Assassination Vacation (Paperback) by Sarah Vowell - Reviews, Discussion, Bookclubs, Lists

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04/28/08

Kim rated it:

bookshelves: favorite-authors, gmba

Read in August, 2008

recommended to Kim by: I stole it from one of you goodreader's lists
recommends it for: everyone... this means YOU

Okay, I’m totally going to ruin this book for you---major spoiler alert coming up, folks. pssst… All the Presidents mentioned in the book, DIE. I know, right? You’re saying ‘Aww, cheese and rice! Kim! What’s the point in reading this book then?'

Well, lemme tell you….

This book has been quite an educational journey for me. In both that, I’ve learned all this great stuff about the assassinations of Lincoln, Garfield and McKinley, but also in that I’ve lear...more

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01/21/09

Eric_W rated it:

bookshelves: history-historiography, humor

Read in March, 2009

This is a book my wife and I listened to as we drive to doctor appointments, visited children, etc., so it took us a while to get through it completely. That is not to denigrate the book, which is wonderfully entertaining and educational. Ben (GR) and I have exchanged emails recently about whether listening to an audiobook can be considered "reading." This is a case where I think the book is actually better listened to since it's read by the author who has such a gravely and droll way...more

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08/22/08

Matt rated it:

A reminiscence: Years ago, I persuaded/forced my then-girlfriend to take a trip with me to the Little Big Horn battlefield near Hardin, Montana. It was at the Little Big Horn that Lt. Col. George Custer came to grief, forever making his name a synonym for "bad decision." It was quite a trek to make in a single weekend: Omaha to Montana. So we got to the battlefield after 20 straight hours of driving; slept outside the Ranger station waiting for it to open; then took in the battlefield,...more A reminiscence: Years ago, I persuaded/forced my then-girlfriend to take a trip with me to the Little Big Horn battlefield near Hardin, Montana. It was at the Little Big Horn that Lt. Col. George Custer came to grief, forever making his name a synonym for "bad decision." It was quite a trek to make in a single weekend: Omaha to Montana. So we got to the battlefield after 20 straight hours of driving; slept outside the Ranger station waiting for it to open; then took in the battlefield, unwashed and unshaven and without even a cup of coffee. I was giddy (with exhaustion? with historical glee?), she was...patient (later, after she broke my heart, she swore this wasn't the reason she left, though I'm not sure I believed her, then or now).

At one point, I drove up to Reno Hill. It was empty. As I was (and am) writing a novel about America's westward expansion from 1854 to 1890, I had certain items with me: two cameras, a couple books, a notebook and pen, binoculars. I got out of the car with my non-digital camera and took a walk along Reno's line of defense. Since no one was around, I broke a rule or two and gingerly lowered myself into one of the rifle pits that had been dug 129 years earlier. I wrote down my impressions: what I could see; what the grass felt like against my skin; how hot it must have been. Then I went back to the car to get my digital camera.

I checked on my girlfriend, asking, as though she were a dog, if she had enough air in the car. Then I took my camera back to the old rifle pit to take a series of pictures forming a 360 degree view from the hill. It was then I noticed that I had dangerously few pictures remaining. This was odd, since I hadn't used the camera at all. I started going through my pictures. It was one self-portrait after another, each taken by my girlfriend as she sat waiting in the passenger seat of my car. I guess my passion wasn't as infectious as my [insert STD joke here].

The point of this story? Sara Vowell is the woman I should have taken on this trip. Assassination Vacation is meant for those people (I include myself here) who do things like drive overnight from Omaha to Montana in order to look at a battlefield, or who call the National Park Service while driving the backroads of Wyoming looking for the Grattan Massacre monument, which is located in Farmer McDonald's corn field, or who can't pass by a historical marker without pulling the car over and hopping out with a camera.

The skeleton on which this book rests is the assassinations of Lincoln, Garfield, and McKinley. Really, though, it's sort of a romp, where history, pop culture, and current events elide. Lincoln, Garfield and McKinley, along with their respective assassins, Booth, Guiteau, and Czolgosz, are simply the starting point. She visits the places connected with their lives and deaths, which are often nothing more than a plaque or a roadside sign. Often, the places are only tenuously connected, but that's part of the fun.

