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Assassination Vacation

by Sarah Vowell, Brad Bird (Narrator), David Rakoff (Narrator), Jon Stewart (Narrator), Eric Bogosian (Narrator), Dave Eggers (Narrator), Greg Giraldo (Narrator), Daniel Handler (Narrator) , more…

4.0 of 5 stars 4.00 · rating details · 22,171 ratings · 2,384 reviews

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 Buffal...more

Audio CD, Abridged, 8 pages

Published March 29th 2005 by Simon & Schuster Audio

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Aug 01, 2008 Kim rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: everyone... this means YOU

Recommended to Kim by: I stole it from one of you goodreader's lists

Shelves: gmba, favorite-authors, essays, holy-shit

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 learned that people think I’m a freak.

I’ve been...more

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Oct 15, 2008 Matt rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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...more

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Mar 11, 2009 Eric_W rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: history-historiography, humor

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 of reading...more

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Oct 05, 2007 Kim rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition 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 of, "I'm j...more

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Apr 09, 2012 Lisa Vegan rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, biography, history, bookclub, reviewed, altta, humor

I love the author’s irreverence, wit, and humorous outlook. I find her hilarious when she’s speaking, such as when I’ve seen her on Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show. This book is funny, but her writing is not nearly as hilarious as she is when speaking. I think this book would be great as an audio book if read by the author. Even her voice and inflections are funny, and while I laugh out loud when listening to her, including when she talked about this book, reading this book elicited some smiles fro...more I love the author’s irreverence, wit, and humorous outlook. I find her hilarious when she’s speaking, such as when I’ve seen her on Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show. This book is funny, but her writing is not nearly as hilarious as she is when speaking. I think this book would be great as an audio book if read by the author. Even her voice and inflections are funny, and while I laugh out loud when listening to her, including when she talked about this book, reading this book elicited some smiles from me, but that’s about it. Of course, it’s only because of the author that I’d expected a book about Presidential assassinations would make me laugh.

I was disappointed that only 3 Presidents (Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley) were the focus here, and that they are all Republicans, although there are extremely brief mentions of JFK, RFK, and Martin Luther King, Jr., Gandhi, and a bit more than them about Teddy Roosevelt. And I loved that she revisited the Lincoln-Kennedy coincidence list; I hadn’t thought about it for many years.

There were some very amusing and educational portions, and for me it got better and better as I went along. I went from being disappointed to really enjoying the reading experience.

I particularly enjoyed the more personal material, particularly the part about the author’s young nephew. I can see why she likes as well as loves him.

I got a huge kick out of Garfield’s love of reading; he’s a president about which I’d known very little, and I’d known the most about Lincoln and very, very little about the other two, but from this book I learned a lot about all three. Now, I wasn’t reading for school, but for pleasure, and there were so many juicy tidbits that I’m afraid in very short order I will forget most of the information. This is history spiced up, but I’ve always enjoyed history and don’t need it to be made more palatable. However, I did really appreciate the information that isn’t typically included in history books, and even in many biography books

So, I did end up enjoying this, but she’s still much funnier in person.

3 ½ stars I rounded up because of this book’s ingenuity.(less)

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Mar 12, 2008 Andrew rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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 h...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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May 14, 2007 Lucy rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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

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, Pr...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 hang 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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Mar 26, 2010 Erin rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Just a quick survey to pick your brains out there. This is in no way real or based on actual events.

Let's say that a good neighbor, friend and fellow book junkie lends you a paperback book. Let's say it is called... oh I don't know... Assassination Vacation. Suppose the book got very mild water damage on it, just enough to look like you read it on the sea shore of Bermuda. This was in fact no fault of your own, probably water splashed on it when you were washing black grease off of baby ducks wh...more

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Dec 28, 2008 Dollie rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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 obsessi...more

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Apr 30, 2008 Bryan rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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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Dec 05, 2007 Grace rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: U.S. history buffs!

