An Inconvenient Widow: The Torment, Trial and Triumph of Mary Todd Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln’s much maligned wife had her mental troubles but was also a smart political operator and loving helpmeet, according to this vivid debut biography. Journalist Romano explores Mary Todd Lincoln’s many issues: her volatile temperament, her extravagant shopping expeditions that generated negative press coverage during wartime, her unseemly lobbying for government appointments for cronies, and, later in life, her unhinged grief at losing three sons and a husband, which made her prey to charlatan spiritualists. But, Romano contends, Mary was a shrewd promoter of Lincoln’s ambitions—she advised him to refuse a post as Oregon’s territorial governor that would have scotched his presidential hopes—who, contrary to critics’ assertions, fully supported his opposition to slavery. Romano devotes much space to demolishing the conventional historiography that Lincoln and Mary’s relationship was an agonizing ordeal; instead, she paints them as well-matched—“he learned how to defuse her tantrums; she was adept at pulling him out of his funks.” Later chapters recap how Mary adroitly marshaled the public sympathy needed to regain her freedom after her son had her committed in 1875. Romano is sometimes too quick with pat psychotherapeutic rationales for Mary’s questionable choices. (“Shopping filled an emotional void... [it] gave her a feeling of power and control.”) Still, this revealing study dramatically recasts a proverbial ball and chain as a dynamic and constructive figure. (May)