Abe & Ann: A Novel by Gary Moore (HistFic Virtual Book Tours)

Book Description

Before Abraham Lincoln was a bearded wise man saving democracy, he was young, timid, and hopelessly in love.
ABE & ANN is a novel based on the little-known story of Abraham Lincoln's passionate romance in his twenties. Auburn-haired Ann Rutledge, feisty and fed-up with propriety, is frontier royalty, the 18-year-old daughter of the founder of the rough little frontier village where the 22-year-old Abe Lincoln comes looking for work. She is lively and literate and funny, and Abe is straight off his daddy's farm with jug ears and one change of clothes.

Homely and poor, but full of high ambition, the young Lincoln courts the dazzling red-haired woman who comes into his life like a revelation. In the spell of their feelings, the lovers question the limits in their lives and boldly dream a better future. But she is engaged to another man.

Readers who enjoyed Doris Kearns Goodwin's bestselling Lincoln book Team of Rivals, Steven Spielberg's blockbuster film Lincoln, and George Saunders' Lincoln in the Bardo will marvel again at this very different and compelling tale of Lincoln as a young man.

Not a grand historical treatment but a lyrical telling of a deeply personal tale, ABE & ANN dares to give readers an earnest but untutored Lincoln whose humanity every reader can share, who was weak before he was strong, frightened before he was bold, and deeply in love with a woman who despite their passionate encounters would never be his... or would she?

Author Gary Moore is a playwright and poet who has been making creative use of Abraham Lincoln in drama, poetry, and performance art for more than thirty years. Gary's bilingual musical in Shanghai, The Great Emancipator Meets The Monkey King, introduced rap-music to the People's Republic of China six months before Tiananmen. His play based on that experience, Burning in China, sold out at the 2010 New York International Fringe Festival after being featured in the New York Times and recommended by the New Yorker. ABE & ANN, to be published by Komatik Press in May, 2019, is his first novel.

Praise for ABE & ANN

"I love this book about the young, poverty-stricken, backwoods Abraham Lincoln courting his first love Ann Rutledge with nothing but grammar, the poetry of Byron, and hope. To me, ABE & ANN is quintessential historical fiction because it beautifully and eloquently upends our revered assumptions about a beloved historical figure. Too often, reputation preserves the famous in a fossilized amber that makes us forget the simple truth that people have to grow into those beloved reputations. But here, in ABE & ANN, in glorious, lilting prose, is Lincoln before he became the famous president we revere and thought we knew, in all his uncertain, love-struck, ambitious, underprivileged youth, wrapped in desire and struggling to find his way in the world."

Robin Oliveira, New York Times bestselling author of My Name is Mary Sutter and winner of the Michael Shaara Prize in Civil War Fiction in 2010. Before Abraham Lincoln was a bearded wise man saving democracy, he was young, timid, and hopelessly in love.
ABE & ANN is a novel based on the little-known story of Abraham Lincoln's passionate romance in his twenties. Auburn-haired Ann Rutledge, feisty and fed-up with propriety, is frontier royalty, the 18-year-old daughter of the founder of the rough little frontier village where the 22-year-old Abe Lincoln comes looking for work. She is lively and literate and funny, and Abe is straight off his daddy's farm with jug ears and one change of clothes.

Homely and poor, but full of high ambition, the young Lincoln courts the dazzling red-haired woman who comes into his life like a revelation. In the spell of their feelings, the lovers question the limits in their lives and boldly dream a better future. But she is engaged to another man.

Readers who enjoyed Doris Kearns Goodwin's bestselling Lincoln book Team of Rivals, Steven Spielberg's blockbuster film Lincoln, and George Saunders' Lincoln in the Bardo will marvel again at this very different and compelling tale of Lincoln as a young man.

Not a grand historical treatment but a lyrical telling of a deeply personal tale, ABE & ANN dares to give readers an earnest but untutored Lincoln whose humanity every reader can share, who was weak before he was strong, frightened before he was bold, and deeply in love with a woman who despite their passionate encounters would never be his... or would she?

Author Gary Moore is a playwright and poet who has been making creative use of Abraham Lincoln in drama, poetry, and performance art for more than thirty years. Gary's bilingual musical in Shanghai, The Great Emancipator Meets The Monkey King, introduced rap-music to the People's Republic of China six months before Tiananmen. His play based on that experience, Burning in China, sold out at the 2010 New York International Fringe Festival after being featured in the New York Times and recommended by the New Yorker. ABE & ANN, to be published by Komatik Press in May, 2019, is his first novel.

