What do you say to the idea that in romanticizing depression and claiming it fuels greatness we end up belittling how serious a disease it is and discouraging people from getting the treatment they need?

I don’t think I’m romanticizing depression. Lincoln suffered terribly and it never went away. If anything, his life got harder as it went on. If people want to look to his life for instruction, they’ll see that the first response to depression is to confess it, articulate it, ask for help for it. By the time he was 33, Lincoln understood that he had a “nervous debility” and that he was going to suffer more than other people, and that he was going to have to find help for it and live with what couldn’t be helped. It was part of who he was. And by working extremely hard, and dedicating himself to some purpose that transcended his own meager life, he did go on to do great work.

I think there really is a much broader discussion here and perhaps Lincoln’s story can contributes to it. A lot of people think that suffering is, you know, just a problem that we haven’t quite “beaten” yet. But my experience and my interests points me in another direction. Also, while I think a lot of discussion about depression is hypothetical, I’m looking at the real stories of how a real person lived. He did suffer. And he was great. And I am telling a story here about how there is a relationship between those things.

Was Lincoln gay, and did that contribute to his depression?

We really have no idea if he ever had sexual contact with another man. It’s true that he often shared beds with men, which was about as common in his time as it is for men today to share apartments. The argument for him being gay is just a pile of assumptions. I think the amazing reception this thesis has gotten is an indication of how hungry people are to see Lincoln as a real human being. I certainly have that desire. And I’ve tried to understand the things he did and said by studying the world around him. For example, the whole ”Lincoln is gay” business starts with Joshua Speed. This is the young man with whom Lincoln shared a bed when he was in his late twenties and early thirties. I’ve studied this relationship really closely, because it was a huge factor in Lincoln’s life at a time when he was just coming out, so to speak, as a depressed man. My sense is that Lincoln did love Speed, that it was very much in the pattern of the “romantic friendships” between young men in that day, which were in no way incompatible with ordinary, and in modern terms, heterosexual manhood. It’s also interesting that the nineteenth century conception of melancholy is so tied up in issues of gender identity. There was a way in which melancholy was the outlet for men to express their “feminine” side. But this wasn’t seen as an aberration — nor was it all taboo. To the contrary, there was a very strong sense that melancholy men would end up being more powerful — more “manly” — than those of other temperaments.

Wasn’t his wife also mentally ill?

Probably. I talk about Mary Lincoln a fair amount in the book, but only insofar as her life intersected with and influenced her husband’s. I felt really strongly that I shouldn’t pretend that I could tell her story, or get to the bottom of her suffering. I think she really deserves her own study, because she and Lincoln lived very different lives, and women faced a whole other burden when it came to living well in the face of suffering. That said, it’s hard to escape the conclusion that she had what we now call manic depression. She comes up in the story a few times. First, she played a huge role in Lincoln’s second breakdown, around the “fatal first” of January 1841. After their marriage, her tendency to express what they used to call the “passions” seems to have helped push Lincoln in the opposite way, towards dispassion and control. And then in the White House years, she again provides a kind of counter-example. She is a sad story, and a pretty elusive character. I wish I could understand her better. But I want to say that this idea that Lincoln was depressed because his wife was a nut, that’s pretty silly. He had a suicidal breakdown years before he ever knew that Mary Todd existed.

What was it like spending seven years with this story.

It was hard work. On my first trip to Springfield, Illinois, I was mugged outside of Lincoln’s home, and that is an apt symbol of what it was like to try to get into Lincoln’s world. It was humbling. But one of the most valuable lessons of Lincoln’s life is that humility and determination can make a very powerful combination. I’ve learned a lot from his example. I’m inspired by how hard he worked, and by his abiding faith. And I think that the movement of his story is a really helpful way of looking at how to deal with trouble — first, recognizing it and articulating it; second, dealing with it and enduring it; and, finally, looking to make some meaning from it. And as much as possible, keep laughing.