Assassination Vacation

Author: Sarah Vowell
Genre: Non-fiction
Publisher: Simon & Schuster, 2005
Pages: 272
Rating: Do Not Recommend

Synopsis: New York Times bestselling author of The Wordy Shipmates and contributor to NPR’s "This American Life" Sarah Vowell embarks on a road trip to sites of political violence, from Washington DC to Alaska, to better understand our nation’s ever-evolving political system and history.

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 all kinds of lighter diversions along the way 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.

Review: I wanted to love this, but I just didn't. It was my "road trip" pick from the 2016 Reading Challenge.

The premise was there and the book held promise, but the author and her writing style grated on me. I've read and studied Lincoln's assassination in depth. My husband is an avid James Garfield fan and through him I've learned about his assassination. The chapter on President McKinley was weak, but not horrible. In other words, I didn't learn a whole lot, but suffered through the author's high opinion of herself anyway.

I'm going to read another Sarah Vowell book at some point because I hate to judge an author, particularly one who writes about history, by only one book. This is an older one too so maybe something more recent will be a better option.