Thomas Cullinan’s Mrs. Lincoln is a snapshot at one of the lesser-known parts of the history surrounding the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln: the devastating effect it had on his wife, Mary. Ten years after her husband’s death, a bitter Mary Lincoln is hospitalized in a sanitarium in Illinois, haunted by hallucinations and riddled with paranoia. She rejects the wheedling Dr. Patterson’s efforts to treat her and confides only in Sally, an attendant who has a closer connection to the Lincolns than Mary realizes. Merging historical fact with imagination, Cullinan deftly weaves comedy and tragedy to create a delicate portrait of a woman battling a past she can’t let go of and a future she isn’t prepared for.
Mrs. Lincoln guide sections
