Grant's Indian - Paperback

by Peter Johnson (Author)

Grant's Indian is a novel based on the life of Ely Parker, a Seneca Indian who, as Grant's military secretary, penned the surrender at Appomattox. From Appomattox, the story loops back to Parker as an Indian boy in upstate New York, his youth as tribal translator and diplomat and his meeting "Useless" Ulysses Grant in a barroom in Galena, Illinois. After Appomattox, Parker marries a white girl half his age, becomes commissioner of Indian affairs, resigns in disgrace, makes and loses a fortune on Wall Street and spends his last twenty years as a clerk in the New York City Police Department. Parker is an American Indian becoming an American, whose quest gets him into all sorts of trouble, including his comic-opera wedding, which he misses once by getting drunk and throwing himself into the Potomac. He dons successive careers, succeeding inwardly (while his outer success fades) through his young wife's urging him not to be an Indian or a white, "Just be a man!"

Author Biography

PETER JOHNSON is an award-winning author, actor and lawyer. A graduate of Harvard and New York Law School, he has written many legal articles, including "Can You Quote Donald Duck? Intellectual Property in Cyberculture" and "Pornography Drives Technology: Why Not to Censor the Internet." A professional stage and voice-over actor, he has performed plays in New York and nationwide and narrated over 500 audiobooks. Grant's Indian is his first novel. He lives in New York City.