The book is written with good-natured humor (and a little angry liberalism thrown in for good measure). I noticed in her acknowledgments that she thanks, among others, Dave Eggers and David Sedaris (I am envious of her life; I mean, look at all awesome people she must chill with on a daily basis. Ira Glass! Lucky!) Not to be whatever, but Vowell is not as great a writer as her buds. She doesn't have the stratospheric talent of Eggers, or the subtle craftsmanship of Sedaris (which is not really a knock, when you think about it). When I read this book, it was more like reading a great blog, in which she introduces the many varied characters in her own life while taking this pseudo-journey among the ghosts of dead presidents.

I didn't laugh out loud but once, but I really had a good reading experience. Vowell totally seems like an awesome traveling companion. A person who has facts and stories for every place you go. I've been accused of this, so it's nice to know there are others in the world who respect a good factoid (come to Omaha, and I'll tell you the trivia behind our street names, which are named after generals of the Frontier Army...Grenville Dodge, who surveyed for the railroad; William Harney, who beat a slave to death...etc.) Kerouac famously wrote that the only people for him were the mad ones; the only people for me are the curious ones. Vowell's curiosity is infectious. She wanders far and wide, read voraciously, and along the way meets people as impassioned as she is (I especially enjoy her section on Dr. Samuel Mudd, where her own intense dislike for the possibly-treacherous medicine man butts up against the Mudd family's centuries-long quest to rehabilitate their ancestor's good name...and make a quick buck on the side).

Vowell's style is breezy and digressive. Reading it was like listening to a chatty companion sitting next to you in a car or train. She comes across as mostly-genuine, though once in awhile, I found myself thinking she's a little too precious. I mean, does she really wear Bela Lugosi hair clips? Is anyone that awesome?

The only (minor) quibble I have is the lack of any footnotes or bibliography. Obviously, this is not a work of scholarship. Yet Vowell tosses off hundreds upon thousands of factual nuggets. It would be nice to know, before I start repeating them at cocktail parties, that she didn't get them off of Wikipedia. Heck, I don't even care about the footnotes (P.S. I love footnotes), just tell me what sources you consulted. At one point, she mentions Ackerman's Dark Horse, which I have on my Amazon wish list, but that's about it. For a book written by a historically curious person, which is sure to spark the curiosity of many others, it would've been a helpful service to list the authors and works that guided her.

The lasting thing from this book is its empathy. I love history. I think more than anything, good history teaches us what it means to be human. For instance, I was looking for a good Lincoln book and was struck by a reader comment saying, in effect, that the author was too easy on Mary Todd Lincoln, who the commenter believed was crazier than a port-o-potty rat. I couldn't believe what I'd read. Sometimes, I guess, the inundation of facts obscures something important: that these were people first, and trivia second. I mean, Mary Todd lost three of her four children; her husband was shot in the head while she held in his hand. If she went crazy after all this, well, buddy, that's craziness she earned. I think we view history too much in the abstract; as a bas relief in a museum. Imagine yourself in her place. Imagine your soul-mate murdered next to you while you're in the theater watching the latest low point in Seann William Scott's career. The folks in the history books, the ones staring at you from a distant netherworld called the Past, were - and this is verificable - real people. From their trials, we can learn. As your mother might have said, in times like these, remember, there have always been times like these.

History is at its most powerful when it shows us how we are all connected by certain immutable traits: how we are born; how we laugh; how we hurt; how we fall in love; how we suffer; how we die. Even the greatest, the richest, the most powerful humans who have ever walked this earth are brought down to the level of the lowliest peasant by these things. (I call this the Everybody Poops School of History - it will eventually be worked in my PhD thesis).

