![]() ![]() And we read nearly as often of Washington’s rotting teeth and clumsy dentists. Washington’s flirtations with stylish, younger, but married women also get far more play than they warrant, given that they never transcended “some saucy banter and teasing pleasantries.” Instead he married Martha Dandridge Custis Washington, who reappears as the same genial, saintly companion on page after page. But this joke, funny at first, withers in the retelling, as this one-note harridan appears over and over again in Chernow’s narrative. It is certainly amusing to encounter Washington’s egotistical and berating mother, Mary Ball Washington, who felt neglected no matter how hard her son tried to impress her and attend to her: he may have been first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen, but he ranked last to his own mother. In his long book, though, he digresses too often and sometimes too long. An accomplished biographer, Chernow seeks to enliven the past for a broad readership. ![]()
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