The House of Lincoln: A Conversation with Nancy Horan

The Book Stall (811 Elm Street in Winnetka) is delighted to host acclaimed author Nancy Horan on Thursday, June 8 at 6:30 pm, for a discussion featuring her new historical novel, The House of Lincoln! The author of the New York Times bestseller Loving Frank returns with a sweeping story of Abraham Lincoln’s ascendance from rumpled lawyer to U.S. president, as seen through the eyes of a young asylum-seeker who arrives at Lincoln’s home in Springfield from Madeira, Portugal. Ms. Horan will be joined by editor and author Donna Seaman.

This is a ticketed program. Tickets include a copy of the book, Ms. Horan will be happy to sign her works following the discussion. To purchase your tickets, please visit our website.

More About the Book: For as long as she can remember, Ana has been an outsider. Her refugee family settled in 1860s Springfield, Illinois, in the enclave of Little Madeira, where Portuguese rolls off the tongue and porches are full of neighbors and children. A bustling state capital thick with runaway slaves and the slave catchers that follow them, Springfield is also home to a rising politician named Abraham Lincoln.

It is in the Lincoln home that Ana finds employment as household help, working directly for Mary Lincoln with a front-row seat to historic societal changes that will reshape not only Springfield, but an entire country.

Karen Joy Fowler, bestselling author of We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, says, “Here, happily, is Nancy Horan doing once again what Nancy Horan does best – telling us the part of the story we don’t yet know. Strong on fine detail yet cognizant of the expansive historical context, Horan’s newest is wonderfully immersive, memorable, important, and pertinent. An ambitious and accomplished work.”

More About the Author: Nancy Horan is the New York Times bestselling author of Loving Frank and Under the Wide and Starry Sky. A native Midwesterner, Ms. Horan was a teacher and journalist before turning to fiction. She raised her two sons in Oak Park, Illinois and now lives with her husband on an island in Puget Sound.

About our Conversation Partner: Donna Seaman is the Editor for Adult Books at Booklist, a member of the Content Leadership Team for the American Writers Museum, and a recipient of the Louis Shore Award for excellence in book reviewing, the James Friend Memorial Award for Literary Criticism, and the Studs Terkel Humanities Service Award. Ms. Seaman has written for the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, and other publications. She has been a writer-in-residence for Columbia College Chicago and has taught at Northwestern University and the University of Chicago. She created the anthology In Our Nature: Stories of Wildness, her author interviews are collected in Writers on the Air: Conversations about Books. She is also the author of Identity Unknown: Rediscovering Seven American Women Artists.