye (he lost it with brave Arnold in Quebec in a brief bit of service) might be Washington's bastard with Manhattan's premiere whorehouse madame. The word nunnery is used instead, the girls are "nuns." Scandalous? It shouldn't be. Charyn takes a few bits of historic evidence to try to flesh out the character of the quiet warrior and a wily man devoted to his country, not his rich widow wi...more The last novel I read about the Revolutionary War was Johnny Tremain (more recently, visits to Saratoga battlefield and hearing about Benedict Arnold's exploits, Ron Chernow's excellent Hamilton biography, and HBO's John Adams have fleshed out my imagination of the period). Jerome Charyn writes about a young Johnny, too - a few years older, I believe, at 17 in 1775 - but he moves the action from Boston to his home city of New York, to the side of George Washington as he flits around Manhattan, soon occupied the Brits, keeping his thin armed resistance alive among intrigue. Oh, and Johnny One-Eye (he lost it with brave Arnold in Quebec in a brief bit of service) might be Washington's bastard with Manhattan's premiere whorehouse madame. The word nunnery is used instead, the girls are "nuns." Scandalous? It shouldn't be. Charyn takes a few bits of historic evidence to try to flesh out the character of the quiet warrior and a wily man devoted to his country, not his rich widow wife, with a strange wartime family. It's a lot like what Kazantzakis did with Jesus in the Last Temptation of Christ. Washington is a great man, but Charyn makes him human, whereas history has not portrayed him as well as accurately as it has Jefferson, Hamilton, Adams, Burr and others whose pens told us a little more about them (and who left sex scandals, vicious politics, and duels in their wakes).
Johnny grows up among the nuns and loves the star of the nunnery, the beautiful blonde octaroon Clara, who like Johnny takes to spying, a bit more successfully than our main protagonist. Johnny likes King George just fine, but he loves his mother and soon General Washington, he loves Benedict Arnold too, a bond that transcends the treason. He's personally loyal. He makes his enemies too, and is whipped around by fates and plots in picaresque adventures, a Jack Sparrow-esque pirate boy in the middle of the American Revolution, a character out of a Decemberists song. Decemberists fans, read this book. Johnny One-Eye fans, pick up Picaresque if you don't have it already.
The book should be treasured for its imagination and description, bringing the New York of 230 years ago to life, including the black denizens and soldiers often left out of history books as well as fiction, and for making George Washington a man not a saint. ...less

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