Assassination Vacation
by Sarah Vowell
Overview
From the Publisher
Sarah Vowell exposes the glorious conundrums of American history and culture with wit, probity, and an irreverent sense of humor. With Assassination Vacation, she takes us on a road trip like no other--a journey to the pit stops of American political murder and through the myriad ways they have been used for fun and profit, for political and cultural advantage.
From Buffalo to Alaska, Washington to the Dry Tortugas, Vowell visits locations immortalized and influenced by the spilling of politically important blood, reporting as she goes with her trademark blend of wisecracking humor, remarkable honesty, and thought-provoking criticism. We learn about the jinx that was Robert Todd Lincoln (present at the assassinations of Presidents Lincoln, Garfield, and McKinley) and witness the politicking that went into the making of the Lincoln Memorial. The resulting narrative is much more than an entertaining and informative travelogue--it is the disturbing and fascinating story of how American death has been manipulated by popular culture, including literature, architecture, sculpture, and--the author's favorite--historical tourism.
Though the themes of loss and violence are explored and we make detours to see how the Republican Party became the Republican Party, there are lighter diversions into the lives of the three presidents and their assassins, including mummies, show tunes, mean-spirited totem poles, and a nineteenth-century biblical sex cult.
My thoughts
Again, I have NO idea what possessed me to buy this book but I'm so glad I did! If anyone obsesses over something, anything, to the point that it consumes every day of their life, they surely will appreciate Sarah Vowell's obsession with anything connected with the assassination of a president! It's hilarious how she finds seven degrees of separation when she's walking down the street, pouring a cup of tea, or talking to her friends about a totally random non-presidential subject. This book cracked me up so often!
Sarah Vowell is a gifted writer and storyteller and a thorough researcher! I had a blast with this book!
Favorite Passage
I tell her that Rathbone never fully recovered; that he was actually blamed for not stopping Booth; that he went slowly insane; that Clara married him anyway and had his children; that when Henry insisted on moving to Germany, she agreed, hoping the change would do him good; that crazy Henry shot and killed Clara in Germany just as Booth had shot Lincoln; that he would have killed their children too if a nanny hadn't stopped him; that by the way one of those kids lived to become the congressman from Illinois who, in 1926, introduced the bill to purchase the collection of artifacts in the Ford's Theatre Lincoln Museum; that Henry was committed to a German insane asylum, which is where he died; and that they don't really put up plaques about things like that, though Thomas Mallon did write a good novel on the subject called Henry and Clara.
"Oh, that guy," says the receptionist. "Yes, he lived here."