Shelves: 2007

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...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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Mar 17, 2009 Nicholas Karpuk rated it 5 of 5 stars 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, mulling it over out of a weird fear durin...more

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Jan 20, 2009 Patrick Gibson rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: casual history aficionados

Shelves: road_trip, history, humorous

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 sculpted bronze hands, admir...more

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Oct 08, 2008 Ryan Lawson rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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,...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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Aug 19, 2008 David Monroe rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: NPR fans, casual history buffs, RTL Haters, Presidential Necrophiles

Shelves: non-fiction, history, book-to-re-read

I have a huge crush on Sarah Vowell, just sayin'. She's funny, she's eloquent, she's fascinating, etc. Oh and she played Violet in The Incredibles as well as doing amazing radio essays for This American Life.

I'm a fan of her PRI essays but not so much of her books, I was very happily surprised to find I liked Assassination Vacation much more than her others. It's an investigation of the tourism around the sites of presidential assassinations and odd facts and trivia surrounding them and their as...more I have a huge crush on Sarah Vowell, just sayin'. She's funny, she's eloquent, she's fascinating, etc. Oh and she played Violet in The Incredibles as well as doing amazing radio essays for This American Life.

I'm a fan of her PRI essays but not so much of her books, I was very happily surprised to find I liked Assassination Vacation much more than her others. It's an investigation of the tourism around the sites of presidential assassinations and odd facts and trivia surrounding them and their assassins. She intersperses the book with anecdotes of her adventures she had on her self-proclaimed pilgrimage of presidential assassination. Quick tip: If you find a way to time-travel to the late 19th or early 20th Centuries, never let Robert Todd Lincoln attend your party... dude ... seriously, never!!

I have a few nits to pick with some of her information, especially with Pres. Garfield, but she mostly gets the history right, so that's cool. It's hard not to grin at her infectious and obvious love of history as well as her idiosyncratic asides such as wishing she could go back in time and kill her relative who rode with Quantrails' Raiders; or how cute she finds John Wilkes Booth; or how the Maryland State song (adopted in 1939) contains references critical of Lincoln, The Union and favorable to the Confederacy.

I also found she shares a passion of mine, historical plaques and signs. If I see one, even on a bridge, I have to stop read and take a picture. As you'll find out if you read Assassination Vacation, they are impossibly and improbably compelling. Really!

This is not great literature or great history but it is fun and interesting. I enjoyed her dry-humored, pop-informational tour of our more necrotic presidents and the assassins who hated them. If your a Sarah Vowell or history fan, I don't think you'll be disappointed.

PS: Get the Audio book if you can, it features the voices of - Conan O’Brien, Seth Green, Stephen Colbert, David Cross, Paul Begala, Michael Chabon, Norman Lear, and music by They Might Be Giants. Conan is hilarious as the voice of Sad-sack son of Lincoln, Robert Todd.(less)

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Jul 14, 2008 Lisa rated it 5 of 5 stars

Great book! I wish that all of history could be taught like this. We'd have more historians and fewer bankers (at least one less anyway!). I spent the first two chapters wondering if I could stand to listen to Ms. Vowell's voice and her odd cadence any longer, but now I'm sitting here wondering how I can stand NOT listening to it now that I'm finished. Like the author, I, too, have a "thing" for Abraham Lincoln so I knew that I was bound to like the book, but I didn't realize how much I would le...more

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Feb 25, 2008 Alicia rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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...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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Aug 28, 2009 Chris rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: history

I first saw Sarah Vowell on The Daily Show and I was intrigued by her. This slight, dry, kind of sleepy-looking woman was not who you might expect when you run the words "presidential historian" through your mind (in my mind, "presidential historian" is usually an older man of leisure who's managed to be lucky enough to turn a passion into a job), 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 presidentia...more I first saw Sarah Vowell on The Daily Show and I was intrigued by her. This slight, dry, kind of sleepy-looking woman was not who you might expect when you run the words "presidential historian" through your mind (in my mind, "presidential historian" is usually an older man of leisure who's managed to be lucky enough to turn a passion into a job), 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 Mooch this book. And it was well worth it.

Being interested in Presidents means a lot of things. For some, it's the semi-regular top/bottom ten Presidents lists, or comparing one to another in terms of their accomplishments and scandals. Some people develop a fascination with the more obscure Presidents, hoping to rescue their names and deeds from the dustbin of history. Others look to see what kind of social or cultural changes they made in their times. In short, if you want to learn about the Presidents, there are a lot of ways you can go about it.

