The House of Lincoln

The Confederacy surrendered in 1865, but this historical novel from Horan (Under the Wide and Starry Sky; Loving Frank) proves that the Civil War has not yet ended. The author’s previous works delved into the lives of two Americans, while this novel stretches across a wide spectrum of United States history from 1851 to 1909. Through the eyes of two 11-year-old girls—Ana, who’s white, and Cal, who’s Black—Horan tracks life in Springfield, IL, as Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln take up their White House destiny. Ana (whose family fled persecution in Portugal) and Cal (whose aunt hides from the gangs hunting freedom-seeking enslaved peopled in Kentucky) both work in the Lincoln household and eventually move on. The book is studded with cameos of historic characters like Mary Todd Lincoln’s sisters, but the more rousing emotions are conveyed piercingly through Cal and Ana and the people who love them. Anguish in the racial conflicts, tragedy in the casualties of the battlefield, budding romances—all come through with touching grace and empathy. Closing with the horrendous Springfield Riot of 1908 that reopened the wounds from the Civil War, the narrative’s end offers a grim foreshadowing of the racial strife of the 20th century.