American Scoundrel (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780385722254)

Hero, adulterer, bon vivant, murderer and rogue, Dan Sickles led the kind of existence that was indeed stranger than fiction. Throughout his life he exhibited the kind of exuberant charm and lack of scruple that wins friends, seduces women, and gets people killed. In American Scoundrel Thomas Keneally, the acclaimed author of Schindler's List, creates a biography that is as lively and engrossing as its subject.

Dan Sickles was a member of Congress, led a controversial charge at Gettysburg, and had an affair with the deposed Queen of Spain--among many other women. But the most startling of his many exploits was his murder of Philip Barton Key (son of Francis Scott Key), the lover of his long-suffering and neglected wife, Teresa. The affair, the crime, and the trial contained all the ingredients of melodrama needed to ensure that it was the scandal of the age. At the trial's end, Sickles was acquitted and hardly chastened. His life, in which outrage and accomplishment had equal force, is a compelling American tale, told with the skill of a master narrative.

Author: Thomas Keneally
ISBN-10: 0385722257
ISBN-13: 9780385722254
Publisher: Knopf Publishing Group
Language: English
Published: 05/13/2003
Pages: 416
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.66lbs
Size: 8.02h x 5.32w x 0.94d

Review Citation(s):
New York Times 06/01/2003 pg. 36