Much more than I was expecting: the biography is beautiful but it’s the social context that really shook me. Reiss presents informative and powerful insights into the cultures of the time and their transformation over the course of Dumas’s lifetime: legal and ethical stances on slavery, “race”, and human rights that echo eerily in today’s world. He takes you into the insane convolutions of late-18th-century France, the bizarre legal arguments, the horrible mix of politics and business that destroyed the lives of humans based solely on their skin color. He also provides illuminating background on the conditions that led to the Terror and to Napoleon’s ascension, much of which rings depressingly true today.

As a person General Dumas seems larger than life: physically imposing, intelligent, strong, highly moral, deeply principled, courageous, kind. The sort of person, actually, we should know more about. It’s criminal that he’s been forgotten, and you owe it to yourself to read this book for that reason alone. Reiss uses historical sources everywhere it’s possible but his tone toward Dumas is warm and engaging. I came away with what I think will be a lasting impression of Dumas, one I’m grateful for.

And there’s the relationship between General Dumas and his son, the novelist we know. All we have left today are wisps but they’re poignant ones; Reiss weaves them through the book respectfully, never cloyingly.

Highly recommended. I feel incredibly lucky to have had a friend push me to read it.