Name: Julie Berman's review of You Never Forget Your First by Alexis Coe
Item: You Never Forget Your First
Rating: 4
Author: Julie Berman

Alexis Coe

AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER AN NPR CONCIERGE BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR "In her form-shattering and myth-crushing book....Coe examines myths with mirth, and writes history with humor... [You Never Forget Your First] is an accessible look at a president who always finishes in the first ranks of our leaders." --Boston Globe Alexis Coe takes a closer look at our first--and finds he is not quite the man we remember Young George Washington was raised by a struggling single mother, demanded military promotions, caused an international incident, and never backed down--even when his dysentery got so bad he had to ride with a cushion on his saddle. But after he married Martha, everything changed. Washington became the kind of man who named his dog Sweetlips and hated to leave home. He took up arms against the British only when there was no other way, though he lost more battles than he won. After an unlikely victory in the Revolutionary War cast him as the nation's hero, he was desperate to retire, but the founders pressured him into the presidency--twice. When he retired years later, no one talked him out of it. He left the highest office heartbroken over the partisan nightmare his backstabbing cabinet had created. Back on his plantation, the man who fought for liberty must confront his greatest hypocrisy--what to do with the men, women, and children he owns--before he succumbs to death. With irresistible style and warm humor, You Never Forget Your First combines rigorous research and lively storytelling that will have readers--including those who thought presidential biographies were just for dads--inhaling every page.

A Biography of George Washington

You Never Forget Your First

Julie Berman

"In a genre overdue for a shakeup, Alexis Coe takes a closer look at our first--and finds he's not quite the man we remember Young George Washington was raised by a struggling single mother, demanded military promotions, chased rich young women, caused an international incident, and never backed down--even when his dysentery got so bad he had to ride with a cushion on his saddle. But after he married Martha, everything changed. Washington became the kind of man who named his dog Sweetlips and hated to leave home. He took up arms against the British only when there was no other way, though he lost more battles than he won. Coe focuses on his activities off the battlefield--like espionage and propaganda. After an unlikely victory in the Revolutionary War, Washington once again shocked the world by giving up power, only to learn his compatriots wouldn't allow it. The founders pressured him into the presidency--twice. He established enduring norms but left office heartbroken over the partisan nightmare his backstabbing cabinet had created. Back on his plantation, the man who fought for liberty finally confronted his greatest hypocrisy--what to do with the hundreds of men, women, and children he owned--before succumbing to a brutal death. Alexis Coe combines rigorous research and unsentimental storytelling, finally separating the man from the legend."--

Samantha Alukas 

A refreshing, spunky, revisionist history.

This is by no means a comprehensive history and it bodes the reader well to have a baseline knowledge of the American Revolution. Yet, this acts as a reasonable companion piece to the traditional biographies and textbooks, making room for new and important conversations about our nation, it’s beginning, and how we look history, who tells it and how it is told.

Lizzy Jensen

Such a quick fun read. Recommend for those who enjoy history but don’t want to work their way through a Chernow biography. I especially enjoyed the feminist & abolitionist lens through which his story was told. I laughed out loud through so much of this.

Sahi K

I think of myself as someone who likes reading historical stuff, but I’m also too impatient to read biographical tomes of historical figures. So I usually stick to articles or any relevant items I come across during some other endeavor. So this book would ideally not even be on my radar, but I stumbled upon it when I saw that the first biography of GW by a woman historian in a long time is being criticized a lot, and I really wanted to see what the fuss was all about. I also really enjoyed reading the author’s interview and wanted to know more of her writing style. And I’m so glad I picked up this book because I was in a slump and this might just have pulled me out of it.

The first thing I want to say about this book is that it’s fun and accessible and once you start reading it, you will want to continue. Also unlike Chernow’s biography or any of the others which have been written about Washington, this one is not intimidating and and is comfortably just around 300 pages. That makes it definitely much more enticing to a rare history/biography reader like me who just wants to gain some basic knowledge about the subject but doesn’t need to do a deep dive into their entire life. The author has also been criticized for not being sufficiently reverential towards GW, and while I understand the place Washington has in American hearts, I don’t know why she is expected to be reverential when she is in actuality not writing a hagiography. 

The author spends a good amount of page time into aspects of Washington’s life that we probably are not very familiar with (or maybe just I am not) like his relationships with his various family members, his worries about leaving a pristine legacy, his later estrangement with many of the members of his first cabinet, his handling of criticism during the presidency and ultimately his handling of the people he enslaved, and never actually freed. I thought the author managed to give a well rounded picture of the person behind the myth that is Washington and she makes it very enjoyable to read, and I never wanted to put the book down. 

I also thought she was very objective in her writing, never overly praising nor criticizing where it wasn’t due. But she does reserve a bit of criticism for the previous famous (male) biographers who are largely responsible for creating exaggerated stories about Washington, making him into a larger than life figure and she rightfully calls them out for being obsessed about his virility and athletic prowess, and some even misrepresenting his treatment of his enslaved people. She has a table listing all the derogatory terms various historians have used to describe Washington’s mother, which left a lasting impression on me and it brought to mind one of my recent reads, Pretty Bitches, where many women authors talk about all the words that are used as weapons against women - I thought it was appalling that these biographers found it necessary to put Mary Washington down to elevate his stature. 

To conclude, if you want to get started with some light historical reading about our first President but don’t really want to begin with award winning large tomes, I promise you can’t go wrong with this one. The writing is very easy to read, it’s fun and very enjoyable while also being informative, and with a huge list of sources. I really loved reading it, but I think I would recommend it to readers unfamiliar with the subject rather than history nerds who are looking for more in-depth accounts.

Christian Beck

More biographies written like this, please. By “this” I mean fair and honest over adulation, and brevity and clarity over all-encompassing.

In the preface she gives a great overview of why her writing a GW biography is notable and that is really helpful context to the rest of the book. I don’t think fairly and honestly recording lives of important men in history should require a female gaze but it certainly doesn’t hurt in this book. I particularly appreciated her referring to previous biographers who seemed overly infatuated with GW’s physique as “Thigh Men”).

What I loved best about the way this boo is written is how she isn’t afraid to simply summarize ancillary details in tables or inset anecdotes. It allows her to maintain the main narrative of his life while still calling out necessary facts. Such tables include what happened to the slaves he “freed” after death, his frienemies, and every deadly disease he contracted yet survived. These details round out his character (both positively and negatively).

What I appreciated most is that Coe ends fairly neutrally on his legacy. I felt she appreciates his impact on U.S. history while also being honest about where he he failed. If I were to summarize the high and low, I’d say his principles and humility as leader likely saved the US from disaster as it transitioned from British rule (key positives), while his repeated failure to emancipate slaves in the face of pressure and many war failures were notable (negatives).

Julie Berman &
You Never Forget Your First by Alexis Coe

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Julie Berman &You Never Forget Your First by Alexis Coe

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Julie Berman &
You Never Forget Your First by Alexis Coe