That's sort of the evolving understanding Vowell came to, especially when tracing the deaths of Garfield and McKinley. These are men who, especially in Garfield's case, have been lost to history. Yet we know them, intimately, by sharing their final moments. They become, at the end, finally, human.
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08/30/07

Kim rated it:

Read in September, 2007

recommends it for: History buffs with an edge

Sarah Vowell has written a hilarious take on heritage tourism, visiting many of the sites related to our poor assassinated presidents. She manages to sneak in a lot of history alongside her wry, sly, sarcastic witticisms, as well as her biting commentary on our current administration, which was great fun to read. But she is also clearly very full of herself, and that gets in the way of the story. Several times in the book, she would stop the "action" to write something along the lines ...more

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03/12/08

Andrew rated it:

Read in May, 2005

In every creative writing program, an insanely big deal is made of Voice—discovering a Voice, having a Voice, having a unique Voice, maintaining your unique Voice, I can’t follow the story but oh that Voice, yes it’s misogyny but what a Voice!

The concept of voice is another in the long list of writing program sillynesses (others: science fiction isn’t legitimate writing, it’s not O.K. to admit influence from well-known writers, and the word poignant means something). But ther...more In every creative writing program, an insanely big deal is made of Voice—discovering a Voice, having a Voice, having a unique Voice, maintaining your unique Voice, I can’t follow the story but oh that Voice, yes it’s misogyny but what a Voice!

The concept of voice is another in the long list of writing program sillynesses (others: science fiction isn’t legitimate writing, it’s not O.K. to admit influence from well-known writers, and the word poignant means something). But there is no doubt that having a singular voice in one’s writing can help talk one’s way from tattered manuscript to cloth-bound, ISBN’ed, publicity-toured book. It’s one of the rare places where writing program, lit mag, and acquisitions editor office overlap: great voice = great writing (= great $).

Writer and This American Life storyteller Sarah Vowell—author previously of The Partly Cloudly Patriot and other books—has such an amusing spoken voice—as any six-year-old or Daily Show watcher can now tell you—that Pixar had her voice the character of Violet in The Incredibles. Coming out of a kid’s mouth, her voice is squashed, the breaks and rasps always audible in her NPR and book-tour readings seemingly all that’s left. Coming out of the real-life, adult, on-the-page Sarah Vowell, though, her voice is the spillings out of anyone awkwardly and energetically overcompensating.

And, boom, there’s her charm, and the charm of Assassination Vacation, Vowell’s latest book-length road trip along another unnoticed plane of American history, in this case the tourism of American presidential assassinations.

Lest you wonder how this could be a worthy subject, Vowell offers that there’s a parallel to relical pilgrimage, which speaks to the supposed fervor or irrationality of those who would abandon all security to travel a thousand miles to inhale the healing dust of a saint. But Vowell’s obsession (and voice) affixes itself instead to the caretakers of American reliquaries—the tour guide of the house where John Wilkes Booth stopped to resupply after shooting President Lincoln; the ranger in charge of Dry Tortugas National Park, where Booth’s doctor/convicted accomplice was imprisoned; the manager of the freakish Oneida Community mansion in upstate New York, where lived the serially unpopular Garfield assassin Charles Guiteau. If medieval pilgrimage speaks more about the pilgrim than the saint, then it undercuts the fun of Assassination Vacation that only conscripted schoolchildren, the elderly, and Sarah Vowell actually visit these places. She has no pilgrims to talk to. Her writing about the caretakers—people largely there by dint of circumstance, people who grew into their interest rather than stalked it—feels like an editorial save more than the heart of a good story.

Aye, but the Voice. Vowell’s style really is the engine of her books, and her “shenanigans,” as she and This American Life boss Ira Glass call her tangents, have coalesced into a discreet skill to pack researched and lived events into the smallest page-space possible. Her seeming desperation to push her imagination in every historical-narrative direction leads to well-earned, well-appreciated, and well-Voiced wonderings like the following:

My head tells me autopsies after murders are routine, that before Ford’s Theater turned into a shrine it was a crime scene, that of course the evidence of the crime was analyzed, then archived, that Abraham Lincoln was not just a martyr or a myth but a case file, what the pros nowadays call a “vic.” So the evidence here calls up the corporeal presence of Lincoln (pieces of his head—gross—and Booth, who bought this very bullet, put said bullet in his pistol, then into Lincoln, which struck the skull, thereby chipping off these little pieces of it, mashing the bullet itself. These well-labeled, well-lit artifacts also suggest the existence of: the autopsy surgeon, the file clerk who catalogued and stowed them, the curator who decided to put them on display, the carpenter who built the display case, etc.

