This is the Mask: A Book Blog

Thank you NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for the ARC of Lois Romano’s “An Inconvenient Widow.”

In “An Inconvenient Widow,” Lois Romano has presented a fascinating biography of Mary Todd Lincoln. Romano is entirely unbiased in this book and sought to present Mary Lincoln as the person she was rather than as the much-hated wife and crazy widow of Abraham Lincoln. Romano looks at Mary Lincoln’s childhood and the early losses that shaped her personality as well as noting that there is evidence of mental illness within the Todd family, likely inherited by Mary. Romano stresses that while we cannot accurately look back and diagnose mental illness, historical records suggests that Mary Lincoln may have had what is now known as bipolar disorder. We will never know for sure. But what is apparent is her absolute devotion to her husband and her deep love of her children, two of whom died in childhood, and one at eighteen. Vilified by the press and public, sometimes for things entirely fabricated, and the horror of seeing her husband shot by her side, her already outrageous behavior spun into a cycle of grief and erratic behavior, culminating in her only surviving child committing her to an asylum.

Much of what we are taught about Mary Lincoln was written by people who detested her for one reason or another. Some of it was justified, and her feelings were entirely mutual. Much of it, however, was written by people who had never met her, and wrote their own accounts based on others’, resulting in a history written like a game of telephone. Lois Romano sorted the truth from the many deceptions, creating a picture of Mary Lincoln that is human, flawed, and relatable.