Ms. Vowell here explores the more morbid side of Presidential history, especially the inevitable morbidness of being in history-love with Abraham Lincoln. In the special features section of The Incredibles DVD (she played Violet), you can see that she compares Lincoln to a superhero, and has multiple instances of Lincoln idolatry around her home. She admires Lincoln's steadfastness and resolve, his determination to hold the Union together, and the humanity that connected him to the rest of the common people. Lincoln, in life, has a great deal to appreciate.

Study Lincoln long enough, however, 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. Lincoln's assassination echoed from that box seat in Ford's Theatre and shook the nation.

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. Both were wars of choice, fought for material gain, and initiated by dubious claims of aggression, just for starters. "Then, as now," she says, "optional wars are fought because there are people in the government who really, really want to fight them."

One of Vowell's great talents in this field is being able to link things together, so that the decision made by, say, John Wilkes Booth has effects that can be traced to Emma Goldman, and then to Leon Czolgosz. Or how the utopian free love community of Oneida, New York accidentally spawned the bizarre madman Charles Guiteau, and then went on to make rather nice teapots.

This is a technique that history teachers need to learn if they're going to give the world more people like Sarah Vowell - an understanding that history is not a series of isolated events, where you can look at a name, a place and a date and say, "Well, that's that." History is an ongoing process, with cause and effect coming one after another, often in strange and unexpected ways. Perhaps if people could see how a single event in the past directly influences the way they live in the present, they'd take more interest.

It's a fun read. If you weren't interested in history before you read this book, you'll at least be a little warmer to it afterwards. 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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Jan 12, 2008 Jesse Keenan rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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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Aug 14, 2007 Julie rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition 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, part personal hi...more

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Aug 04, 2007 Jeff rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition 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 the history of t...more

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Aug 01, 2007 Nicole rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: everyone with a dork passion

Shelves: non-fictionhumor

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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May 17, 2007 Abe Brennan rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

“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 historical work. I s...more

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Dec 08, 2008 Gail marked it as to-read · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction

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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Jul 02, 2008 Nora rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: US History geeks/ Vowell fans

I did not finish this book. I suppose I could have, it was somewhat interesting and at times quite clever. However, its due date came up at the library and I could not renew it because there was a hold on it. If it were a more compelling read, i would have just suffered the late fees, after all, I did read the first two sections, and I rarely put down a book when I have invested my time in consuming 2/3 of it. Yet Vowell's tendency for convoluted sentences and incoherent messages or points made...more

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May 28, 2008 Shannon rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Ugh! Sarah Vowell, you annoy the hell out of me, on This American Life and in this book. I always think, "that would be totally funny if that happened to me" but her writing is never sufficient enough to translate it to the page. She's just not a good storyteller--she wants to be David Sedaris but she can't seem to pull it off.

I also can't stand when people go on about how so-called nerdy they are when you know they secretly relish being weird and quirky.

I have a friend that confuses her with...more

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Nov 11, 2008 Rachel rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: people who like American history, American presidents and travel

Shelves: memoir, best-sellers

I listened to Assassination Vacation on audiobook. Sarah Vowell has such a unique voice and by reading the book herself you really get a sense of her wit. There were many times I laughed out loud. While I love books about people's travel experiences, I wasn't too sure about this one... reading about a vacation someone took to learn more about the assassins of American presidents? But it is so unique I really glad I took the time with this one. I learned things I didn't even know I wanted to lear...more

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Mar 26, 2009 Cameron rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: history

What could be better than listening to Sarah Vowell read her own witticisms and eccentric historical musings at 4 a.m. while driving to Northern California? Well, sleep for one, but not many other things. Okay, sex and raw cacao dipped in honey, but not...oh wait, moving to a place in a yoga pose where I've never been before, but other than that...

Anyway, this absolutely engaging narrative of Vowell's assassination quest (obsession?) to unearth knowledge and visit historical sites relating to th...more

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Mar 26, 2009 Coco rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

As someone who used to cast voice talent for tv and radio spots in a previous life, let me just say, I am captivated by Sarah Vowell's voice. My kids love her voice as Violet, but I just love her voice. As a writer and as a speaker. Her witty, droll humor and the fact she's such a cute little dork makes me wish she were my BFF. So, after hearing her talk about Assassination Vacation during a tv interview, I rushed out to get it and was not disappointed.

