A review by halberdbooks
Behind the Scenes: Or, Thirty Years a Slave, and Four Years in the White House by Elizabeth Keckley

challenging informative reflective slow-paced

3.5

 A great deal of the most important mementos of the Lincoln family were preserved by Elizabeth Keckley herself, and her book -- by far the most contemporary of the histories I have read -- is a deeply intriguing document. History is, in many ways, the intersection of stories. In telling a story from life, one must select what to include and what to exclude. Multiple histories told of the same time period will touch each other, intersect, weave in and out, and fly from each other. I am deeply struck at Keckley's choices of what she felt were necessary for her book. Her thirty years as a slave are, in opposition to the title, hardly touched upon. The first couple chapters do detail her first thirty years of life, but they include only a few deeply traumatic incidents before breezing past into her freedom. Later in the book, she speaks quite fondly of the people who owned her, which stands firmly in contrast to the actual stories she chose to tell. People and their responses to trauma defy easy answers. This warmness is less felt when discussing Mary Todd Lincoln, who -- despite the book's own protestations to the contrary -- is only ever shown as jealous, critical, imposing, near-insane, and provocatively dressed. The way the book ends, however, does make quite clear why little warmth for the widow remained. I imagine if I had to give up my own business to unsuccessfully execute the business of a friend, I might also feel my affection for them dwindle. Abraham Lincoln, however, is spoken of more highly than any human being I have ever read. I have spoken before about the importance of not mythologizing a person, but here Keckley calls him saintly, a demigod, both Moses and Jehovah. I cannot help but wonder how much of any of these points were affected by the political and literary climate she was in. A book less worshipful of Lincoln, less critical of Mary, less judgemental of uneducated black people and less forgiving of slaveholders might never have gotten published. But I cannot comment on what the book would have or should have been -- I will never know. What I can say is that it is beautifully written, and when taken with a grain of salt, it is of clear importance in this chapter of history. 
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