Praise for ABE & ANN

"I love this book about the young, poverty-stricken, backwoods Abraham Lincoln courting his first love Ann Rutledge with nothing but grammar, the poetry of Byron, and hope. To me, ABE & ANN is quintessential historical fiction because it beautifully and eloquently upends our revered assumptions about a beloved historical figure. Too often, reputation preserves the famous in a fossilized amber that makes us forget the simple truth that people have to grow into those beloved reputations. But here, in ABE & ANN, in glorious, lilting prose, is Lincoln before he became the famous president we revere and thought we knew, in all his uncertain, love-struck, ambitious, underprivileged youth, wrapped in desire and struggling to find his way in the world."

Robin Oliveira, New York Times bestselling author of My Name is Mary Sutter and winner of the Michael Shaara Prize in Civil War Fiction in 2010. Before Abraham Lincoln was a bearded wise man saving democracy, he was young, timid, and hopelessly in love.

ABE & ANN is a novel based on the little-known story of Abraham Lincoln's passionate romance in his twenties. Auburn-haired Ann Rutledge, feisty and fed-up with propriety, is frontier royalty, the 18-year-old daughter of the founder of the rough little frontier village where the 22-year-old Abe Lincoln comes looking for work. She is lively and literate and funny, and Abe is straight off his daddy's farm with jug ears and one change of clothes.

Homely and poor, but full of high ambition, the young Lincoln courts the dazzling red-haired woman who comes into his life like a revelation. In the spell of their feelings, the lovers question the limits in their lives and boldly dream a better future. But she is engaged to another man.

Readers who enjoyed Doris Kearns Goodwin's bestselling Lincoln book Team of Rivals, Steven Spielberg's blockbuster film Lincoln, and George Saunders' Lincoln in the Bardo will marvel again at this very different and compelling tale of Lincoln as a young man.

Not a grand historical treatment but a lyrical telling of a deeply personal tale, ABE & ANN dares to give readers an earnest but untutored Lincoln whose humanity every reader can share, who was weak before he was strong, frightened before he was bold, and deeply in love with a woman who despite their passionate encounters would never be his... or would she?

Author Gary Moore is a playwright and poet who has been making creative use of Abraham Lincoln in drama, poetry, and performance art for more than thirty years. Gary's bilingual musical in Shanghai, The Great Emancipator Meets The Monkey King, introduced rap-music to the People's Republic of China six months before Tiananmen. His play based on that experience, Burning in China, sold out at the 2010 New York International Fringe Festival after being featured in the New York Times and recommended by the New Yorker. ABE & ANN, to be published by Komatik Press in May, 2019, is his first novel.

Praise for ABE & ANN

"I love this book about the young, poverty-stricken, backwoods Abraham Lincoln courting his first love Ann Rutledge with nothing but grammar, the poetry of Byron, and hope. To me, ABE & ANN is quintessential historical fiction because it beautifully and eloquently upends our revered assumptions about a beloved historical figure. Too often, reputation preserves the famous in a fossilized amber that makes us forget the simple truth that people have to grow into those beloved reputations. But here, in ABE & ANN, in glorious, lilting prose, is Lincoln before he became the famous president we revere and thought we knew, in all his uncertain, love-struck, ambitious, underprivileged youth, wrapped in desire and struggling to find his way in the world."

Robin Oliveira, New York Times bestselling author of My Name is Mary Sutter and winner of the Michael Shaara Prize in Civil War Fiction in 2010. 

My thoughts:

The cover caught my eye immediately but it is the subject matter that really made me want to read this novel.  Gary Moore is a new to me author so I liked that, too because I never know when I will find an author who will become a new favorite of mine.

I was unfamiliar with the story of Abe and Ann and truthfully, I knew very little about Ann Rutledge and their time together.  I commend the author on the research that went into writing their story.  It was interesting getting to know a younger, unsure of himself, Abe Lincoln.  I have to admit to liking Ann much more than I expected I would because I thought Abe would be my favorite. It's safe to say that I liked them separately and together.  This is a short and interesting read where I met about a young woman who became very important to a man who would become President on day.

I received a complimentary copy of this book  and was under no obligation to write a favorable review.  Opinions are my own.