NonfictionIn Conversation

Lois Romano: "An Inconvenient Widow"

Name: Lois Romano: "An Inconvenient Widow"
Start: 2026-09-08T23:00:00+00:00
End: 2026-09-09T00:00:00+00:00
Location: Enoch Pratt Free Library - Central Library, Poe Reading Room

About this event

Lois Romano discusses her New York Times bestselling biography "An Inconvenient Widow: The Torment, Trial and Triumph of Mary Todd Lincoln", in conversation with Baltimore Banner Editor in Chief Audrey Cooper. This Writers LIVE! program is presented both in-person and virtually; registration is required to attend in person, and no registration is needed to watch via the Enoch Pratt Free Library's Facebook or YouTube page. -- Mary Lincoln was at the center of politics at a time when society's expectations for women were rigid and circumscribed. The product of Southern aristocracy, she grew up among an influential clan of politicians and elites who founded Lexington, Kentucky. Mary's early exposure to the male-dominated world of politics instilled in her a keen political acumen and a fierce ambition. Proclaiming as a child that she was destined to become the wife of a president, she played a crucial role in boosting her husband to greatness. But her hopes for a triumphant experience at the pinnacle of power were lost to the Civil War and unfathomable family tragedies. Still, Mary persevered. She steadfastly supported the Union war effort, visited encampments, tended to wounded soldiers, and generously donated money and gifts to refugees from slavery. She was an unconventional, larger-than-life character who made enemies, influential men who wrote her story for her, often unfairly. After Lincoln was assassinated, she was all but abandoned by the nation he had given his life to defend and preserve. Former Washington Post writer and columnist Lois Romano rectifies the tortured legacy of Mary Todd Lincoln, who was failed at nearly every turn in her widowhood, by her family, by her government, by medical professionals ill-equipped to diagnose her mental illness, and finally, by history. Romano draws on hundreds of archives, letters, and memoirs to provide the most complete portrait of a brilliant and flawed woman who possessed uncommon tenacity in the face of extraordinary adversity. (via Enoch Pratt Free Library)

Featured readers

Lois Romano

Lois Romano is a national journalist and New York Times bestselling author who has reported for the Washington Post, Politico, and Newsweek. Her new book, An Inconvenient Widow: The Torment, Trial and Triumph of Mary Todd Lincoln, has earned praise in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and The New Yorker, cementing her place among today's leading biographers.