These are novels, not histories. They are fiction in the sense that I position the reader within the character's mind, emotions, hopes, reactions, intentions. The figures of history become figures of story, the meaning of their lives illuminated. Occasional fictional figures appear to take us places that presidents and their ladies don't normally go. But the presentation of the historical characters' natures and the events to which they react are as accurate as I can make them.
History is the narrative of human affairs.
It is sober and straightforward and relies on documentation. But to say this is to say that it labors under vast restrictions, for statesmen don't record their hates and loves and hard driving ambitions and bitter angers that you and I know color all human events. Certainly I saw this reality in our own time in my years as a national correspondent covering White House, Capitol and national politics. My aim is to reach through the limits of history to give you the humanity that expresses the reality of The American Story in the emotions we know daily. And I make it fun to read.