The Lincolns

March 17, 2008
Poet and biographer Epstein (Lincoln and Whitman: Parallel Lives in Civil War Washington
) never explains the rationale for this reliable but familiar account of the Lincolns’ frequently tempestuous marriage. If he had access to previously untapped sources, he does nothing to highlight them, and there’s little reason why this book should supersede either Jean H. Baker’s magisterial Mary Todd Lincoln: A Biography
or even Ruth Painter Randall’s respected Mary Lincoln: Biography of a Marriage
. What Epstein brings is a novelistic, almost lyrical touch, as in this passage, from Mary’s perspective, as her husband lay dying: “Slowly the room grows larger with the light. The April days are long. Hold back the light. Let the day never dawn that looks upon his death.” Well born, Mary was also highly strung, insecure, jealous and, like Abraham, prone to fits of depression. He suffered her rages silently, tolerated her profligate spending even when it became a political embarrassment and twice consoled her in the midst of his own grief upon the successive losses of two of their four sons. Sadly, in the end, their marriage seems to have been largely a pageant of tragedies: a black lily Epstein need not have attempted to gild.

June 15, 2008
Biographer and poet Epstein ("Lincoln and Whitman: Parallel Lives in Civil War Washington") paints a portrait of a marriage bonded by love, humor, heartache, and political ambition but also haunted by the losses of children and friends and, for the President, of so many soldiers fighting to save the Union. He casts the Lincolns' courtship and early years of marriage as a true love story, with Lincoln a romantic at heart. But the marriage was strained as Lincoln became absorbed by war and as Mary Todd Lincoln engaged in intrigues, overspent on her wardrobe and White House refurbishing, and flew off in fits of jealousy and despair, all working against the couple's happiness and the President's health. Epstein does not so much revise previous assessments of the marriage and its personal and political consequence as he imagines private thoughts, feelings, and behavior that direct evidence cannot show. The result is a drama of love and loss and a recognition that the personal life could not be separated from the public self and service. With cautions on some flights of fancy, recommended for university and large public libraries.

Copyright 2008 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 1, 2008
Judging by the never-ending stream of books written about them, the Lincolns (both Abe and Mary Todd) continue to fascinate historians and general readers. In this new Lincoln chronicle, Epstein concentrates exclusively on the relationship between this seemingly odd and mismatched power couple. Although the books neglecting to recount the years leading up to the courtship of Abe and Mary inevitably results in some narrative blanks, most readers will be familiar enough with their stories to fill them in on their own. Mary struggled with a mental illness that grew progressively worse over the course of her lifetime, and Epstein analyzes the dramatic effect this fact had on her marriage to an ambitious man with a promising political career and plenty of issues of his own. Of course, the war years and the deaths of two of their children took a dramatic physical and mental toll on both the Lincolns, increasing the already substantial strain on their marriage. This relationship biography reads like a nineteenth-century version of a Greek tragedy.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2008, American Library Association.)