Doris Kearns Goodwin: She set out to write a different book
Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln reached bookstores only a few weeks ago, but author Doris Kearns Goodwin is already experiencing symptoms of withdrawal from her subject.
"I've been living with Mr. Lincoln for a decade and could easily have stayed with him for another 10 years without being bored or feeling I had him all figured out," she said in advance of her Columbus visit for a Thurber House event.
"Ida Tarbell (author of The Life of Abraham Lincoln ) said the reason there were so many books about Lincoln is that he was so companionable.
"But he was so kind, so sensitive, so intelligent. It is hard for me to imagine leaving this period in history."
In a review of Team of Rivals , New York Times book reviewer Michiko Kakutani complained that the book "belongs to the hagiographic tradition" and that Goodwin "skims lightly over her subject's more pragmatic political maneuverings and his troubling utterances about race."
Yet such a judgment seems facile.
In the first half of her biography, Goodwin explores the relationships among the candidates for the 1860 Republican nomination to the presidency: Lincoln, Edward Bates, Salmon P. Chase of Ohio and William H. Seward.
What's remarkable is that Lincoln made the three others members of his cabinet -- the topic of the second half.
A few questions were posed to the author:
Q: Didn't you initially think you might write about Abraham Lincoln and Mary Todd Lincoln in the same way you wrote about Franklin D. and Eleanor Roosevelt?
A: I wanted to learn more about Lincoln and the Civil War, and it was sort of a leap of faith thinking that I could find some new angle so that I wouldn't be telling the same story again in the same way.
I thought I might write about Abe and Mary in the same way I wrote about Franklin and Eleanor. But Mary couldn't hold up the public side of the story the way Eleanor could. They weren't a political team.
I came to realize that, during the tense and agonizing years of the war, Lincoln was more married to his rivals than he was to Mary. And they were such fascinating characters in their own rights. That's when I knew I'd found a story.
Q: You concentrate on the nature of male relationships in the 19th century -- which were unlike those of today.
A: There's a letter in which Seward apologizes to one of his mentors for "my womanish feelings toward you."
I think the sexes were kept so separate by convention that both men and women were more free to express their emotions to one another. It's led to a lot of hypothesizing that this or that 19th-century figure was gay. But I don't think that's it....
"I've been living with Mr. Lincoln for a decade and could easily have stayed with him for another 10 years without being bored or feeling I had him all figured out," she said in advance of her Columbus visit for a Thurber House event.
"Ida Tarbell (author of The Life of Abraham Lincoln ) said the reason there were so many books about Lincoln is that he was so companionable.
"But he was so kind, so sensitive, so intelligent. It is hard for me to imagine leaving this period in history."
In a review of Team of Rivals , New York Times book reviewer Michiko Kakutani complained that the book "belongs to the hagiographic tradition" and that Goodwin "skims lightly over her subject's more pragmatic political maneuverings and his troubling utterances about race."
Yet such a judgment seems facile.
In the first half of her biography, Goodwin explores the relationships among the candidates for the 1860 Republican nomination to the presidency: Lincoln, Edward Bates, Salmon P. Chase of Ohio and William H. Seward.
What's remarkable is that Lincoln made the three others members of his cabinet -- the topic of the second half.
A few questions were posed to the author:
Q: Didn't you initially think you might write about Abraham Lincoln and Mary Todd Lincoln in the same way you wrote about Franklin D. and Eleanor Roosevelt?
A: I wanted to learn more about Lincoln and the Civil War, and it was sort of a leap of faith thinking that I could find some new angle so that I wouldn't be telling the same story again in the same way.
I thought I might write about Abe and Mary in the same way I wrote about Franklin and Eleanor. But Mary couldn't hold up the public side of the story the way Eleanor could. They weren't a political team.
I came to realize that, during the tense and agonizing years of the war, Lincoln was more married to his rivals than he was to Mary. And they were such fascinating characters in their own rights. That's when I knew I'd found a story.
Q: You concentrate on the nature of male relationships in the 19th century -- which were unlike those of today.
A: There's a letter in which Seward apologizes to one of his mentors for "my womanish feelings toward you."
I think the sexes were kept so separate by convention that both men and women were more free to express their emotions to one another. It's led to a lot of hypothesizing that this or that 19th-century figure was gay. But I don't think that's it....