Assassination Vacation
by Sarah Vowell
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Sarah Vowell exposes the glorious conundrums of American history and culture with wit, probity, and an irreverent sense of humor. With Assassination Vacation, she takes us on a road trip like no other -- a journey to the pit stops of American political murder and through the myriad ways they have been used for fun and profit, for political and cultural advantage. From Buffalo to Alaska, Washington to the Dry Tortugas, Vowell visits locations immortalized and influenced by the spilling of show more politically important blood, reporting as she goes with her trademark blend of wisecracking humor, remarkable honesty, and thought-provoking criticism. We learn about the jinx that was Robert Todd Lincoln (present at the assassinations of Presidents Lincoln, Garfield, and McKinley) and witness the politicking that went into the making of the Lincoln Memorial. The resulting narrative is much more than an entertaining and informative travelogue -- it is the disturbing and fascinating story of how American death has been manipulated by popular culture, including literature, architecture, sculpture, and -- the author's favorite -- historical tourism. Though the themes of loss and violence are explored and we make detours to see how the Republican Party became the Republican Party, there are all kinds of lighter diversions along the way into the lives of the three presidents and their assassins, including mummies, show tunes, mean-spirited totem poles, and a nineteenth-century biblical sex cult. show lessTags
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CGlanovsky The author in both books is very present in the text; humorous, unconventional and interesting look at American History
Member Reviews
I like how Vowell discusses the uglier sides of America (slavery and its ilk)—not in a preachy way nor in a "my editor said I have to include this" way, but in a matter-of-fact, unforced and unflinching tone.
Also: *Hard to believe that the candidate who lost the popular vote could actually become the president of the United States. Luckily, that kind of travesty never happened again." Reading this 20 years on is something else. I almost feel guilty for finding that as funny as I did.
Also: *Hard to believe that the candidate who lost the popular vote could actually become the president of the United States. Luckily, that kind of travesty never happened again." Reading this 20 years on is something else. I almost feel guilty for finding that as funny as I did.
This is the rarest of all things: a work of non-fiction that I just could not put down. Vowell makes obscure historical figures and the places related to them fascinatingly relevant to the modern reader. Snarky, irreverant, peppered with personal anecdotes that actually add to the narrative instead of detract from it, Assassination Vacation should be required reading for every high school history class.
A re-read of a favorite, inspired by learning more from the copious history podcasts I've been recently consuming teaching me more about the presidential assassinations in question. Sarah Vowell's distinctive mixture of unabashed nerdy enthusiasm, thorough knowledge of her subjects, and wry humor is always a delight, and the strong morbid streak we both share, which has particular cause to shine here due to the subject matter, means this book will probably forever be my favorite of hers. This re-read was also fun because in the time since my first reading I've had the chance to visit several of the places discussed--and I was also thrilled when she referred to findagrave.com as "my favorite website" (SAME).
this was parts humorous, parts informative. there's a surprising amount i don't know about presidential history. not just the lesser-known presidents (but really, why are they lesser known?) but i even realized how little i knew of lincoln's assassination - not the details in the theater, but the confederate conspiracy and all the other names of the people involved (that i've already mostly forgotten). so mostly this was interesting. it's also always interesting (and completely tragic) to read about, even in passing, how badly george w bush was performing as president, and how we thought he was the worst president ever, and how we have so far surpassed that with trump. (but also how probably he didn't hold a candle to andrew jackson or show more andrew johnson - for issues of race in particular - and i'm sure there are others i don't know enough about.)
anyway, interesting and amusing, written well enough, but nothing too special. show less
anyway, interesting and amusing, written well enough, but nothing too special. show less
Her writing was as brilliant as ever, but I thought the subject matter was a little thin for stretching out into a whole book. I enjoyed her meandering into all the tangental topics, but sometimes it comes at the expense of more closely related topics that are barely touched upon. Almost no time is spent trying to flesh out McKinley as an individual, for instance, while page after page is devoted to Teddy Roosevelt. Several pages are devoted to Emma Goldman's relationships, but there's very little discussion of anarachism and why it was such an attractive philosophy in that era.
Sarah Vowell’s Assassination Vacation examines the lives, presidencies, and assassinations of Abraham Lincoln, James A. Garfield, and William McKinley as well as the people in their lives and their actual assassins, John Wilkes Booth, Charles Guiteau, and Leon Czolgosz. She writes in the style of a travelogue, visiting places relevant to the presidents, their assassins, and the sites of the assassinations themselves. These take her to Illinois, throughout Washington, D.C., to Mentor, OH, to Buffalo, NY, throughout areas in Virginia and Maryland, as far away as Dry Tortugas National Park and as close at home as her Oneida teapot. Through it all, she examines the natures of these men and studies their motivations either to seek the show more presidency or to remove the president. Finally, she concludes with a study of Robert Todd Lincoln, who was unfortunate to either be related to one of the victims, witness one of the assassinations, or just be entering the city when and where another assassination occurred.
