I have mixed feelings about this one. A collection of stories and letters about the women behind (beside?) the men that were instrumental in founding the United States, it’s a work that could be seen as enlightening and entertaining. In fact, there were many times when I was enlightened and entertained. I did learn about some women that I hadn’t heard of before — my favorite was Eliza Pickney, a South Carolina woman who basically managed things on her own for most of her life. She was also a bit of an entrepreneur, coming up with the idea and the means to make indigo a cash crop. There were also the usual players: Abigail Adams, Martha Washington, Dolley Madison, and it was interesting to see the way that Cokie Roberts portrayed each of those women.

However, it was a hard book to get through. I think that the book had simultaneously a too broad and too narrow of focus. Too broad, because of all the people she tried to squeeze into 277 pages. Roberts organized her book chronologically, which was probably inevitable considering that it was the time period that drove all the people, but it also made it hard to keep everyone straight. She started Abigail Adams’s story in one chapter, dropped it after a few pages and didn’t pick it up again for another couple of chapters. There were also so many women — I couldn’t keep the Kittys straight to save my life — that Roberts focused on, however briefly, that I felt like I needed a flow chart to figure out who was who (and who was related to whom!).

It was too narrow because I felt that Roberts slighted the men. Sure, it’s a book on the women during the late 1700s, and yes, we want to give them the credit the history books have denied them all these years, but I felt that Roberts did it at the expense of the men. She poked fun at John Adams (I was not happy with that… especially after reading David McCullough’s biography!); portrayed George Washington as a competent leader, but an incompetent in his personal life… (I agreed with her assessment of Alexander Hamilton and Ben Franklin, though…) Perhaps it’s just personal biases getting in the way here, but I felt like she could have portrayed these women as working in partnership with their partners, rather than at odds with them.

And then there was Cokie Roberts herself. She peppered the book with asides, snide remarks, opinionated comments. Which is all fine and good; she’s the author, she can interpret the letters however she wants. But it drove me nuts. After a while, the extreme annoyance (I shouted at the book a couple of times!) I had at the beginning boiled down to a mild irritation, but it never left. There was a (very large) part of me that wished she’d just shut up and leave the letters and stories to speak for themselves.

That said, the letters and stories are fascinating to read. And I do appreciate that Roberts took the time to focus on these amazing women. Even with its faults, its a book worth reading.