Booth

As quirky and atmospheric as the family it portrays, Booth is a brilliant ensemble piece about the family of Lincoln’s assassin, John Wilkes Booth.

Beautifully and bravely written in omniscient point of view, it weaves the lives of this eccentric family together into a comprehendible whole. If you ever longed for ‘the rest of the story’, this is it. I have my fingers crossed for a sequel – or at least another amazing book from one of my favorite writers.

Like the movie Titanic, you know how this book is going to end. But Booth isn’t about the ending—the assassination that will change American history.

There’s not even that much about the assassin, John Wilkes Booth. Instead, Karen Joy Fowler takes us into the lives of the Booth family—who they were, what they believed, how they saw the world. 

The book is historical fiction, but Fowler dug deep in the Booths’ actual history—using letters and other documents—to paint a picture of the people who shaped John Wilkes Booth’s life. We often learn about historical figures without learning about what, or… show more.

I fell in love with the way this novel shows the humanity of its historical characters. There is so much juice and intrigue in the family story of John Wilkes Booth, the man who assassinated Abe Lincoln.

I also love the way this novel sheds so much light on America today and how it shows the crazy ways the personal choices and disasters of this random family contribute to an ongoing schism in our country.

Booth is both a juicy, beautifully written family story and also a historical revelation.

It could be that Karen Joy Fowler’s Booth should have been called The Booths. I had the opportunity to ask her about it. She said that the working title had always been Booth. She thought it would ultimately be changed by her publisher, but it was considered strong and remained Booth. Presidential assassins are difficult characters to write about – not uninteresting – even mesmerizing – but at the bottom unlikeable. I experienced this writing about Mary Surratt in my own book. I used a fictitious diary to give readers something not to hate about the only female… show more.