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

"[A] gripping, balanced, and long-overdue reassessment. . . . Veteran political journalist Romano rehabilitates Mary’s reputation in this impressively researched, emotionally engaging, and shrewdly analytical biography that brings welcome depth to the always fascinating Lincoln canon."

― Booklist (starred review)

"[A] well-researched biography of President Lincoln’s complicated spouse. . . . [Romano] contends that her achievements as a political spouse have been overshadowed by negative press due to contemporary and even present-day misogyny." ― Los Angeles Times

"Lois Romano, a journalist who has reported on several first ladies, sets the record straight in An Inconvenient Widow. . . . [An] exemplary examination of her life." -- Melanie Kirkpatrick ― The Wall Street Journal

"A sensitive, well-researched life of a complicated woman." ― Kirkus Reviews

"Romano writes with grace and empathy to bring depth and dignity to Mary’s story. In a narrative as engrossing as it is illuminating, Romano delivers is a deeply human portrayal of a fiercely intelligent, emotionally layered, and courageous woman—flawed, fragile, and tested by unimaginable tragedy—who was not merely a witness to history, but a full partner in a presidency that altered the course of American history." — Doris Kearns Goodwin, Pulitzer Prize winner and author of Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln

"Here is Mary Lincoln unvarnished: vain, irrational, and selfish one moment; loving, loyal, and clever the next—but always more influential in Abraham Lincoln’s life and work than previously imagined. Romano has plumbed new sources and reanalyzed familiar ones to create a rich portrait worthy of her subject. This book takes its place among the best biographies ever produced about a presidential wife." — Lincoln scholar Harold Holzer, Winner of the Lincoln Prize and author of more than 50 books on Abraham Lincoln

“Romano has given us an engaging and memorable portrait of one of the most fascinating and consequential First Ladies in American history. The book is a reminder of how history is shaped by those in power—and those near it.” — Jon Meacham, author of And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle

“Modern First Ladies could sympathize with the relentless scrutiny and vilification that Mary Todd Lincoln faced, even after enduring wrenching tragedy. She could be inconvenient, yes, but she was also consequential and more complicated than history has been willing to acknowledge. That is, until author Lois Romano’s can’t-put-it-down biography of a signature American life.” — Susan Page, author of The Matriarch: Barbara Bush and the Making of an American Dynasty

"Lois Romano has written the most empathetic and understanding biography of the most important and dismissed American woman of the 19th century. Mary Todd Lincoln was indispensable in the making of the ultimate self-made man. There was no Lincoln without Mary, who chose him in the beginning. Lois Romano reveals the greatest story of a woman of the time—of manners and madness, ambition and ruin, intellectual achievement and sordid scandal, celebrity and scorn, intimacy and abandonment. Here, written in compelling style and with impeccable scholarship, is the whole tale that belongs to the ages." — Sidney Blumenthal, author of The Political Life of Abraham Lincoln