Henry and Clara

Rating:
Summary: So SLOW!
Review: I really tried hard to get into this book; the subject sounded very interesting. I even took another reviewer's advice and skipped ahead to the assasination (after forcing myself through the first third of the book), but try as I might, I couldn't get into this book. The characters were dull and the story boring. I was immediately drawn in by the prologue, but then the story went nowhere quickly. The part about the assasination was interesting, but the monotony quickly took back over soon after. It is unlike me to not finish a book once I'm already halfway into it, but I just can't seem to muster up the desire to stick it out. I think I'll just skip to the epilogue and see what happened during all those dull pages.

Rating:
Summary: Innocent Bystanders
Review: Last year I visited Washington DC for the first time. I walked for hours and hours. And I was charmed, as I never expected that I would be. Soon thereafter, I read Henry & Clara - a novelization of real people and events.

Henry and Clara Rathbone - two people who grew up together in the pre-civil war era. Henry went to war; was damaged by war. Clara fell in love - with Henry, with politics, with Washington. What would their story have been like without the war? By the time they came together in marriage, their interests and goals in life had diverged. Clara's interests drove them to Washington where she befriended the troubled Mary Todd Lincoln.

Most beguiling are the descriptions of Washington as a small southern town. Clara crossing the square in front of her house to the White House across the street; meeting up with Robert Lincoln in the park. The carriage rides and salons. In that time, the President and family lived in and were part of a neighborhood .

Look at any picture of a momentous event, of famous people. Who are the people in the background? The other people who were there? A hundred years from now, looking at a picture of the motorcade in Dallas, will we know that was Nellie Connelly in the car with the Kennedys? Henry and Clara were at the theater, in the box with the Lincolns that night when John Wilkes Booth struck. What happens to people who experience such trauma? People who, in memory, replay in slow motion the events of the evening until their lives resound with could have beens, would have beens, if onlys, maybes and guilty wishes coming true. Did I wish it? Did I want it? Could I have done something? Should I have done something? Did I even want to do something?

It is a book about loss as much as anything else. Mrs. Lincoln lost her husband. The nation lost its innocence. Henry lost his way and finally lost his mind. Clara lost her dreams and finally lost her life. And what was the real trigger? The war? The assassination? Conflicting goals in the marriage? The sweep of events that was too momentous to survive? Who and what died in the theater box that night? I think it was more than just Lincoln


Rating:
Summary: Post Traumatic Syndrome, Historical Fiction Style
Review: Mallon writes about Clara Harris and Henry Rathbone, the last-minute couple that shared the Lincolns' box at Ford's Theater that fateful night in 1865. Their lives are remarkable beyond this historical footnote, with their scandalous engagement and marriage (they were stepbrother and stepsister raised from a young age ) to the unforunate mental problems of Henry later in life due to the stress of being in the Civil War and also witnessing the murder of Pres. Lincoln.

Mallon does a good job of giving a feeling of decent into madness of a proud family, but lacks a bit in the historical liveliness of the period. The forced mentionings of the presidents of the various eras and the descriptions of witty historical nuances do little to bring the era alive for the era. In fact, the third part of the book could have taken place anytime, anywhere else.

The tale itself is interesting, and gives a tragic and surprising end; it's a shame mallon didn't do the story justice though. Also, a better author's note about what was real and what was not would have been appreciated.

Rating:
Summary: Wonderful Writer
Review: Reading this book is like watching the Titanic. Throughout the story, you feel a sense of dread and you hope, maybe, just maybe, the inevitable may change.

This book is a quick read and gives you a good flavor of civil life during the Civil War. After reading a number of Civil War "battle" books, this story was a refreshing observation of the events. I use the word "refreshing" only to describe the perspective. The characters themselves are a bit depressing. The story does take a while to pick up. However, Thomas Mallon does a good job describing the Washington in the 1860s.