It’s always a fine thing when writers get readers to sneak their minds into freshly hewn nooks. The large-context problem though with Assassination Vacation is that Vowell provides no hierarchy. Despite the aggressive leveling of story structures in the last decades, readers still need a way to know what things are more important than other things. Vowell’s voice doesn’t allow this, because she’s equally excited about everything. It’s an intoxicating enthusiasm, to be sure, but only for a time. She pulls the reader along with her to obscure sites, to view obscure plaques, to reflect on obscure statues and houses and legends, but in the end she violates another writing program rule, one that’s actually true—and she admits as much—that stories don’t work if their only force for cohesion is coincidence. Coincidence, after all, is only in the eye of the beholder.

Thus, there are some buried gems of American history in Assassination Vacation but without an organizing force beyond Vowell’s own Voice, beyond her own obsessions and will, you might find yourself asking to be let off the tour.(less)

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12/19/08

Dollie rated it:

Read in December, 2008

This was a fine book! Sarah Vowell is a cross between Doris Kearns Goodwin, Jon Stewart and Wednesday Addams. Her knowledge AND love of her topic are clear. I started wondering if she would just make each stop on her bizarre journey a punch line but found something quite different: a fine discussion of events surrounding the people and places involved in the assassination of three presidents: Lincoln, Garfield and McKinley. And did I learn stuff... Such rich information framed by her odd obs...more

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04/24/08

Bryan rated it:

Read in April, 2008

I picked this book up as a recommendation from Strand in Manhattan. Not knowing what to expect, I was all at once pleasantly surprised and supremely disappointed. To me, the biggest thing that jumps out about this author's style is that she is the Chuck Klosterman of political history. The plot follows the author through road trips and vacations to various spots of historical significance and her stories are advanced through a combination of her interactions with the everyday people there and he...more

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12/05/07

Grace rated it:

(review of isbn 0743540050)

bookshelves: 2007

Read in February, 2007

recommends it for: U.S. history buffs!

Sarah Vowell, will you marry me?

I liked The Partly Cloud Patriot, but I loved Assassination Vacation. Vowell's pilgrimage to sites associated with the assassinations of Presidents Lincoln, Garfield, and McKinley struck so many cords with me it is hard to know where to begin. First, I learned a ton. I knew a lot of what she mentioned about the Lincoln assassination (though by no means all of it), but really, does anybody know much about Garfield or McKinley? I knew McKinley's assassin...more Sarah Vowell, will you marry me?

I liked The Partly Cloud Patriot, but I loved Assassination Vacation. Vowell's pilgrimage to sites associated with the assassinations of Presidents Lincoln, Garfield, and McKinley struck so many cords with me it is hard to know where to begin. First, I learned a ton. I knew a lot of what she mentioned about the Lincoln assassination (though by no means all of it), but really, does anybody know much about Garfield or McKinley? I knew McKinley's assassin was somehow associated with Emma Goldman, but that was about it. So the book is worth reading (or, in my case, listening to, because Vowell's story-telling style lends itself so well to audio book) just for the information it contains.

But it's so much more than that. It's also funny, and it's funny in a dorky way that I just adore. Vowell's ability to embrace her inner civics geek is commendable, especially for someone who was once a rock journalist. The fact that she is giddily interested in presidential assassinations and all manner of morbid and grotesque history is impressive, but what is more impressive is that she relishes this interest and is unapologetic about it. The story she tells connecting her Oneida tea pot to the Oneida cult/"intentional community" in upstate New York and then to Garfield's assassin is not only fascinating, it also seriously makes me want to marry her. Or at least be her best friend forever. I mean, who wouldn't love someone who could come out with that while pouring you a cup of tea?

