As with all collections, some pieces stand out. Phillips is most successful when he inserts specific details into the worlds these men inhabit. Reagan remembers how “Mother” (whose lap is “a bony refuge”) “changes her apron daily, so I can tell the day of the week from the colors and smells,” and Arthur describes a medicinal concoction for baldness consisting of “pulverized snails, horse leeches, and salt.” Phillips’s presidents tend to ruminate about similar matters—their childhood, their parents, the functioning of their bodies and, occasionally, the presidency. While certain chapters boast stylistic differences, such as Obama’s use of poetry, this makes the less inspired stories feel repetitive. The pieces are cohesive, of course, as each one deals with a president and demonstrates a shared and even mundane humanity (“I like being president,” Trump muses. “It’s not a job so much as a feeling”) though the stream-of-consciousness approach makes some entries feel less memorably focused than others.

This style does have the advantage of creating intimacy between the reader and each president–where else are we going to read about President Cleveland’s scrotum or Garfield’s shaved legs? The paintings, meanwhile, offer a stunning complement to the prose, inviting readers to make the kind of intuitive connections and leaps they might while dreaming. Overall, this is an unorthodox but captivating approach to historical fiction, and the embedded art elevates this to something quite special.

Takeaway: A winning, experimental plunge into the dreaming minds of American presidents.

Great for fans of: Thomas Mallon, George Saunders’s Lincoln in the Bardo.

Production grades
Cover: A+
Design and typography: A+
Illustrations: A+
Editing: B
Marketing copy: A