Mary
A Novel
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- $6.99
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- $6.99
Publisher Description
A dramatic tale filled with passion and depression, poverty and ridicule, infidelity and redemption, this is the unforgettable story of Mary Todd Lincoln–one of history’s most enigmatic and misunderstood women.
Writing from Bellevue asylum–where the shrieks of the other inmates keep her awake at night–a famous widow finally shares the story of her life in her own words. From her tempestuous childhood in a slaveholding Southern family through the opium clouded years after her husband’s death, we are let into the inner, intimate world of this brave and fascinating woman. Intelligent and unconventional–and, some thought, mad–she held séances in the White House, ran her family into debt with compulsive shopping, negotiated with conniving politicians, and raised her young sons during the Civil War. She was also a political strategist, a comfort to wounded soldiers, a supporter of emancipation, the first to be called First Lady, and a wife and mother who survived the loss of three children and the assassination of her beloved husband.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Abraham Lincoln's widow was committed by her son in 1875; kept awake by the bedlam of her fellow inmates, she takes up a pen. Newman, author of the memoir The Russian Word for Snow, portrays Mary Todd Lincoln (1818 1882) as a proto-feminist: she seduces poor Illinois lawyer Lincoln; kick-starts his career; draws his attention to the slavery issue; corrects his elocution before the Lincoln-Douglas debates; and lobbies behind the scenes (she also has an affair). After the 1860 election, the narrative returns to accepted history, dominated by Mary's crushing misery after a son's death in 1862, her husband's assassination and another son's death in 1872, punctuated by lavish shopping expeditions and an occasional psychotic break. Not introspective and demonstrative, Mary presents a challenge for any historical novelist. Newman makes a good choice in telling the story through Mary's eyes and drawing readers into her perspective. Lincoln buffs can give this a pass because he comes across as a shadowy figure, but readers looking for a vivid, mostly flattering (and rather massive) account of his once-notorious spouse, whose letters are becoming more read, will not be disappointed and those who simply come upon it will be happily surprised.
