Abraham Lincoln's widow was committed to Bellvue asylum by her
son Robert in 1875. In this novel, she starts writing a journal about her life
to drown out the noise of the other inmates. In these notes, although she held
séances in the White House and drove her family deeply into debt because of
compulsive shopping, she maintains she is perfectly sane.
Mary was born to southern slaveholders in Kentucky, moved to
Illinois when she was 20 to live with her sister and met Abe at a cotillion.
She lost three sons and her husband, and began to use shopping expeditions to
accumulate things that would "protect" her family, seeing them as
talismans against disaster. In his statement to the "insanity"
lawyer, her son Robert said, "I have no doubt my mother is insane. She has
long been a source of great anxiety to me. She has no home and no reason to
make these purchases."
Mary was eventually released to her sister, and want to Europe
for four years. When her health failed, she returned to her sister’s house,
where she died shortly after seeing her son for the first time since he committed
her.
636 pages
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