Assassination Vacation

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It's a hit!

Funny, frank, honest prose, This American Life style. Best chapters revolve around John Wilkes Booth. The only reason I don't give it 5 stars is b... (show more)

Funny, frank, honest prose, This American Life style. Best chapters revolve around John Wilkes Booth. The only reason I don't give it 5 stars is because it focuses entirely on American perspectives of American history, and omitting how the featured assassinations might look to foreigners. No context is provided as to what was happening in the world at the time which might have contributed to the assassination attempt. Sarah Vowell has a great, all encompassing style of prose that never fails to amuse and impress with her self-deprecating humor and honesty.

My favorite quote: "Standing there at Powell's grave, telling my nephew about a buried skull, I realize how much of our relationship revolves around body parts and severed heads. Once Owen learned to talk, we started playing a game I call Frankenstein, in which I am Frankenstein's monster and I chase him around trying to harvest his organs and appendages because my master is building another boy. "Frankenstein needs your spleen,"I yell, aping the voice of an announcer at a monster truck rally. "Give me your spleen!" Which is why the seemingly gross book I gave him for his birthday, a collection of poetry for children called The Blood Hungry Spleen, was actually a sentimental choice, even though my sister tells me it didn't go over so well when he brought it to preschoool." (show less)

 

 

by Facebook User

No, it's a flop!

I had previously read Sarah Vowell’s engaging book of essays, Take The Cannoli, and it enjoyed it. And I liked the concept for Assassination Vacati... (show more)

I had previously read Sarah Vowell’s engaging book of essays, Take The Cannoli, and it enjoyed it. And I liked the concept for Assassination Vacation-going on a road trip to various historical locations of the assassinations of Lincoln, Garfield, and McKinley. The first chapter is on the Lincoln assassination and it should come as no surprise that it is the longest and the most tedious for me there was a lot of attention to details that I found trivial or uninteresting. Perhaps it also had something to do with the familiarity of the subject as well, but also a lot do with the fact that she focuses too much on John Wilkes Booth. The second section on Garfield’s assassination was more interesting to me because I didn’t know as much about his assassination or his administration as president. Again perhaps there was too much information about his assassin Charles Guiteau as well. However, I found the third section about McKinley’s assassination the most fascinating because of what was going on with his administration as well as who took over once he died, Teddy Roosevelt, and the fact that his murderer Leon Czolgosz was inspired by Emma Goldman and the anarchists to assassinate McKinley. The last section that ties it together was really interesting as well. I would have preferred that Vowell spend more time on the administrations rather than the trivia surrounding the assassinations. (show less)

 

 

by Patrick McCoy

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  This book was good for US history dorks (like myself), but not great. Vowell spends half of the book talking about the Lincoln assassination, its history, the weird ties, weirder historical sites; and all that is great. But then the other half speeds yet meanders through Garfield and McKinley, and either she didn't do enough work or she didn't have enough time. The stuff that was good was good. There were parts where I got annoyed with her self-centeredness and New-York-centrism, but had ... (show more)

  This book was good for US history dorks (like myself), but not great. Vowell spends half of the book talking about the Lincoln assassination, its history, the weird ties, weirder historical sites; and all that is great. But then the other half speeds yet meanders through Garfield and McKinley, and either she didn't do enough work or she didn't have enough time. The stuff that was good was good. There were parts where I got annoyed with her self-centeredness and New-York-centrism, but had to remind myself this wasn't a history book, but almost a travel/memoir book. Also at a few points, her anti-President Bush (43) views got annoying and in the way of her story, and seemed to change her thesis (if you will) midstream. There were a few parts where her Bush-bashing was a stretch, and others where, here in 2009, seemed quaint and old-fashioned. But history dorks will like this book - even if the only voice you hear in your head is Violet from The Incredibles. (show less)

   

   

  by Dan Guzman on Sep 01, 2009 at 10:40PM

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  I wasn't really familiar with Sarah Vowell before my mom recommended this book to me. The book is essentially Vowell's trip (taken with various family members and friends, mostly her sister and nephew, because Vowell herself does not drive) to various places in the country that have historical significance in connection with the assassinations of Presidents Lincoln, Garfield, and McKinley. The subject--or possibly American history in general--appears to be a personal obsession for Vowell, as ... (show more)

  I wasn't really familiar with Sarah Vowell before my mom recommended this book to me. The book is essentially Vowell's trip (taken with various family members and friends, mostly her sister and nephew, because Vowell herself does not drive) to various places in the country that have historical significance in connection with the assassinations of Presidents Lincoln, Garfield, and McKinley. The subject--or possibly American history in general--appears to be a personal obsession for Vowell, as the narrative is awash in bits of trivia that she has accumulated in the course of her research and her visits to the historic sites that comprise most of the stops on the trip. It may seem odd that she spends very little time discussing more recent assassinations and attempted assassinations (Kennedy and Reagan, respectively), but I think this was a deliberate choice based on the relative scarcity of works dealing with the former three gentlemen (although I'm sure that there are libraries full of volumes on Lincoln--as Vowell herself points out, we've practically canonized him).

  This book is a fairly quick read although the narrative, as I suggested above, is somewhat jarring in its tendency to hop all over the place in a stream-of-consciousness fashion. It is also occasionally broken up by Vowell's comparisons of historical personages and events to current events; that is to say, she sometimes interjects her personal politics into the story, and, while we are on the same end of the political spectrum, I'm not entirely convinced that this sort of thing belongs in this kind of book. (show less)

   

   

  by Facebook User on Aug 25, 2009 at 07:43PM

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