Book Review; The Hamilton Affair, by Elizabeth Cobbs

The Hamilton Affair, by Elizabeth Cobbs

Let me start by saying that I really wanted this book when I learnt that it was going to be published. When I tried to buy it, Amazon.co.uk told me that it wouldn't be available until May 2017, and I could pre-order it. Instead, I purchased it on Audible UK (which doesn't make much sense to me - like seriously, Audible is a part of Amazon and I was on the UK version for both so why such the difference??) and I listened to the audio book instead. I've really been getting into audio books lately, which is really strange because I've always struggled with them.

Originally, I was really excited about this book because it's touted as a book about the relationship of Alexander and Eliza Hamilton. While, yes, it did do this, it does it a lot later than I expected, which I found kinda disappointing. I was expecting it to talk about their childhoods and then pre-meeting for a short while, but it seemed to last for at least half the book, and a lot of it seemed irrelevant to the plot - yes, I understand why you're focusing on Ajax, the slave that Rachel Lavine owned who Alexander grew up with as it allowed Eliza to move past the idea of colour and understand that slavery and racism shouldn't exist when she has contact with Ajax Manley (I have no idea how to spell his last name) later in the novel, but the first half of this novel really felt like it was dragging.

I also felt like Eliza wasn't portrayed in a particularly good way. She came off more... weak than I think of her as when reading biographies. She was portrayed as a woman who needed Alexander to live, and while that may have been true of her opinion during their marriage, she lived fifty years longer than he did. I did like her portrayal after the Reynolds Pamphlet came out; she returned to Albany and meets a man that she met as a child and while she is tempted to cheat, unlike her husband, she refuses to do so which illustrates the differences between the two. As a result of the distance between Eliza and Alexander, she begins with multiple orphan, widow and children charities which I liked as an explanation of why she started philanthropic endeavors. This is also linked with her childhood in the novel as she is described as wanting to help children and animals so the novel does have a continuing thread of characterization running through it.

However, for going into so much detail about their lives prior to meeting each other, not much attention is given to Eliza and the children after Alexander's passing, and fifty years is passed in (I think?) sixteen minutes. or a short epilogue like chapter. I found this rather sad really.

However, Cobb does a remarkable job of showing the trials and tribulations of marriage in the 1700s; the fears of pregnancy, the worry of the loss of both child and mother during pregnancy, the ongoing endemics of illness that waved through the cities every year.

Overall, I liked the novel, I would recommend it to people, but there were some inconsistencies and pacing issues that I didn't like which is why this book does not get 5 stars.

Rating = 4 / 5 stars.