An interview with Abraham Lincoln

Our 16th president, himself a skilled storyteller who used yarns and hyperbole to great effect as a lawyer and politician, would have admired what Wade Hall has achieved in the slim, imaginative volume that is not quite biography but isn't exactly made up, either. In "An Interview with Abraham Lincoln", Hall creates a fictional interviewer, who allows the president to tell his own story in his own words, a story that is selectively woven from his speeches, letters, and proclamations, all in the historical record. As Hall explains in the introductory note, every statement in the book is factual except for the existence of Shelby Grider, the young ex-soldier turned journalist who "interviews" Lincoln in the White House on April 1, 1865. Through Hall's literary device we are given an account of Lincoln's life and character that sweeps movingly and concisely across his humble origins, his self-education, his family life, his beliefs and motivations, and which conveys an understanding of the enormous burden Lincoln experienced in holding the nation together during its greatest crisis. Thousands of books have been written on Abraham Lincoln, but few have conveyed the essence of the man and what he means to history as poignantly and as well as this little gem from Wade Hall. A chronology at the back of the book summarizes the key events of Lincoln's life.

Year

2010

Language

English

Publisher

NewSouth Books

Editions

1

Pages

88

ISBN

9781588382566

Data source: Wikidata