Vidal, Gore. At Home.

Gore Vidal's essays, At Home, contain his dispute with various scholars of Lincoln. The scholars have forgotten that the purpose of writing biographies of such people as Lincoln is that they be read. As a novelist, Vidal has a finer sense of likelihood. Scholars are too involved with records to be good biographers. When they start imputing motives, they mean only "how I would act in such circumstances".
[Note: in his memoir - Palimpsest - Vidal comments that he has maintained a 40 year friendship by not engaging in sexual activity. This seems to me a major point in all the discussions about homosexual relations].