Lynne Withey

Here's what I wrote in 2008 about this read: "More great reading about the founding of America from the dedicated letter writers John and Abigail Adams. She was a much a founding parent as he, definitely influencing his thinking and actions. From amazon.com online review: "This book chronicles their remarkable marriage, her blossoming feminism, her battles with the loneliness of separation, and her friendships with Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and other giants of her time. Intelligent, resourceful, and outspoken, Abigail Adams lived an uncommon life for a woman of her time. First published in 1981, Dearest Friend brings her legacy to our century""… (mehr)

Owning this book was sort of an accident. I had put a book called My Dearest Friend on my wishlist -- it was supposed to be largely just the collected letters between Abigail and John Adams. Andrew had made a list of the books on my wishlist and headed to a local bookstore and picked this up instead, thinking he'd gotten the book on my list. Oh, well. It was still very sweet!

This is more a straight-up biography, of course largely based on those letters, among other things, and sometimes containing excerpts from those letters. It seemed promising, with a lovely quote on the front from The Boston Globe of all places, saying it was "as lively, sensible, and forthright as the woman about whom it is written..." Personally, I would drop the word "lively" from the description. At times this book was so dry that the only thing that kept me reading was how excessively interested in Abigail Adams I have been from the beginning.

I acknowledge that I may have made the author's task more difficult by an over-familiarity with the subject. The basic details of her life I already know -- from 1776 and the John Adams mini-series, among other places. Every once in a while, Dearest Friend would sputter into life, and I would sit up, feeling like I was getting a truer glimpse into the details of Abigail's life -- a feeling for what it really must have been like to live that life. Then it would fade back into what seemed like a dry recitation of "and then this happened, and then this...."

I am probably being overly harsh on this poor book. Maybe the quote on the cover jaded me. Maybe I just wanted too deeply to be swept away with love for Abigail. Certainly I read the entire book with interest. But still, I want the book that was originally on my list.… (mehr)