Review: The Middle Generation by M.B. Zucker

The classical era of American history began with the Revolution and ended with emancipation. Between these bookends lies the absorbing yet overshadowed epic of a new nation spearheading liberty’s cause in a world skeptical of freedom arriving at all, much less in slaver’s garb. M. B. Zucker takes readers back to that adolescent country in the care of an enigmatic guide, John Quincy Adams, heir to one president by blood and another, Washington, by ideology. Adams is the missing link between the founders and Abraham Lincoln, and is nigh unanimously regarded as America’s foremost Secretary of State. Through Adams’ eyes, readers will experience one of history’s greatest and most forgotten crises: his showdown with Europe over South American independence, the conflict which prefigured the Monroe Doctrine.

With his signature dialogue and his close study of Adams’ 51 volume diary, M. B. Zucker’s The Middle Generation is a political thriller and character piece that surpasses his achievement in The Eisenhower Chronicles and ascends to the cinematic heights of the historical epics of David Lean and Steven Spielberg. It is an unforgettable portrait and a leap forward for one of our rising historical fiction novelists.

My Review

This book addresses a period in American History that is pretty much below the radar, so to speak. I certainly knew very little about John Quincy Adams and the state of America once we get past our founding fathers. Our guide to this uncharted territory is Adams himself, related to us in first person. We are witness to his tenure as Secretary of State under President James Monroe—another shadowy figure to most of us. John Quincy Adams suffers—for lack of a better word—under the heavy expectations of his parents, who insist he become a two-term president. There is no middle ground between meeting their expectations and failure, and he does his best to make his father proud. Unfortunately, his onerous duties take him away from his family, and at the same time he pushes his own impossible expectations onto his own sons who are not up to the task. We see a brilliant man who is a failure as a father and a husband, and who apparently is not well liked by any of his associates. His obsession with his own virtue and his future renown give him no space for humanity.

Trying to bring the average reader up to speed with the events of the period is a formidable task, and for about the first half of the book I was able to keep up. We are able to understand the unresolvable problem between slave and free states, and Adams, who despises slavery, fights a political battle that promises to destroy his career. His feelings are clear:

There was one narrow, vain, horrible scenario to redeem the country. One way to keep the Union without Slavery. The election of an antislavery President would trigger the South’s secession, bringing a servile war into the slaveholding states combined with a war between the two portions of the Union…I did not know who this man would be, or if I’d meet him, but I expected he was already born because otherwise he’d appear too late before slavery’s victory. Somewhere in the Union lived our only hope.

I shouldn’t have been surprised to see just how much the slavery issue overwhelmed the country, so early in the century. I think you might say that it’s amazing the breakdown of the Union didn’t happen sooner. My biggest takeaway from this book is the understanding that nasty politics and partisan divisions are nothing new in our government. Adams experiences a continuous stream of victories and defeats in his policies, so subtle that he must explain them to us after they just happened. But he feels his defeats most acutely. It seems to be a miracle that he achieves the presidency—and that with the aid of his former political enemy. Keeping track of his constantly changing allies and opponents is a challenge, as well as following the myriad of crises besetting the government. This is the kind of book that takes more than one reading to capture all the issues.

Universal Link: https://geni.us/fNbEE
Amazon US: https://www.amazon.com/Middle-Generation-Quincy-Monroe-Doctrine-ebook/dp/B0CKY9DKW3
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The title will be available in several Barnes and Noble stores in the DC / Northern Virginia area.

Meet M.B. Zucker

M. B. Zucker has been interested in storytelling for as long as he can remember. He devoted himself to historical fiction at fifteen and earned his B.A. at Occidental College and his J.D. at Case Western Reserve University School of Law. He lives in Virginia with his family. He is the author of three other novels. Among his honors is the Best Fictional Biography Award at the 2023 BookFest.