Lincoln Book Review: The Shut Mouth Society

 

The Shut Mouth Society is my own Lincoln book. This modern day thriller is a typical chase novel à la Robert Ludlum. The Ludlum formula for this genre has a man and woman oddly meet to be accused of a crime and then chased by good guys and bad guys until they save themselves by unraveling a mystery that threatens social order. In my book, the mystery is a secret society formed after the Civil War that threatens to take control Mexico. The chase is launched when a small town police chief and renowned professor are asked to assess the validity of a pre-presidential document in Lincoln hand. Abe Lincoln is interwoven throughout the story as they must examine his life and motivations to solve the mystery.

I had done an enormous amount of research on Lincoln to craft an exciting story that was also historically accurate. These are book reviews but I’m too biased to rate The Shut Mouth Society as a work of fiction. (However, 405 Amazon readers have given it an average rating of 4.3 and the book was a finalist is the APA Glyph Awards for Best Novel.) This reading was to revisit my Lincoln research for my historical novel Maelstrom. I found no substantive errors. (However, if a set of dialogue begins with something like, “Some historians believe,” then what follows is not necessarily true. It only means that some credentialed authors believe it true. I believe I wrote the story in a manner where a reader will have no difficulty separating historical fact from speculation.)

All of that said, I believe The Shut Mouth Society is a fun way for readers to enjoy a rousing story and obtain a better understanding of our sixteenth president.

Lincoln Book Review: The Myth of the Lost Cause Vs. The Real Lincoln

 

This post deals with two books on the “Lost Cause.”

Thomas J. DiLorenzo presents the case for the Lost Cause in The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War, while Edward H. Bonekemper argues against the Lost Cause in The Myth of the Lost Cause: Why the South Fought the Civil War and Why the North Won.

What is the Lost Cause? The basic tenants are as follows: the War of Northern Aggression had nothing to do with slavery; the South did nothing to provoke war; the Constitution included a right to secede and the South should have been allowed to leave peacefully; antebellum life in the South was prosperous, dignified, and just; slavery was already dying; Robert E. Lee deserved deification, U. S. Grant deserved demonization, the North deserves condemnation for engaging in total war; the South had no chance of winning, and most important of all, Lincoln was a despot who started the war by invading South. 

Basically, the Lost Cause is innocence victimized.

I chose these two specific books because they are both relatively recent (2003 and 2015) and each author presents their respective positions clearly, with entertaining gusto. On which side of this controversy did I land? You can probably guess, but this argument has raged for over one hundred and fifty years and these books will provide all the information you need to make up your own mind.

(These are research books for Maelstrom, a sequel to Tempest at Dawn.)