It's not Vowell's relentless and uber-cute dorkiness that gets me the most, though, it's her honest devotion to and nearly spiritual belief in U.S. history, government, and myth. More than anything, the book made me want to take a trip to Washington D.C., to see if I'm as mesmerized by the Lincoln monument as Vowell is, to move through the Smithsonian at a snail's pace like I'm sure she does. As someone with a degree in American history and a lifelong interest in it's minutiae, I'm hardly a tough audience, but Vowell got me more excited about it than I have been in years, and excited about a whole different aspect of it (i.e. presidential history, which I've never cared for at all). Like Utah Phillips, her words convince you that the past is important, that it means something, and that it ought to be considered, honored, respected, and made fun of. I'm into that.(less)

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05/13/07

Lucy rated it:

(review of isbn 0743260031)

bookshelves: anthro-history-religion, journeys-guides, the-mile

Read in May, 2007

history never repeats:
"In 2003 and 2004, as I was traveling around in the footsteps of McKinley, thinking about his interventionist wars in Cuba and the Philippines, the United States started up an interventionist war in Iraq. It was to be a 'preemptive war' whose purpose was to disarm Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, weapons which, as I write this, have yet to be found, and which, like the nonexistent evidence of wrongdoing on the Maine, most likely never will be. At the outset o...more history never repeats:
"In 2003 and 2004, as I was traveling around in the footsteps of McKinley, thinking about his interventionist wars in Cuba and the Philippines, the United States started up an interventionist war in Iraq. It was to be a 'preemptive war' whose purpose was to disarm Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, weapons which, as I write this, have yet to be found, and which, like the nonexistent evidence of wrongdoing on the Maine, most likely never will be. At the outset of the war, President Bush proclaimed that 'our nation enters into this conflict reluctantly, yet our purpose is sure,' just as President McKinley stated, regarding Cuba, 'It is not a trust we sought; it is a trust from which we will not flinch.' I downloaded the Platt Amendment's provisions toward Cuba from the National Archives' Web site ([http://www.archives.gov/]), saw the provision requiring the Cubans to lease land to the United States for a naval base, and then thought about the several hundred Taliban and other prisoners of the War on Terror being held there at Guantánamo Bay. I read a history book describing how McKinley's secretary of war Elihu Root finally—after press uproar sparked Senate hearings—got around to ordering court-martials for U.S. officers accused of committing the 'water cure' in the Philippines, and, closing the book, turned on a televised Senate Armed Services Committee hearing in which Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was grilled about photographs of giddy U.S. soldiers proudly pointing at Iraqi prisoners of war they had just tortured at the Abu Ghraib prison. I went to NYU to hear former vice president Al Gore deliver a speech calling for Rumsfeld's resignation; Gore asked of the administration's imploding Iraq policy in general and the Abu Ghraib torture photos in particular, 'How dare they drag the good name of the United States of America through the mud of Saddam Hussein’s torture prison?' Then I walked home through Washington Square Park, where Mark Twain used to hand out on the benches in his white flannel suit when he lived around the corner, and sat down in my living room to reread Twain's accusation that McKinley's deadly Philippines policy has 'debauched America's honor and blackened her face before the world.'"(less)

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03/16/09

Nicholas Merlin Karpuk rated it:

(review of isbn 0743540050)

Read in March, 2009

recommends it for: History Lovers, Vowell Lovers, You

It is difficult to defend against a single lunatic.

After Lincoln got shot, almost every presidential assassination attempt, successful or failed, was carried out by a loner with dubious motives.

The reasoning, at least to me, is that it's easier to form information leaks among a group, and a group draws more attention to itseld, it generates communication, and communication is always susceptible to interception.

I studied this idea on Wikipedia recently, mulli...more

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01/13/09

Patrick Gibson rated it:

bookshelves: history, humorous, road_trip

Read in January, 2009

recommends it for: casual history aficionados

It’s perceptive, entertaining, informative. And a road trip! It’s history the way you want it—witty, sardonic and circumlutatious. (I can make up words, can’t I?) On a subject most of us would pass, this vacation bounces like a pin ball around the intricacies, absurdities and oddities of three presidential assassinations with self-deprecating wit and poignant quirkiness.

There are some wonderful moments like when Edwin Booth (brother of John Wilkes) picks up a pair of sculpte...more

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10/08/08

Ryan Lawson rated it:

I enjoyed this book thoroughly. Since Sarah Vowell is a regular radio personality on NPR, I had the good fortune of having her cute voice replace mine in my head as I read through this genuinely interesting and witty discourse of American history.

