“My mother married my father in 1956. She was 28 and he was 31. She loved him with a fierce steadiness borne of loyalty, determination, and an unyielding dignity. On their honeymoon, in a cabin in Maine, for their first breakfast together, she made him blueberry pancakes. Pushing back his plate, he told her he didn't like blueberries. In 55 years of marriage, she never again cooked him breakfast.”

-- Jill LePore, “The Prodigal Daughter,” about herself and her mother, and Ben Franklin and his sister, in the July 8 & 15 New Yorker

Tags: Jill Lepore