... lively chapters designed to discredit the possibility that the Lincoln marriage was happy, functional or loving.

... provocative, compulsively readable.

While Burlingame makes a considerable effort to recast the historiography of the marriage, his aim appears to be rehabilitating Lincoln’s image and casting doubt on the legacy of Todd...More time could have been spent detailing the effects of Todd’s difficult childhood or the deaths of her three of her four children.

Readers will be informed and disheartened as they read page after page of dismal reports from Lincoln’s Springfield neighbors and colleagues about Mary’s tantrums, which often drove him to spend the night in his office.

... detailed.