I am always captivated by history books that give away little unknown details of the past, and Sarah Vowell really excells in this arena. For example, did you know that the 1922 revealing of the Lincoln Monument in Washington D.C. was segreg...more I enjoyed this book thoroughly. Since Sarah Vowell is a regular radio personality on NPR, I had the good fortune of having her cute voice replace mine in my head as I read through this genuinely interesting and witty discourse of American history.

I am always captivated by history books that give away little unknown details of the past, and Sarah Vowell really excells in this arena. For example, did you know that the 1922 revealing of the Lincoln Monument in Washington D.C. was segregated? Also, that Geronimo, famed leader of the Chiricachua Apaches, died imprisoned in Oklahoma's Fort Sill? I didn't know that little bit of Oklahoma history.

This book revolves around three United States presidential assasinations (Lincoln, Garfield, & McKinley; however, the beauty of it is that it doesn't only focus on the presidents. In fact, the presidents hardly star in their own dramas. Vowell chooses very tactfully to delve into the lives of the assasins, their cohorts, the vice-presidents, and any other involved parties. So, instead of a historical account on Lincoln, the reader gets a brief biography of John Wilkes Booth.

The piece also does a superb job of connecting the past events with those occuring presently or have occured in the recent past. For instance, did you know that Timothy McVeigh (bomber of the Oklahoma City Murrah Federal Building in 1995) wore a shirt with the quote, "Sic Semper Tyrannis!" (Thus be to Tyrants) the same quote that John Wilkes Booth yelled after he shot Lincoln and jumped on to the stage of the Ford Theater?

I think my favorite aspect of this book is the fact that it is written by a woman who is obviously liberal and lets it be known, but she doesn't politicize the actual history and events themselves. She presents the facts with an unbiased whim! Plus, the book is surprisingly patriotic. I guess I should have foreseen the patriotism of the piece. I mean, there's no way that one writes an entire book covering three specific U.S. president assasinations without showing an absolute dedication to historical facts. Sarah Vowell has to be a devout patriot in order to have put so much effort into such a brilliant piece.

This is a great book to get a conservative to read. I suggested it to my father. We'll see if he actually pursues it.
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02/25/08

Alicia rated it:

Read in February, 2008

Sarah Vowell is one of my favorite authors, so I don't know why I put off reading this book for so long. I think it's because The Partly Cloudy Patriot was sort of disappointing after Take the Cannoli. But I thought this book was great. Vowell writes about visiting various locations associated with the assassination of Lincoln, Garfield, and McKinley. Of course, the most heartfelt material is the stuff about Lincoln.

One of the things that grabbed me was the "grandfather paradox"...more Sarah Vowell is one of my favorite authors, so I don't know why I put off reading this book for so long. I think it's because The Partly Cloudy Patriot was sort of disappointing after Take the Cannoli. But I thought this book was great. Vowell writes about visiting various locations associated with the assassination of Lincoln, Garfield, and McKinley. Of course, the most heartfelt material is the stuff about Lincoln.

One of the things that grabbed me was the "grandfather paradox" part where she writes about visiting the home of Dr. Samuel Mudd, the doctor who treated Booth's leg injury after he shot Lincoln. Mudd's family has spent more than a century trying to clear his name, claiming he wasn't in on the conspiracy. His home, now a museum, is run by a handful of his descendants, and Vowell writes about having a moment of empathy for the gift shop cashier -- Mudd's great-great-granddaughter -- because she also knows what it's like to feel aggrieved by a great-great-grandfather's life. Apparently, her own great-great-grandfather fought with some horrible gang of Confederate assholes during the Civil War. Vowell ultimately determines that she doesn't buy the Mudd-not-in-on-the-conspiracy bit, but her take on his life, especially after visiting the place where he was imprisoned -- Fort Jefferson on an island in the Dry Tortugas -- is moving. And fair and balanced. Just like Fox News. OK, not at all like Fox News.

