American Queen (Oller)

Book Reviews
In other hands such a story might have had more dimension; but although Oller has explored previous biographies (none recent) and a plethora of archives and family testimony, his account is too full of anachronistic cliches (Kate’s father wishes to "get her out of his hair," a cotton ­trader is "no dummy," Kate’s divorce petition is "a doozy"), too cumbered by undigested political minutiae, too hampered by explicatory backtracking to develop the kind of narrative sweep and psychological depth that make for fully satisfying biography.
Amanda Vaill - New York Times Book Review


[N]uanced and finely balanced.... The title for Oller's book echoes the one used in 2001 for a biography of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis by Sarah Bradford, America's Queen. Like the wife of John F. Kennedy, Chase was the epitome of elegance for Americans of her era, described as a "magnificent creature" and "the most splendid woman at the present time" and "the acknowledged queen of fashion and good taste."
Patrick T. Reardon - Chicago Times


Oller commands his sources in a riveting narrative that is all the more persuasive because he does not make large claims for his subject. It is enough, he realizes, for a biography to portray and assess a remarkable human being—one who struggled with and overcame many of the confining conventions of her age—in her own terms.
Carl Rollyson - Minneapolis Star-Tribune


Oller details [Kate Chase] Sprague’s fascinating life, introducing readers to an inspiring woman in spite of her faults.... The book’s analysis may not be well enough grounded in fact, verging on the speculative at times, but otherwise, Oller offers an accessible, attention-grabbing work.
Publishers Weekly


(Starred review.) The author takes us through his subject's life as she moves from a high-class social butterfly...to a poverty-stricken divorcee.... Well written, fast paced, and with a compelling attention to detail, this work should be a fascinating read for Civil War buffs, fans of Doris Kearns Goodwin's Team of Rivals (in which Salmon Chase is a main character). —Laura Marcus, Odenton, MD
Library Journal


Oller's work is less the story of a woman's political rise and fall and more one that reveals how the social limitations of the past created tragic outcomes for talented females. A well-researched, thoughtful biography of a woman who "became entirely her own person, a rare feat for women of her day."
Kirkus Reviews