Interesting by sad story that reveals how difficult it was to be an intelligent, creative woman during late 19th century America. Style was not particularly gripping, but the story of Clover's life is interesting. ( )

The life of Clover Hooper Adams inevitably summons up the image from her own photographs of a tree valiantly clinging to rocks in a brisk ocean wind, small and tortured, but valiant and determined to hang on and make the best of it for as long as possible. This is the sort of biography I read and think, "but for the grace of..." In our day, a woman of Clover's background goes to the college of her choice, chooses a career from a full palette of options, can consult doctors both for infertility and for depression . . . Talk openly with friends and spouse about all these matters and not be judged too harshly or shunned socially for ambition or problems-- For all the inequities that remain, just these life-giving, soul-saving changes give me chills to consider NOT having. Sure, plenty of marriages even now, can't survive two successful and fulfilled partners working together, but most can or at least strive to do so. The pathos of Clover's life, it seems to me, is the timing of it. And it is out of lives such as hers that the women's movement derived its impetus. That even a woman of such privilege and possibilities would be so trammeled and stunted by the lack of space to grow in is sobering. The book is painstakingly researched, competently written and, I think, Dykstra has made the attempt to stand back and let the reader make what h/she may of her findings. I've heard hints that somehow Adams was 'complicit' in her death, but Dykstra does make a compelling case that he was concerned, did what he could, but was a man of his time and the two as a couple had almost a fetish about privacy. The worst thing he can be said to have done is write the novel Esther--an all-too-obvious portrait of Clover, I would have been shattered if my spouse wrote a book like that about me, so I can't think how it might have undermined her work as a photographer (basic point of it that women can't be serious artists). Dykstra did an amazing job describing Clover's photographs--but I find myself wishing the book had been published in a 'big book' format with the text and ALL of her photographs. I am giving Dykstra four stars but want to express my extreme frustration that I had to settle for the descriptions and not the photographs which are supremely important as evidence of just how talented Clover was. Not Dykstra's fault, obviously, but a factor! I hope someone has published a full book of her photographs somewhere. **** ( )

People's first acquaintance with Henry Adams might be as the son and grandson of two America Presidents. A few, like me, might know him from his opus The Education of Henry Adams. Very few will know of his marriage to young Marion Hooper, known to all and sundry as Clover. That Mrs. Adams committed suicide at the age of 42 colors this tale from the start. The Adamses led lives of privilege and connection -- apparently knowing everyone worth knowing in the middle to late 19th century. What would lead this lively and accomplished woman to end her life? Natalie Dykstra's history provides tons of well-sourced detail and engages in some regrettable armchair psychoanalysis, only to be left with some unsatisfactory hypotheses. Alas, as in many of these cases, absent a detailed note or record, one is unable to fully grasp the full extent of another's utter despair.

Dykstra is more successful in bringing to light the lives of this fascinating couple. Clover's cousin was Col. Robert Gould Shaw, who famously led the all black Massachusetts 54th during Civil War, as memorialized in the film Glory.. An Aunt owned the estate which eventually became Tanglewood, summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. In childhood and marriage, she counted amongst her friends authors, politicians, generals, artists, historians, philosophers and academics. The famous architect H. H. Richardson designed their Washington D.C. home. The sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens designed the hauntingly beautiful sculpture at her grave. Having lost her mother at a young age, Clover was extraordinarily close with her father. His death preceded her own by several months. It is supposed her grief and depression at his loss may have fed into her final act.

Most delightful is the discovery of many photographs taken by Clover Adams. She took to this art form in its infancy, enthusiastic to the point of creating a studio and developing room in several homes. Well before point-and-shoot instamatics, photography of this era was physically and artistically demanding. Cameras were heavy and exposures long. Her photographs, many of which are reproduced here, were carefully composed. They are entrancing and haunting even across the years. Her developing artistic talent and sensibility is a delight to witness.

Henry Adams was an extremely private man. He never spoke publicly about his wife's death. Indeed "The Education of Henry Adams" makes no mention of her at all. This is not to say he didn't privately grieve. I was particularly by his reference in a letter to "What a vast fraternity it is, -- that of 'Hearts that Ache.'" Those who have lost a close loved one know intimately that sense of being initiated to a club of grief and loss.

