SOURCE: Pappas, Theodore. “Henry and Clara's Cruel Fate.” Chicago Tribune Books (21 August 1994): 5.

In the following review, Pappas asserts that Mallon is faithful to both historical and literary concerns in Henry and Clara.

Murder and mystery, an abusive and jealous husband, the savage killing of his wife, an attempted suicide, hints of insanity, the rich and famous in the national spotlight—one might think that the subject is not the forgotten tragic lives of the engaged couple who attended Ford's Theatre with President and Mrs. Lincoln on April 14, 1865, but rather the O. J. Simpson trial. And, in fact, the comparison is not altogether unjust. Both stories involve multiple murders that shocked the nation, received international attention and left muckrakers and scandalmongers giddy for months.

A former professor of English at Vassar College and the current literary editor of Gentlemen's Ouarterly, Thomas Mallon is perhaps best known as an essayist...