Her take on history is inspired, with all s...more

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Mar 10, 2009 Matt Evans rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Sarah Vowell gets points for producing this audiobook, for reading it, for hiring out various presidential voices to big names like Stephen King, Dave Eggers, Dan Handler (Lemony Snickett), etc., and for just being good old weird, funny, literate and strange Sarah Vowell. Add more points for really cool facts about our three assassinated-before-1910 presidents: Lincoln, Garfield and McKinley. Kennedy gets the old short shrift at the end, but then who really needs to know more about JFK's murder...more Sarah Vowell gets points for producing this audiobook, for reading it, for hiring out various presidential voices to big names like Stephen King, Dave Eggers, Dan Handler (Lemony Snickett), etc., and for just being good old weird, funny, literate and strange Sarah Vowell. Add more points for really cool facts about our three assassinated-before-1910 presidents: Lincoln, Garfield and McKinley. Kennedy gets the old short shrift at the end, but then who really needs to know more about JFK's murder when you've got Oliver Stone on Netflix?

Here are a few random and fun facts:

1) Lincoln most likely died laughing. Here's why: John Wilkes Booth, a famous actor (undoubtedly rococo and Jon Lovitzianly thespian; an ACTOR!) of his day, knew by heart the play Lincoln and his missus were in attendance to and watching; and so he timed his trigger pull to correspond with one of the play's tried-n-true laugh lines, all the better to cover his derringer's report. So much for small mercies.

2) Garfield's assassain, Charles Guiteau, lived for a time in the upstate New York Oneida Religious community. As fun facts go, this may seem unexceptional. Just you wait. The Oneida Religious community was a religious 'free-love' commune. That is, members lived in a state of open community marriage, termed 'complex marriage,' where every man was betrothed to every woman, and vice-versa. There's actually quite a bit to write here, but in light of Goodreads's family-friendly tone, I'll simply direct the inquisitive to Wikipedia for further light and knowledge. Free-love commune or no, the Oneidans weren't a bunch of lounge-about hippies; they worked Amishly hard, and shared all their labors' fruits. Furthermore, they had proscriptions against drinking and using profanity. They attended church every Sunday. They held community "feedback" sessions wherein a community member was chosen at random for the rest of the community to give "feedback" to. E.g.: "You chew your food too loudly." "Your breath stinketh." "You aren't devout enough." "You talk too much about North Virginia." Etc. All of which is to say, the Oneida community was an exacting but loving community; remarkably tolerant and accepting of others. Here's where Guiteau comes back in our picture. Guiteau, barking crazy even on his best days, by all accounts a very annoying person, member of a free-love community, this same Guiteau never, um, 'got any.' Vowell points out that conjugal relations, even in open marriages, maybe even especially in open marriages, are still /consensual/ relations. More evidence that Guiteau was a thorn in the communal Oneida side: his nickname was "Gitout" (i.e.,"Git Out"). Guiteau also seemed to get picked 'it' for community feedback night more often than others. Which all foregoing (and hopefully fun) facts should underscore this one final fact: Guiteau lived with the Oneidans for FIVE WHOLE YEARS; rather, they kept him on-board for five whole years. Pretty amazing stuff.
3) The Oneida community later folded as a communal-in-all-possible-ways community and began instead selling fine china. They are today one of the nation's biggest purveyors of fine china.

In conclusion: as with the Harry Potter series, this is a book to listen to, not to read.(less)

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About Sarah Vowell

Sarah Jane Vowell is an American author, journalist, humorist, and commentator. Often referred to as a "social observer," Vowell has authored several books and is a regular contributor to the radio program This American Life on Public Radio International. She was also the voice of Violet in the animated film The Incredibles and a short documentary, VOWELLET - An Essay by SARAH VOWELL in the "Behin...more

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“Like Lincoln, I would like to believe the ballot is stronger than the bullet. Then again, he said that before he got shot.” — 53 people liked it

“That's what I like to call him, "the current president." I find it difficult to say or type his name, George W. Bush. I like to call him "the current president" because it's a hopeful phrase, implying that his administration is only temporary.” — 24 people liked it

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