Lincoln

In Gore Vidal's 1988 LINCOLN, the story of the Civil War president is told mostly from John Hay's point of view. The last in Vidal's tetralogy of US political novels (WASHINGTON DC, BURR, and 1876 are the others), LINCOLN provides a nuanced picture of the president universally considered great. Here, Lincoln is very much a calculating politician, and his greatness comes with difficulty: he agonizes over every decision, and is deeply ambivalent about the issue of slavery that divided the country during his administration. At the same time, Lincoln's personal life is tumultuous: his young son dies, his Southern wife complicates his position, and her mental health deteriorates. Throughout, Vidal presents Lincoln as a conflicted, often tormented, but unfailingly honorable man.