The Unfinished Work
In Jeff Shaara’s latest historical outing—and his biggest yet—he tackles three critical years in Abraham Lincoln’s life during America’s most divisive conflict.
At almost six hundred pages, Shaara begins his novel on the eve of Lincoln’s inauguration as president of the United States in 1860, and follows him through the first three years of the Civil War. It concludes after his delivery of the Gettysburg Address in 1863. In between, Shaara packs in an enormous amount of history and uses four different third-person perspectives to tell the story: Lincoln; his wife, Mary; Secretary of State William Seward; and General George B. McClellan.
Shaara is a proven researcher who never misses an opportunity to spotlight the debates and arguments that epitomized Lincoln’s early Cabinet meetings; he also plumbs the depths of Lincoln’s well-known melancholy and depression, especially after the death of his and Mary’s son, Willie, in 1862. The ability to get inside the mind of Lincoln is a daunting task for any writer, whether it is fiction or history, and Shaara does a fair job of it, but this version of Lincoln is unknowable. Perhaps it is a testament to the 16th president’s enigmatic nature. But Shaara’s superlative skill with battle scenes, military drama, and the ins and outs of the Civil War during its first years anchor this human-centered approach to Lincoln. While it does not shed any new light on Lincoln, it is a rousing and absorbing history lesson all the same.
The Unfinished Work is a must read for Civil War fans and Lincoln admirers the world over.