I also appreciated how in writing about the McKinley administration and the Spanish-American War, Vowell touches on a puzzling topic: how on earth could the party of Lincoln have become the party of Strom Thurmond and other such bigots? She also draws some unnerving parallels between the effect of the Spanish-American War on Cuba and the likely outcome of Bush's war on Iraq.

Anyway, before reading this, I thought Sarah Vowell's whole patriotism-as-religion thing was maybe getting a little tired, but she really is so passionate about it that you can't help but get caught up in it. I really appreciate the way she makes certain moments in history come to life.
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01/31/08

Chris rated it:

(review of isbn 0743260031)

bookshelves: history

Read in December, 2006

I first saw Sarah Vowell on The Daily Show and I was intrigued. This slight, dry, kind of sleepy-looking woman was not who you might expect when you run the words "presidential historian" through your mind, but there she was. The fact that she was also really funny impressed me even further. And so, since I have a long-running fascination with presidential history myself, I set out to Bookmooch this book. And it was well worth it.

In this book, Ms. Vowell explores the more m...more I first saw Sarah Vowell on The Daily Show and I was intrigued. This slight, dry, kind of sleepy-looking woman was not who you might expect when you run the words "presidential historian" through your mind, but there she was. The fact that she was also really funny impressed me even further. And so, since I have a long-running fascination with presidential history myself, I set out to Bookmooch this book. And it was well worth it.

In this book, Ms. Vowell explores the more morbid side of being interested in Presidents, and the inevitable morbidness of being in history-love with Abraham Lincoln. If you see her in the special features section of The Incredibles (she played Violet), you can see that she compares Lincoln to a superhero, and has multiple instances of Lincoln idolatry around her home.

Anyway, study Lincoln long enough and you eventually get to the sad part - his assassination by John Wilkes Booth in 1865.

Sitting in Ford's Theatre in Washington DC, she was struck by the same thought many people have when they go there - "Wow. This was the place." She sat in the Chinese restaurant that was built on the site of the boarding house where Booth and his co-conspirators made their plans and thought the same thing. And before she knew it, she was on a pilgrimage, a holy quest to visit all the places involved in the death of Abraham Lincoln. And there are a lot of places to visit, in New York, Illinois, and even off the Florida Keys, to say nothing of the area immediately around DC.

Of the four Presidents that have been assassinated, most people only really know about two: Lincoln and Kennedy. But there were two others brought down by the assassin's gun - Garfield and McKinley. So Vowell expanded her pilgrimage to include them as well, giving them the same treatment and respect that she gives to her hero, Mr. Lincoln. Why she decided not to do Kennedy is not explained. Perhaps because it hasn't been long enough since the event, or because there's so much controversy surrounding it already....

The book is a nice tour through the lives of one President we all know, and two that we don't. And it's all fun to read, which is usually hard to do with history, much less the history of James Garfield. She reveals that each assassination came about by a complex series of events, and was triggered by many things - frustration, anger, despair, madness - and that each one was a tragedy, even if we don't appreciate them all that much.

Along the way, we get a refresher on American history, and a little contemporary comparison as well. For example, the Spanish-American war, over which McKinley presided, bears a shocking resemblance to the current war in Iraq (which I'm pretty sure I mentioned back in 2003 - I really wish LJ had a search function). Both were wars of choice, fought for material gain, and initiated by dubious claims of aggression, just for starters.

It's a fun read. Also, she won my heart right in the beginning by saying that part of the impetus to write this book was watching Stephen Sondheim's musical Assassins, which I know nearly by heart even now, so many years after it was put on stage back at Siena. Every now and then she'd sprinkle a bit from the musical into the book - Charles Guiteau was a hoot - and I'd smile knowingly. Must listen to that again....(less)

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01/12/08

Jesse Keenan rated it:

