'Abigail & John,' by Edith B. Gelles
Published 4:00 am, Sunday, May 24, 2009
Abigail & John
Portrait of a Marriage
By Edith B. Gelles
(William Morrow; 339 pages; $26.99)
In recent years, both John Adams and his wife, Abigail Smith Adams, have been the subject of numerous biographies. Most notably, of course, David McCullough's "John Adams," and the HBO mini-series based on the book, resuscitated the life and accomplishments of the stalwart revolutionary and second president of the United States, for a modern audience. Abigail has had her own biographies, including previous works by Edith B. Gelles, that revealed the intelligence, wit, forbearance and patriotism that made John so enamored of his wife.
Given the close relationship between the two, the biographies of each individual often featured at least a glimpse of the other spouse. Yet biographies of John have tended to concentrate on the political narrative, while biographies of Abigail usually focus on family, children and domestic life. Gelles' "Abigail & John" does something different, bringing the two strands together in a dual biography that shows how their lives connected, diverged and reconnected over time. Her work captures the centrality of a partnership that lasted more than 50 years, produced four living children, and defined each one's identity more than any other relationship.
Invoking John's words, Gelles describes their attraction toward one another in terms of the pull between "the Steel and the Magnet." Over the years, this attraction persisted, deepened and endured despite, or perhaps because of, many trials and separations. As John took on increasingly burdensome responsibilities relating to the independence movement, Abigail was left to assume the tasks of rearing the children, overseeing the farm and managing the family finances with little help from her husband. For almost a decade from 1774 to 1784, they essentially lived separate lives, punctuated only by John's short visits home. These reunions were sometimes long enough to produce another pregnancy. Recounting an amazing incident, Gelles notes that Abigail once composed a letter to her absent husband during the throes of labor and while giving birth to a daughter who was stillborn. Despite these difficulties, both John and Abigail somehow continued to regard each other as their dearest friend and closest confidant.
Gelles, a senior scholar at Stanford's Michelle R. Clayman Institute for Gender Research, points out that such closeness was possible only because both partners eventually bought into what she calls "the family myth," the idea that John's participation, first at the Continental Congress, then in diplomatic missions abroad, and later as vice president and president, was absolutely essential to the success of the American cause. This view both justified John's extended absences from home and rationalized Abigail's sufferings as part of her larger patriotic duty. It alleviated his guilt and remedied her dissatisfaction with the status quo.
Over time, the myth also contributed to John's growing sense of victimization and willingness to believe himself a martyr to the public good. This development, while perhaps necessary to preserve the Adams' domestic peace, no doubt contributed to John's willingness to sign the notorious piece of legislation known as the Alien and Sedition Acts, which has done so much to tarnish his historical reputation.
Gelles does a brilliant job of weaving the personal, political and social details into a seamless narrative. Her juxtaposition of Abigail's and John's lives yields many startling new insights. For example, although historians have made much of the resumption of correspondence in 1812 between Adams and his old rival, Thomas Jefferson, they have failed to explain why at this particular moment John was willing to bury the hatchet. Gelles proposes a new theory. A series of family catastrophes in the Adams household, she says, including his daughter's battle with breast cancer, may have given John an intimation of his own mortality and led him to mend fences with his old adversary.
Only an historian with Gelles' deep understanding of both of her subjects, and of the larger historical context, could make such a fascinating, and entirely plausible, intellectual leap. In a crowded field, Gelles' work stands out as a sympathetic yet balanced portrait of a marriage that is unique in the annals of American political history.