Rating:
Summary: Good Plot, Bad Ending
Review: The book, Henry and Clara, written by Thomas Mallon, is about the couple who sat with the Lincolns on the night of Abraham Lincoln's assasination. Lovers from the ages of young teenagers, the basic plot is about Henry and Clara trying to convince Clara's father for them to marry, while Ira Harris (father) keeps putting it off longer and longer.
The basic plot of this book was very imaginative and could be useful to people curious about Lincoln's assasination, though it lacked depth. In some parts of the book, it was horribly slow, and most of the military information really was not necessary. In the end, Thomas Mallon was most likely trying to speed up the writing process to get his book off to the publisher because the ending was the worst I have ever read IN MY LIFE.
Though it was a fairly decent plot, it would be stretching the limits to give this book a rating of any more than a three because of the dullness in parts, occasional lack of description and terrible ending.

Rating:
Summary: Historical Facts and Modern Perceptions
Review: This is a book of historical fiction, and the author makes it quite plain in his notes that although he used facts where possible, he filled in the many holes in the story with fiction. Nowhere does he ever claim that the book is a documentary of absolute fact. That said, I still felt like the overall historical feeling should have been authentic, and it was not.

A constant theme throughout the entire story was the horror of a romance between step-siblings. To modern readers the idea is gross, but marriages between step-siblings were not taboo in Victorian times. Step-sibling marriages kept family money within the family when the wealthy were involved. It also reinforced family ties so that parents were insured care during their elderly years without the chance of step-children abandoning a step-parent after the death of the biological parent (something to consider in the days before welfare or social security).

The author includes pre-marital sexual encounters between Henry and Clara. Fine by today's standards, but it is very unlikely that a Victorian woman would have consented to sex at a time when a kiss was enough to ruin a reputation - and especially for someone in Clara's position. Pregnancy would have been a risk, and an out-of-wedlock pregnancy would not only have ruined Henry's future, but would have ended the political career of Clara's father as well.

Not knowing much about Henry and Clara myself, I had read the book hoping to get more insight into their lives. Instead of enjoying a book of historical fiction, I found a book that used some historical facts to weave a tale full of modern perceptions.

Rating:
Summary: Highly informative & entertaining historical fiction
Review: This is a great read for anyone interested in good literature, or history, especially for those who are civil war buffs. It is a wonderful period novel, giving the reader a good sense of the culture and society of the era. The characters are well developed and absorbing, paritcularly the intracicies and psychological complexities of Henry Rathbone and Clara Harris (guests of Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln at Ford's Theater on that fateful night.) I found the subject highly intriguing and fascinating, the examination of the impact of Lincoln's assination on Henry and Clara as individuals and as a couple. There are many historical facts in this novel, and it is fun to sort out fact from fantasy. The novel is a complete offering, providing a great narrative, depth, social and psychological study, and suspense as well. I found it very difficult to put this book down.

Rating:
Summary: Riveting look at a forgotten episode of history.
Review: This is simply one of the best books I have ever read, and I've been recommending it to people ever since I first read it. I've even been known to grab people in bookstores and convince them to buy it.

These are not 20th century people dressed in funny clothes. They are real, live, breathing 19th century people come to life. I think too many of us have read too many bad historical novels or seen too many Hollywood films to recognize the aura of truth when it appears.

The simple facts of Henry and Clara Rathbone's lives are interesting enough. Raised together as stepbrother and stepsister after his mother married her father, they fell in love, and had to battle social conventions to marry. They had the supreme ill fortune to be with President and Mrs Lincoln on that terrible night when the President was assassinated, and forever after Henry Rathbone was blamed for not preventing the murder.. His descent into madness and its terrible effect on Clara and their marriage is well presented.

In the end, what eventually happened to them is revealed. I found myself reading the last thirty or so pages with my mouth open in astonishment. I'd never heard of these two, and yet they were a footnote to history we should all know about.

Thomas Mallon is the rare writer who can bring an era to life. He puts us inside the minds and souls of the people who lived long ago. They are like us, and yet not like us. They grew up and came of age in a completely different world, and he shows us both their similarities and differences to us, to our time.