An American Marriage

[Gene C]

Having struggled through this book from cover to cover, it's not one I can recommend.

After my initial reading, and it's unlikely I will read it again from beginning to end, this is basically an ad nauseam collection of negative comments and negative stories about Mary Lincoln. It reminded me of cheap tabloid journalism, only in book form. It quickly becomes clear that Mr Burlingame has an ax to grind against Mary Lincoln and he never lets up. This is not an objective view of her behavior or of the Lincoln marriage.

It appears to be fairly well researched, but only because their are over 150 pages of source notes that are documented. How accurate these references are in their account off Mary's actions is debatable, many are just repeated gossip and political attacks on Lincoln using Mary. Many are from personal letters, diary or journal entries, newspaper articles and interviews. Herndon's comments are numerous.

Most of us know Mary had physical and mental health difficulties. While Buringame acknowledges this, there appears to be little understanding and no sympathy for the struggles she had to deal with.

There are about 288 pages of text, an additional 152 pages of source notes not include with the printed book. To look at those you have to go online to
https://www.uis.edu/sites/default/files/...ingame.pdf

There are more specific comments I will add, this is just my initial opinion of the book which I wanted to keep brief.