The Emancipator's Wife

The Emancipator's Wife by Barbara Hambly

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
The Emancipator's Wife is a fictionalized biography of Mary Todd Lincoln. Rather than paint her as someone whose mental illness encompasses her entire personality, the book portrays Mrs. Lincoln as someone who is witty and intelligent and truly struggles with the way her mental illness impacts her life.

Author Barbara Hambly takes into account the many other factors that could have come into play to explain Mary Lincoln's unstable behavior, not the least of which were the drugs that were rampant in unregulated "women's cordials" that Mrs. Lincoln was known to have taken. Nineteenth century mental health care was as unscientific as much of the medical care of the time, for those who were well to do enough to afford any at all.

The privileged life led by Mary Todd Lincoln is juxtaposed with the life of another woman similarly affected by mental illness--a fictional black woman whose son's first hand experience in dealing with the behavior brought on by her mental illness leads him to work in Bellevue, the sanitarium that Mary is placed in after Robert Lincoln asks the court to declare her insane.

Hambly ends the book by pointing to sexism as a key reason for society's lack of tolerance of "eccentric" behavior in women, when men's place of power in the community protects them from similar isolating treatment.

In the Epilogue Hambly explains her research and authorship decisions in a broad but satisfying way.

Excellent book!




View all my reviews.

The Emancipator's Wife

The Emancipator's Wife by Barbara Hambly

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
The Emancipator's Wife is a fictionalized biography of Mary Todd Lincoln. Rather than paint her as someone whose mental illness encompasses her entire personality, the book portrays Mrs. Lincoln as someone who is witty and intelligent and truly struggles with the way her mental illness impacts her life.

Author Barbara Hambly takes into account the many other factors that could have come into play to explain Mary Lincoln's unstable behavior, not the least of which were the drugs that were rampant in unregulated "women's cordials" that Mrs. Lincoln was known to have taken. Nineteenth century mental health care was as unscientific as much of the medical care of the time, for those who were well to do enough to afford any at all.

The privileged life led by Mary Todd Lincoln is juxtaposed with the life of another woman similarly affected by mental illness--a fictional black woman whose son's first hand experience in dealing with the behavior brought on by her mental illness leads him to work in Bellevue, the sanitarium that Mary is placed in after Robert Lincoln asks the court to declare her insane.

Hambly ends the book by pointing to sexism as a key reason for society's lack of tolerance of "eccentric" behavior in women, when men's place of power in the community protects them from similar isolating treatment.

In the Epilogue Hambly explains her research and authorship decisions in a broad but satisfying way.

Excellent book!




View all my reviews.

I Found My Thrill

One of my pet peeves is people who put unnecessary quotation marks around words. Now, there is a blog dedicated to such perplexing punctuation mistakes--The "Blog" of "Unnecessary" Quotation Marks.

Quotation marks around a word or phrase that do not indicate a person speaking, are used to indicate irony. When people use them instead, for emphasis, interpreting the supposed ironic meaning behind the quotes can be a hilarious venture.

This is the idea behind The "Blog" of "Unnecessary" Quotation Marks. Bethany Keeley, the blog's author, likes to reinterpret the meaning of signs that misuse quotation marks and speculate about their supposed irony.

One of my favorite misuses of quotation marks is when stores put their sale signs in quotes. So...its not really a sale? You are admitting that you jacked up the price artificially so that your "sale" is not really a sale? Because, that's what you are saying when you put "sale" in quotes.

Anyway, stop by Bethany's blog and have a laugh at the misused quotes.

The "sale" pic above is from The "Blog" of "Unnecessary" Quotation Marks.

I Found My Thrill

One of my pet peeves is people who put unnecessary quotation marks around words. Now, there is a blog dedicated to such perplexing punctuation mistakes--The "Blog" of "Unnecessary" Quotation Marks.

Quotation marks around a word or phrase that do not indicate a person speaking, are used to indicate irony. When people use them instead, for emphasis, interpreting the supposed ironic meaning behind the quotes can be a hilarious venture.

This is the idea behind The "Blog" of "Unnecessary" Quotation Marks. Bethany Keeley, the blog's author, likes to reinterpret the meaning of signs that misuse quotation marks and speculate about their supposed irony.

One of my favorite misuses of quotation marks is when stores put their sale signs in quotes. So...its not really a sale? You are admitting that you jacked up the price artificially so that your "sale" is not really a sale? Because, that's what you are saying when you put "sale" in quotes.

Anyway, stop by Bethany's blog and have a laugh at the misused quotes.

The "sale" pic above is from The "Blog" of "Unnecessary" Quotation Marks.

He plays piano as well!

Here is a video of Fred Astaire playing piano (after stopping to tune it!) The dance to "I'm Putting All My Eggs in one Basket" with Ginger Rogers follows.

He plays piano as well!

Here is a video of Fred Astaire playing piano (after stopping to tune it!) The dance to "I'm Putting All My Eggs in one Basket" with Ginger Rogers follows.

Schlom Lecht Maryam.

In honor of today's Solemnity of the Annunciation, I am posting this chant. This is the Ave Maria (Hail Mary) in Syriac, a dialect of Arabic, the language spoken by Jesus and Mary. The Hail Mary is taken mainly from the angel Gabriel's words to Mary at the Annunciation in the Gospel of Luke.