Read in December, 2007

Last summer Sarah Vowell and David Sedaris did a reading in my town (I did not attend as I'd seen him twice before and the tickets were three times as expensive) but a friend of mine alerted us to where they were dining after the reading. My friend Kaitlin had thrown a party for her boyfriend Josh that afternoon to celebrate the completion of his second masters degree -- so we had been drinking steadily since about 4pm. We made it to the restaurant around midnight with the hope that we would loo...more Last summer Sarah Vowell and David Sedaris did a reading in my town (I did not attend as I'd seen him twice before and the tickets were three times as expensive) but a friend of mine alerted us to where they were dining after the reading. My friend Kaitlin had thrown a party for her boyfriend Josh that afternoon to celebrate the completion of his second masters degree -- so we had been drinking steadily since about 4pm. We made it to the restaurant around midnight with the hope that we would look like such a fun hip group that they would invite us over to their table, we'd then invite them over for brunch in the morning, and proceed to become lifelong friends. After waiting for over an hour for our charm to take effect, we started to feel our window closing as they prepared to leave. Our friend who alerted us that they would be there was at their table and when she came over to say hi we lamented to her that our plan of looking cool from afar was totally not working. She took matters into her own hands and asked David if he would mind if she invited us over to their table to meet him. He was incredibly gracious and talked with us for a few minutes, meanwhile Sarah Vowell glared at us annoyed from the other end of the table. What I failed to notice but heard about later was that my friend Kaitlin, seeing us having such a nice visit with David, decided to approach Sarah and tell her "I'm just like you! We're like the same person!" Sarah was unpleased -- which is a somewhat understandable response when someone tells you something like that. However, Kaitlin is one of smartest, funniest, lovliest people you could ever meet and therefore I feel she could have been a little cooler about it.

I read Assassination Vacation about six months after this incident and perhaps it biased my opinion, but I found her writing to be a bit cold and snarky. Normally i'm a big fan of snarkiness, but her voice had an edge of nastiness to it that I found slightly offputting. There is no denying her wit, humor, and technical skill (which is why I gave it four stars) -- but I didn't find it particularly enjoyable to read and I had no desire to run out and pick up her other books.(less)

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08/14/07

Julie rated it:

Read in August, 2007

recommends it for: history nerds/general nerds

i find some of vowell's oohing and aahing over historical minutiae a bit precious, but she is a word smith. vowell often drifts away from the topic at hand, in this case the assassinations of lincoln, garfield, and mckinley, and at times i wonder if she'll be able to pull it off (there was a particularly dicey moment when peter gallagher of the o.c. was discussed). but much like a seinfeld episode, she ties everything together at the end, and usually with aplomb.

it's annecdotal, par...more

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08/02/07

Jeff rated it:

Read in January, 2005

recommends it for: my grandma, and she doesn't even like to read.

I love Sarah Vowell. So it's hard for me to say anything bad about her. Ever. I love that she's smart, funny, and short (or at least she seems short. She sounds short. In my head, I imagine her as being very short).
But what I love most about her is her writing. I wanted to go on a road trip across the history of America while reading this book. And I'm not sure how I feel about road trips... now that I'm in my 30s. She is extrememly subversive in how she goes about talking about th...more

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08/01/07

Nicole rated it:

Read in February, 2005

recommends it for: everyone with a dork passion

sarah vowell is hilarious. a somewhat gothic looking geek, who I imagine would hang out with the likes of David Cross on the lower eat side of NYC, her incredible, nearly rainman knowledge and quest of knowledge for former presidents and american history is daunting. she is an obsessive geek who pulls her friends into her vacations to spots where former presidents resided, or died. In assination Vacation she is on road trip after roadtrip exploring the assinations of three republican presidents....more

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05/17/07

Abe Brennan rated it:

Read in November, 2005

“Her gift is one of cosmic inclusion—allowing the natural collision of intellect and personality, rigorous research, and generational quirks,” writes the Boston Globe about Sarah Vowell. Certainly Assassination Vacation contains many historical facts, but whether they were gleaned from one or multiple historical and/or reference texts is unclear, as no bibliography—or annotative record of any kind—accompanies this book, which is odd to me, as it purports to be something of a historica...more

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12/08/08

Gail marked it as to-read

bookshelves: to-read

If you listen to This American Life, there's a good chance you know Sarah's work, not by name, but more by her distinctly gravely voice and her hilarious commentary about oh... holidays with her parents. Or Thanksgiving TV specials. A co-worker suggested I give her works a go, and by the description of this one alone, I think I'll be nothing but pleased (though audio books by her may be the way to go here too)

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