RaveKenyon ReviewThe story is a reckoning of hauntings and unprosecuted crimes, an attempt at imagining some way to live with an unbearable history of human rights abuses and genocide. Among the many rhetorical and craft techniques worthy of praise in Howe’s writing is her insightful and deft use of dramatic monologues ... Howe challenges narratives of innocence surrounding white female fragility and instead considers the agency of a First Lady ... A particularly powerful element in this collection is the character of the noose, who hangs at the periphery of these conversations, commenting in brief but disturbing reminders of the terrible history unfolding around the purgatory where Mary Todd Lincoln and Savage Indian find themselves ... The footnotes are formal innovations that enrich and provide powerful historical context to the body of the poems. Other formal innovations, that are equally effective and affecting, include descriptions of images one might find in a museum ... Howe’s readers receive a symbolic testament to the limitations of what so many Americans are willing to see and know.
