Finding the Real Abraham Lincoln Through Fiction

‘The Unfinished Work: A Novel of Abraham Lincoln’By Jeff ShaaraSt. Martin’s Press, 592 pages‘Boss Lincoln: The Partisan Life of Abraham Lincoln’By Matthew PinskerW.W. Norton, 576 pagesPerhaps you have encountered the comment “I don’t read fiction. I’m only interested in what is true.” I have heard as much many times, often said to me by businessmen. Fiction may seem an indulgence, a bit of fancy, and especially bothersome when it includes the factual, so that it is often asked: “What is true and what is not?”Set aside the rebuttal that even in non-fiction, it is not always easy to separate fact from interpretation that almost amounts to fiction. Consider that perhaps fiction actually reinforces the work of non-fiction, as Jeff Shaara does in the first paragraph of “The Unfinished Work: A Novel of Abraham Lincoln”:“Springfield, Illinois—November 7, 1860He was walking quickly, didn’t see the patch of slick mud, slipped down, one knee impacting. He stood up straight, gathered himself, as much as that was possible. Just slow down, he thought. He moved past the mud, his steps more deliberate now. In the distance, the town’s gaslights were still glowing, mostly toward the main square. Closer, it was mostly dark, and he held a lantern high enough to illuminate the area around him. In the distance was a cluster of dark figures, and he heard laughter, a small piece of the celebration that was spreading all through the town. Amazing, he thought. Isn’t anybody in bed? Most of those folks know me, I suppose. I appreciate their good tidings, their kind wishes. I wonder if any of those people really understand what it means to become president of the United States? It would be helpful if they would tell me.”Lincoln did, at times, seem genuinely perplexed by his election to high office, afraid that he would make a slip, and muddy himself. But the best line in the paragraph is the last, reminiscent of all those times at the White House as ordinary and not so ordinary citizens — like Herman Melville, for instance — got to shake the President’s hand and perhaps convey to Lincoln a little of what the public could tell him about his job.Compare Mr. Shaara’s first paragraph with Matthew Pinsker’s:“One of the first depictions of Abraham Lincoln in the national press mocked him as little more than a country politician. In the summer of 1847, the Boston Courier sent a special correspondent, Joseph H. Buckingham, to cover the Chicago River and Harbor Convention, a political gathering organized in the fastgrowing city on Lake Michigan. One of Buckingham’s more memorable reports detailed the aftermath of the convention, when he took a daylong stagecoach trip through the Illinois prairie with two of the state’s top delegates: Robert Smith, an incumbent Democratic congressman representing an Illinois district across the river from St. Louis, and the thirty-eight-year-old Lincoln, a member of the rival Whig party and recently elected as congressman from the district around Springfield. Buckingham found the banter of these politicians tiresome and seemed to reserve special ridicule for Lincoln, whom he did not identify by name. ‘We are now in the district represented by our Whig congressman,’ the reporter sniffed as they approached the state capital, ‘and he knew, or appeared to know, every body we met, the name of the tenant of every farm-house and the owner of every plat of ground.’ With disdain, Buckingham added, ‘Such a shaking of hands—such a how-d’ye-do—such a greeting of different kinds, as we saw, was never seen before; it seemed as if he knew every thing, and he had a kind word, a smile and a bow for every body on the road, even to the horses and the cattle, and the swine.’”In fact, as Mr. Pinsker points out, Lincoln had made the unusual decision not to attend a convention revising his state’s constitution. The reporter did not recognize this “pivotal moment” in Lincoln’s rise as a party leader, ingratiating himself with his fellow Whigs.The best fiction and non-fiction in biographies and novels converge to bring the past to life in ways neither can achieve alone.Mr. Rollyson’s ‘Making the American Presidency: How Biographers Shape History’ will be published on Presidents’ Day 2027. He is at work on a biography of Herman Melville.

Finding the Real Abraham Lincoln Through Fiction

Finding the Real Abraham Lincoln Through Fiction

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