The President Is a Sick Man by Matthew Algeo

The parallels were obvious and head-shaking presidents have always and will always try to keep their health under wraps. Then, when journalists found out, Cleveland did what he could to ruin their careers.Īlgeo weaves a fascinating tale not only of Grover’s surgery, but also the history of presidential illnesses swept under the rug, what surgery/cancer was like back then (far more harrowing than now), and why it all matters today. But perhaps the most intriguing story of Grover’s life was the secret surgery he had on the open sea to remove a tumor from his mouth. His politics were pretty reprehensible (to me), and his personal life was atrocious. His career itself is interesting in that he was president twice, but non-consecutively. While obviously not serving as a full-scale biography, you can learn a lot from these shorter, more focused books - this type of narrative can reveal far more than a totally zoomed out portrait.Īnyways. These sorts of books tend to offer a few things: a broad (and short) biographical portrait, a look at the larger context of the era and the issues dominating the cultural conversation, and a primary story zeroed in on a narrow but instructive time period in the figure’s life.

(Really, it’s unfair to compare anyone to Candice.) And for the most part, it didn’t disappoint. I was hoping this book would follow along in the vein of Candice Millard’s books - part biography, part mystery and thriller, compulsively readable. Matthew Algeo spoke and responded to questions from members of the audience at the Museum of American Finance in New York City.“By insisting on total secrecy, the president, not his doctors, dictated his course of treatment.” The author reported on the team of doctors that removed a third of the president’s upper jaw, the newspaper reporter who divulged the story only to meet denials from the president’s office and claims of fabrication, and the eventual release of the news in 1917. The surgery, performed on a yacht, resulted in the disappearance of the president for five days and was kept hidden from the public for twenty years. T11:00:47-04:00 Matthew Algeo recounted the secret surgery to remove a cancerous tumor from President Grover Cleveland in June 1893, during one of the worst economic moments in American history.

The President Is a Sick Man by Matthew Algeo