Stephen Douglas, and many others close-up, involving experience, the
who have come to the exploding sort of vibrant glimpse beneath
frontier town of Springfield to find the veneer of history that only the
their futures. It is through another very best fiction can provide.
friend, a fictional poet, Cage
Weatherby, that we will come to
Rating: 5 stars
know Lincoln in his twenties and
thirties, as a series of formative,
Review:
surprising incidents unfolds—his
service in the Black Hawk War, his A Friend of Mr. Lincoln by Steparticipation in a poetry-writing phen Harrigan is indeed a fabusociety, a challenge to a duel that lous read. Readers will be intensebegins as a farce but quickly rises ly intrigued from page one. Here,
Synopsis:
to lethal potential . . . Cage both readers will see sides of Abraham
admires and clashes with Lincoln, Lincoln that we never really got to
The author of the best-selling The
sometimes questioning his legal see in history books. Readers will
ethics and his cautious stance on follow this story and learn of Mr.
Gates of the Alamo now gives us a
galvanizing portrait of Abraham
Lincoln during a crucially revealing period of his life, the early
Springfield years, when he risked
both his sanity and his ethical
bearings as he searched for the
slavery. But he is by Lincoln’s side Lincoln's friends, good times and
as Lincoln slips back and forth be- bad, as well as who Mr. Lincoln
soul- was inside and out. A brilliant
hollowing sadness and depression, masterpiece that shows readers
tween
high
spirits
and
and as he recovers from a disas- the emotional side of history's
trous courtship of one woman to most famous men. Stephen Harri-
great destiny he believed to be his.
marry the beautiful, capricious, gan has perfectly captured a man
politically savvy Mary Todd. It is we all know. His writing gives
It is Illinois in the 1830s and
Mary who will bring stability to readers an insider's view that not
Lincoln’s life, but who will also only tells but shows them visually
1840s. Abraham Lincoln is a cir-
cuit-riding lawyer, a member of
the state legislature, a man of al-
trigger a conflict that sends the what Mr. Lincoln was like back in
two men on very different paths the 1830's and 1840's. Politicians
most ungovernable ambition. To into the future. Historically accurate, rich in character, filled with
his friends he is also a beloved figthe juice and dreams and raw amure, by turns charmingly awkward
bitions of Americans on the make
and
mesmerizingly
selfin an early frontier city, A Friend
possessed—a man of whom they,
of Mr. Lincoln is a revelatory and
too, expect big things. Among his
moving portrayal of Abraham Linfriends and political colleagues are
coln in his young manhood. It is a
Joshua Speed, William Herndon,
face many ups and downs just like
the rest of us ordinary people. A
Friend of Mr. Lincoln shows a
man's journey as he goes about his
career and becoming the man he's
known for today. It was interesting to find out who Mr. Lincoln's
real historical friends were as well