Deb­bie Ja­cob

No one could claim to be shocked or even sur­prised when our cur­rent Sun­day Arts Sec­tion (SAS) Book Club choice, The Black Count–Glo­ry, Rev­o­lu­tion, Be­tray­al, and the Re­al Count of Monte Cristo by Tom Reiss won the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for best bi­og­ra­phy.

Reiss' riv­et­ing sto­ry of Gen­er­al Alexan­dre (Alex) Du­mas, fa­ther of the fa­mous French writer Alexan­dre Du­mas, has been gar­ner­ing ac­co­lades through­out the year with re­view­ers from Eng­land and the US claim­ing that this is one ac­tion-packed bi­og­ra­phy that reads like a nov­el. Bet­ter yet, this bi­og­ra­phy has a West In­di­an con­nec­tion.

Al­though he was on­ly four years old when his fa­ther died, the nov­el­ist Alexan­dre Du­mas nev­er for­got his brave and ad­ven­tur­ous fa­ther, who still holds the dis­tinc­tion of be­ing one of the high­est-rank­ing black gen­er­als in Eu­ro­pean his­to­ry. Du­mas would ho­n­our his fa­ther by writ­ing the hero­ic tales of The Three Mus­ke­teers and The Count of Monte Cristo. The nov­el­ist's fa­ther be­came the in­spi­ra­tion for all of Du­mas' swash­buck­ling char­ac­ters, who rep­re­sent France with dig­ni­ty and courage as they bat­tle evil and jeal­ous peo­ple. In his nov­els, Du­mas al­ways finds a way for his fa­ther to sur­vive.

Reiss' bi­og­ra­phy makes fans re­alise how haunt­ed young Du­mas was by the death of his fa­ther. The sto­ry be­gins when the fu­ture writer is near­ly four and he has just been told of his fa­ther's death. Even at that ear­ly age, Du­mas knows of his fa­ther's hero­ic deeds. As he grows up, he learns of his fa­ther's colour­ful life.

Born in 1762 in the French Caribbean colony of Saint-Domingue (mod­ern Haiti) Gen­er­al Alexan­dre Du­mas had an aris­to­crat­ic, white French fa­ther and an en­slaved black moth­er. Du­mas found his way to France where he im­pressed every­one with his fenc­ing and horse­man­ship skills. The se­nior Du­mas fought along­side oth­er black men in a unit called the African Le­gion dur­ing the French Rev­o­lu­tion. There, he gained a rep­u­ta­tion for ac­com­plish­ing spec­tac­u­lar feats like scal­ing a steep, ice-cov­ered rock wall. He fought with Napoleon on the Egypt­ian cam­paign, but quit his com­mand af­ter a quar­rel with Napoleon. On his way back to France Du­mas was im­pris­oned by the Bour­bon King, Fer­di­nand I of Naples and Sici­ly.

Gen­er­al Du­mas even­tu­al­ly re­turned home a bat­tered, de­feat­ed man, but his son would re­mem­ber his fa­ther's feats and el­e­vate them to leg­endary sta­tus in his nov­els.

Check out the fol­low­ing Web sites for more in­for­ma­tion about The Black Count:

1. The home page for au­thor Tom Reiss in­cludes book re­views from The New York Times, Time Mag­a­zine and Vogue http://www.tom­reiss.com/

2. The Black Count... by Tom Reiss, re­viewed by Nigel Jones. This re­view from the UK Guardian in­cludes in­for­ma­tion on Reiss' tril­o­gy http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/sep/28/black-count-tom-reiss-re­view

3. The Third Mus­ke­teer: The Black Count, a New York Times book re­view by Leo Dam­rosch. In­cludes the his­to­ry sur­round­ing Gen­er­al Alex Du­mas and a pic­ture of a paint­ing that cap­tures a bat­tle scene in­volv­ing Du­mas http://www.ny­times.com/2012/09/16/books/re­view/the-black-count-by-tom-reiss.html?page­want­ed=all&_r=0

Join us in the SAS Face­book group to talk about your book club, what you're read­ing and The Black Count.