Vowell’s dry wit comes through, particularly as she wrote in the shadow of the early days of the Iraq War and cannot help but draw political comparisons to other times of political and military turmoil in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. For myself, I was particularly interested as I had either visited several of the locations in the past – the McKinley Shooting Rock, the Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural National Historic Site, Ford’s Theatre, the White House, the Seward House Museum, and more – or was passing through the areas relevant to James Garfield as I read this book, taking the opportunity to visit the President Garfield Memorial and James A. Garfield National Historic Site. Those with an interest in history, especially those who are excited to stop and read an historic plaque or visit the site of an historic event, will find this a particularly enjoyable read. show less
Vowell’s dry wit comes through, particularly as she wrote in the shadow of the early days of the Iraq War and cannot help but draw political comparisons to other times of political and military turmoil in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. For myself, I was particularly interested as I had either visited several of the locations in the past – the McKinley Shooting Rock, the Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural National Historic Site, Ford’s Theatre, the White House, the Seward House Museum, and more – or was passing through the areas relevant to James Garfield as I read this book, taking the opportunity to visit the President Garfield Memorial and James A. Garfield National Historic Site. Those with an interest in history, especially those who are excited to stop and read an historic plaque or visit the site of an historic event, will find this a particularly enjoyable read. show less
Looking for an off-beat, yet intriguing getaway? Something involving a healthy dose of U.S. history and a trio of past presidents, all who have been slain in office? Well, Sarah Vowell did just that and she has crafted a quirky travelogue, that has her visiting and commentating on the key locations and highlights, or is it lowlights, of the assassinations of President’s Garfield, McKinley and Lincoln. Vowell goes deep on all stories, focusing
on the killers individual histories, including this tidbit: Charles Guiteau, Garfield’s assassin, was a member of a New York sex cult, circa the 1840s, which would make Alfred Kinsey cringe. She also cleverly refers to Robert Todd Lincoln as “Jinxy McDeath”, due to his proximity to all three show more deaths.
Here she describes a visit to the Lincoln Memorial:
“The people who visit the memorial always look like an advertisement for democracy, so bizarrely, suspiciously diverse that one time I actually saw a man in a cowboy hat standing there reading the Gettsyburg Address next to a Hasidic Jew. I wouldn’t have been surprised if they had linked arms with a woman in a burka and a Masai warrior, to belt out ‘It’s a Small World After All’, flanked by a chorus line of nuns…”
By the end of this book, I have to confess, I was smitten by this witty, articulate, totally engaging author. show less
on the killers individual histories, including this tidbit: Charles Guiteau, Garfield’s assassin, was a member of a New York sex cult, circa the 1840s, which would make Alfred Kinsey cringe. She also cleverly refers to Robert Todd Lincoln as “Jinxy McDeath”, due to his proximity to all three show more deaths.
Here she describes a visit to the Lincoln Memorial:
“The people who visit the memorial always look like an advertisement for democracy, so bizarrely, suspiciously diverse that one time I actually saw a man in a cowboy hat standing there reading the Gettsyburg Address next to a Hasidic Jew. I wouldn’t have been surprised if they had linked arms with a woman in a burka and a Masai warrior, to belt out ‘It’s a Small World After All’, flanked by a chorus line of nuns…”
By the end of this book, I have to confess, I was smitten by this witty, articulate, totally engaging author. show less
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Author Information
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Sarah Vowell lives in New York City. Sarah Vowell was born in Muskogee, Oklahoma on December 27, 1969. She received a B.A. in modern languages and literatures from Montana State University in 1993 and an M.A. in art history from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1996. She has written several nonfiction books including The Wordy show more Shipmates, Assassination Vacation, Radio On, Unfamiliar Fishes, and Lafayette in the Somewhat United States. She has also written two essay collections entitled The Partly Cloudy Patriot and Take the Cannoli. She was a contributing editor for the radio program This American Life on Public Radio International from 1996-2008. Her work has been published in numerous publications including The Village Voice, Esquire, GQ, Spin, The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and the SF Weekly. She was also the voice of Violet in the animated film The Incredibles. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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Is abridged in
Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- Assassination Vacation
- Original publication date
- 2005
- People/Characters
- George A. Atzerodt; John Wilkes Booth; Leon F. Czolgosz; James Abram Garfield; Charles Guiteau; David Herold (show all 14); Abraham Lincoln; Robert Todd Lincoln; William McKinley; Samuel A. Mudd; Lewis Powell; Theodore Roosevelt; John Harrison Surratt, Jr.; Mary Surratt
- Important places
- Washington, D.C., USA; Buffalo, New York, USA; New York, New York, USA; Dry Tortugas National Park, Florida, USA; Lincoln Memorial, Washington, D.C., USA; Clinton, Maryland, USA (show all 7); Baltimore, Maryland, USA
- Important events
- Assassination of Abraham Lincoln; Assassination of James A. Garfield; Spanish-American War; Assassination of William McKinley; Pan-American Exposition
- Epigraph
- In the Middle Ages, relics spawned a continentwide craze. Devotees packed their bags and streamed out of towns and villages, thronging the pilgrimage trails. For most, a journey to see the relic of St. Thomas or St. James off... (show all)ered the only valid excuse for leaving home.
Anneli Rufus Magnificent Corpses
"The real Lincoln exists in my mind," Pris said.
I was astonished. "You don't believe that. What do you mean by saying that? You mean that you have the idea in your mind."
She cocked her head on o... (show all)ne side and eyed me. "No, Louis. I really have Lincoln in my mind. And I've been working night after night to transfer him out of my mind, back into the outside world."
Philip K. Dick We Can Build You
That's what writing is. You're keeping people alive in your head.
Carl Reiner - Dedication
- In memory of Carlile Vowell (1904–1995)
Grandfather, principal, history teacher, Muskogee County commissioner, wiseacre, and Democrat. What I wouldn't give to hear him cuss that a book about three Republicans has been de... (show all)dicated in his name. - First words
- One night last summer, all the killers in my head assembled on a stage in Massachusetts to sing show tunes.
- Quotations
- Going to Ford's Theatre to watch the play is like going to Hooters for the food.
- Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)They shot him too.
- Disambiguation notice
- Please do not combine the abridged audiobook of Sarah Vowell's Assassination Vacation with the unabridged full text of that work. Thank you.
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