A gripping historical novel in the bestselling tradition of The Alienist and Time and Again, Booth brings vividly to life a figure who continues to haunt the American imagination--John Wilkes Booth. The story begins as an elderly John Surratt, the only conspirator to escape a hanging sentence for the murder of Abraham Lincoln, is asked by film director D.W. Griffith to recount the harrowing events of his youth during the screenings of Griffith's film Birth of a Nation. The request prompts Surratt to reread his detailed diaries, begun in 1864 when he was first befriended by John Wilkes Booth and was unwittingly enmeshed in Booth's plot to assassinate the President.
Told through a series of flashbacks, the novel both chronicles the young, naive Surratt's tragic coming of age as he belatedly realizes the nature of the plot Booth has sucked him into, and illuminates the motivations, larger-than-life appetites, and appeal of the charismatic and world-famous stage actor. As Surratt delves further into the diaries and transcripts, it is clear the young Surratt has become trapped in Booth's web of seduction and betrayal. Further insight into the assassination plot is revealed in a surprising twist when the genuine diary that Booth left behind, explaining his actions and implicating others around him, falls into Surratt's hands (a Booth diary, with several missing pages, does exist and is on public display at the Ford Theater in Washington).
Compulsively readable, and filled with brilliant period detail--as well as a dozen reproductions of actual photographs of the conspirators and their execution, Booth is a powerful evocation of a dangerous, chaotic, and tragic time in our history, a story that continues to resonate to this day.
David M. Robertson is the author of two prior biographies, of the slave rebel, Denmark Vesey, and of former US Secretary of State, James F. Byrnes, and is the author of a historical novel about John Wilkes Booth. His poetry has appeared in the Sewanee Review and other journals, and he had provided political and literary commentary to ABC News and The Washington Post.
Show moreA gripping historical novel in the bestselling tradition of The Alienist and Time and Again, Booth brings vividly to life a figure who continues to haunt the American imagination--John Wilkes Booth. The story begins as an elderly John Surratt, the only conspirator to escape a hanging sentence for the murder of Abraham Lincoln, is asked by film director D.W. Griffith to recount the harrowing events of his youth during the screenings of Griffith's film Birth of a Nation. The request prompts Surratt to reread his detailed diaries, begun in 1864 when he was first befriended by John Wilkes Booth and was unwittingly enmeshed in Booth's plot to assassinate the President.
Told through a series of flashbacks, the novel both chronicles the young, naive Surratt's tragic coming of age as he belatedly realizes the nature of the plot Booth has sucked him into, and illuminates the motivations, larger-than-life appetites, and appeal of the charismatic and world-famous stage actor. As Surratt delves further into the diaries and transcripts, it is clear the young Surratt has become trapped in Booth's web of seduction and betrayal. Further insight into the assassination plot is revealed in a surprising twist when the genuine diary that Booth left behind, explaining his actions and implicating others around him, falls into Surratt's hands (a Booth diary, with several missing pages, does exist and is on public display at the Ford Theater in Washington).
Compulsively readable, and filled with brilliant period detail--as well as a dozen reproductions of actual photographs of the conspirators and their execution, Booth is a powerful evocation of a dangerous, chaotic, and tragic time in our history, a story that continues to resonate to this day.
David M. Robertson is the author of two prior biographies, of the slave rebel, Denmark Vesey, and of former US Secretary of State, James F. Byrnes, and is the author of a historical novel about John Wilkes Booth. His poetry has appeared in the Sewanee Review and other journals, and he had provided political and literary commentary to ABC News and The Washington Post.
Show moreDavid M. Robertson is the author of two prior biographies, of the slave rebel, Denmark Vesey, and of former US Secretary of State, James F. Byrnes, and is the author of a historical novel about John Wilkes Booth. His poetry has appeared in the Sewanee Review and other journals, and he had provided political and literary commentary to ABC News and The Washington Post.
"Washington D.C. during the final weeks of the Civil War is
perfectly realized...Robertson has authentically assumed not only
the voice but also the persona of a real person; it would have been
easy for him to vilify Surratt, but instead, in his wisdom, he has
imbued Surratt with a compelling ambiguity of
character."--Booklist
"Brings to mind two other fiction debuts, Charles Frazier's Cold
Mountain and Caleb Carr's The Alienist...but it offers its own
potent inducements, notably an immensely compelling subject--the
plot to assassinate Lincoln--and a charismatic antihero, John
Wilkes Booth...brilliantly capitalizes on the inexorability of
historical fact; few readers will put it down as it surges toward
the horror of April 14, 1865."--Publishers Weekly
"Riveting in its depiction of time and
place...[Robertson's]portrait of wartime Washington in the last
days of the Civil War is filled with vivid particulars, and his
rendering of the hustling spirit of the town, with almost everyone
angling for money or power, seems just right."--Kirkus Reviews
"Washington D.C. during the final weeks of the Civil War is
perfectly realized...Robertson has authentically assumed not only
the voice but also the persona of a real person; it would have been
easy for him to vilify Surratt, but instead, in his wisdom, he has
imbued Surratt with a compelling ambiguity of
character."--Booklist
"Brings to mind two other fiction debuts, Charles Frazier's Cold
Mountain and Caleb Carr's The Alienist...but it offers
its own potent inducements, notably an immensely compelling
subject--the plot to assassinate Lincoln--and a charismatic
antihero, John Wilkes Booth...brilliantly capitalizes on the
inexorability of historical fact; few readers will put it down as
it surges toward the horror of April 14, 1865."--Publishers
Weekly
"Riveting in its depiction of time and
place...[Robertson's]portrait of wartime Washington in the last
days of the Civil War is filled with vivid particulars, and his
rendering of the hustling spirit of the town, with almost everyone
angling for money or power, seems just right."--Kirkus
Reviews
Against the background of the plot to assassinate President Lincoln, first-time novelist Robertson presents a fascinating portrait of the family that John Wilkes Booth seduced and manipulated into assisting him in his heinous crime. Reluctant conspirator John Surratt narrates the progression of his friendship with Booth during the days leading up to Lincoln's assassination in April 1865. Booth confides to Surratt his plan to capture Lincoln and end the Civil War; then he presses Surratt into mapping his escape route. Suspense builds as the fateful day of the shooting draws near and an affair is intimated between Booth and Surratt's mother. Surratt is haunted all his life by the gallows death of his mother and by her final words, "Oh, please don't let me fall." The narrative is choppy in places and the style unpolished, but Robertson's masterful characterizations make up for his stylistic weaknesses. Sure to be popular with both fiction and nonfiction readers; recommended for all libraries.‘Molly Gorman, San Marino, Cal.
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