Susan Wels

Considered on an anecdote-by-anecdote level, Susan Wels writes well, but taken as a whole, An Assassin in Utopia is a bit of a mess. If there is a central point that Wels is trying to make about the assassination of the U.S. President James Garfield in the 1880s, it's lost amid all the tangents and digressions. I mean, it's certainly horrifyingly gripping to learn that two whales boiled to death in a fire at a "museum" run by P.T. Barnum, but what does it have to do with anything that the show more book's about? Not a terrible book, but an unnecessary one. show less

The title is a bit misleading as the “sex cult” doesn’t figure into it nearly as much as the subtitle would imply. Essentially, it’s the backstory of President Garfield’s assassination in 1881 and Charles Guiteau, the fool who shot him (for a brief time Guiteau had belonged to the Oneida commune, but they kicked him out for being insane). If you’re interested in learning about US politics from 1870-1881 check it out.

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