What began as a quirky little musical at New York’s Public Theater has now blossomed into the most hyped show on Broadway. Hamilton—from the Tony, Emmy, and Grammy Award–winning Lin-Manuel Miranda—delves into the colorful life of the immigrant founding father whose likeness graces the $10 bill. A war hero who transformed American economics, Hamilton wrote most of the Federalist Papers, served as the nation’s first secretary of the treasury, and now, 212 years after his famous death-by-duel with Aaron Burr, is the source of a pop culture phenomenon. Along with the hefty 2005 biography by Ron Chernow that inspired Miranda, Elizabeth Cobbs’s forthcoming fictional work, The Hamilton Affair (Skyhorse, Sept.), promises to continue interest in the controversial politician.
Five years ago, the author, historian, and professor at Texas A&M University began delving into Hamilton-penned documents and grew fascinated by “the sexiest and most interesting man of the American Revolution.” Cobbs, a colonial history expert who most recently wrote American Umpire (Harvard Univ., 2013), soon to be a PBS documentary, says Hamilton is caught in a “bifurcated drama where Thomas Jefferson is the good guy and he—considered a monarchist, elitist manipulator, and schemer—is the bad guy.” This unfair reputation was cemented, Cobbs believes, because foes like John Adams, Andrew Jackson, and James Madison outlived Hamilton, while his fiercest ally, George Washington, died five years before him.
With the liberties historical fiction allows, Cobbs, instead of merely reinterpreting Hamilton’s laundry list of accomplishments, puts his unlikely marriage to Eliza Schuyler (he a bastard son, she from one of New York’s most influential families) in the spotlight. Schuyler, who cofounded the first orphanage in New York City, “was a remarkable woman just as underrated and unappreciated as her husband,” Cobbs points out. Their relationship, however, was rocked by Hamilton’s adulterous, blackmail-fueled dalliance with Maria Reynolds. Schuyler’s loyalty, despite Hamilton’s infidelities, is also a prominent element of Cobbs’s narrative.
In The Hamilton Affair, which took her three years to research and write, Cobbs imaginatively explores “the first sex scandal in American politics.” Unlike nonfiction, which demands a painstaking adherence to fact, she says, fiction “creates a sense of hubris and thrill, but also anxiety because no word can be out of place. If you break character for even a nanosecond you’ve lost your audience.” Fiction, a more organic writing process for Cobbs, allowed her flexibility in the story’s evolution. “I didn’t figure out what the first sex scene would be until later. My initial thought was, ‘Will people still respect Alexander Hamilton in the morning?’”
Cobbs signs books today in the Skyhorse booth (2158), 10 a.m.–noon.
This article appeared in the May 12, 2016 edition of PW BEA Show Daily.