The volume is well sourced, deeply researched with careful endnotes. Dykstra does a great service bringing to light this once forgotten story of a talented yet tragic life. ( )

As the youngest of three children in her family, Marian Hooper was a favorite of her mother who gave her the lucky nickname Clover, an optimistic moniker which stuck for the rest of her life. Lively and full of curiosity and enthusiasms, Clover had a winning personality that made her popular with her friends into adulthood, but her mother’s death when she was only five years old was the first in a series of misfortunes that ultimately contributed to her death by suicide. Author Natalie Dykstra captures both the richness and the tragedy of her life, presenting a mesmerizing portrait of a privileged woman from America’s Gilded Age whose personal tribulations might not have been so overwhelming if she hadn’t been stymied by the limitations placed on the women of her time.

Clover grew up in the Boston area, and her family could count as friends many notable people of the time, including the families of Louis Agassiz, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Oliver Wendell Holmes. Alice James, five years her junior, knew Clover’s family well enough to have pointed opinions about their circumstances, and Alice’s brother Henry, who Clover called Harry, remained a close friend for most of her life. As a young woman Clover avidly followed accounts of the Civil War and did volunteer work for organizations aiding those impacted by it, including dislocated freed slaves. The war vastly depleted the number of marriage age men and for a while Clover felt she might be left alone with her father as her older brother and sister married moved out, so it was fortunate that she caught the eye of Henry Adams, who was working as a Harvard professor of history at the time.

Henry was the great-grandson of founding father an early president John Adams, and the grandson of John Quincy Adams, another president, so marrying Henry brought Clover into intellectually stimulating political circles that she enjoyed greatly for the most part, though she wasn’t someone who was comfortable with the exacting protocol that their life in Washington, DC sometimes required. They were well off; for their honeymoon they spent a year touring Europe and Egypt, and later they enjoyed collecting art. Henry wrote histories, and Clover supported him by sometimes helping with his research.

Though Clover took up photography, creating emotive portraits and landscapes at a time when photographers had to develop their own pictures, there was, of course, no question of her having her own career, or even having her work recognized. The one opportunity she had to have a photograph published was vetoed by her husband, though she didn’t seem to disagree with his judgment. While a woman could visit art museums, be trained in the arts, and make beautiful objects, true art was thought to be the province of men, and Clover never had the satisfaction of seeing her photography taken as seriously as it would have been if she was a man.

Clover and Henry never had any children, but she remained close to her father, writing him long letters every Sunday, and she and Henry spent summers with her family in Massachusetts. Clover’s father died at an especially unfortunate time; a beautiful young woman had begun to ensnare Henry’s heart . The emptiness and loss she felt as a result of her father’s death, her lack of children, her loss of some of her husband’s attention and her lack of purpose became more than she could bear. There was a history of mental illness and suicide in her family, and though she had finally seemed to be pulling herself out of her despair, she killed herself by drinking one of her photography chemicals seven months after her father’s death.

It was a sad ending to a promising life, but this book is more thoughtful than morose. A way of life long gone but still relevant to contemporary times is interestingly evoked, and fascinating personalities people its pages. With examples of Clover’s photography and 60 pages of notes, it’s a substantial and satisfying chronicle of a captivating life. ( )

Natalie Dykstra has done much justice to the life and work of Clover Adams. This is a beautiful book about a fleeting and lavishly imagined life. As in any story of a young woman of promise who takes her own life, this one is shocking and harshly jarring. We seem to know her somehow. And in that "knowing" it's difficult to let her go so easily. No matter how many books are written about Clover Adams, I will always wish I knew what made her decide to drink that horrible vial of poison...why she chose to end her life as if trashed upon the wasteland of her artwork. I will never quite be able to forgive Henry Adams for his harshness and cruelties to her, for disallowing her to shine, and for dismissing her so quickly from his mouth and memoirs.

This is a very readable and extensive work by Ms Dykstra. She's a capable and learned biographer who has treated the life and heart of Clover Adams with delicacy and honor. I loved this book and highly recommend it. Without regard to Henry Adams, although he does play a major part in Clover's life, obviously, I think it's a strong slice of American history from a woman's perspective. And I think it's a great tribute to the heart of women during an age of repression. ( )