Lincoln's Speechwriter

I’ll admit: I approached *Lincoln’s Speechwriter* skeptical that yet another Lincoln-adjacent book could offer anything fresh. But within 20 minutes, I was hooked—not by Lincoln, but by John Hay, the brilliant, petty, and occasionally insufferable young man whose fingerprints are all over the Gettysburg Address. Hartman’s research is meticulous, but she wears it lightly, weaving Hay’s private letters into the narrative with a novelist’s timing. The real revelation, though, is Kate Udall’s narration. She nails Hay’s voice: by turns wry, exhausted, and self-importantly dramatic, especially when reading his snide asides about Cabinet members. (Her rendition of Hay’s eye-roll-inducing description of Seward as a “greasy old fox” is a standout.) The audiobook’s pacing is deliberate, almost leisurely in the first act as it sets up Hay’s unlikely rise, but the payoff comes in the second half, when the stakes skyrocket—drafting the Emancipation Proclamation under deadline, massaging Lincoln’s folksy metaphors into something statesmanlike. My only critique? The production occasionally leans too hard on dramatic pauses during Lincoln’s speeches, which can feel over-directed. And while Hartman excels at humanizing Hay, she sometimes skims over the ethical murk of his role: How much of Lincoln’s “voice” was actually Hay’s? Still, this is a rare political biography that’s as entertaining as it is illuminating. If you’ve ever wondered how sausage—or in this case, history—gets made, this is your backstage pass.