Booth

by Karen Joy Fowler

From the Man Booker finalist and bestselling author of We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves comes an epic novel about the family behind one of the most infamous figures in American history: John Wilkes Booth.

In 1822, a secret family moves into a secret cabin some thirty miles northeast of Baltimore, to farm, to hide, and to bear ten children over the course of the next 16 years. Junius Booth—breadwinner, celebrated Shakespearean actor and master of the house in all ways—is at once a mesmerizing talent and a man of terrifying instability. One by one the children arrive, as year by year, the country draws closer to the boiling point of secession and civil war.

As the children grow and the tenor of the world shifts, the Booths cement their place as one of the country’s leading theatrical families. But behind the curtains of the many stages they have graced, multiple scandals, family triumphs, and disasters begin to take their toll. A startling portrait of a country in the throes of change and a vivid exploration of brother- and sisterhood, Booth is a riveting historical novel focused on the very things that bind, and break, a family.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, Historical, Audiobook, Civil War, Literary Fiction, Book Club

470 pages, Hardcover

First published March 8, 2022

About the author

Karen Joy Fowler is the New York Times bestselling author of seven novels and three short story collections. Her 2004 novel, The Jane Austen Book Club, spent thirteen weeks on the New York Times bestsellers list and was a New York Times Notable Book. Fowler’s previous novel, Sister Noon, was a finalist for the 2001 PEN/Faulkner Award for fiction. Her debut novel, Sarah Canary, won the Commonwealth medal for best first novel by a Californian, was listed for the Irish Times International Fiction Prize as well as the Bay Area Book Reviewers Prize, and was a New York Times Notable Book. Fowler’s short story collection Black Glass won the World Fantasy Award in 1999, and her collection What I Didn’t See won the World Fantasy Award in 2011. Her most recent novel We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, won the 2014 PEN/Faulkner Award for fiction and was short-listed for the 2014 Man Booker Prize. Her new novel Booth published in March 2022.

She is the co-founder of the Otherwise Award and the current president of the Clarion Foundation (also known as Clarion San Diego). Fowler and her husband, who have two grown children and seven grandchildren, live in Santa Cruz, California. Fowler also supports a chimp named Caesar who lives at the Tacugama Chimpanzee Sanctuary in Sierra Leone.

Reviews

[Kat]

I’m at 10% and throwing in the towel. I like historical fiction on occasion, but this story of John Wilkes Booth’s family and their lives before and after he assassinated Lincoln is just not a story I can do 432 pages of. It’s dense and wordy with very little dialogue to break things up, and so far it’s sickness, death, grief and not much else.

In the author’s note before the story even begins, she lets the reader know that she didn't make the book about John Wilkes Booth. I get it. She was moved to write the book due to the excessive gun violence in America, and she didn’t want to feed attention to a perpetrator. That’s admirable. However, the only thing that drew me to a book about the Booth family was an opportunity to learn more about this enigmatic figure, so that leaves me at cross purposes with the author.

Fowler cleverly intersperses stories and speeches from Abraham Lincoln, so those attracted to presidential history will likely find this an illuminating and educational read. Sadly, I’m not much of a history buff (sorry to every history teacher I ever had), and I really can’t stomach anything political in our current climate, so another strike for me as a reader.

This is definitely a case of being the wrong reader for this book. I suspect those who love historical fiction will find it far more satisfying! It’s clear that Fowler put great research and care into writing about this fascinating family.

No rating

Thanks to Penguin Group Putnam, G.P. Putnam’s Sons, NetGalley and author Karen Joy Fowler for this ARC. My opinions are honest and unbiased. This is due for publication on March 8, 2022.

[Nilufer Ozmekik · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another book left me at the thin line between love-hate:

Actually I’m more like staying in Switzerland border of book reviewing: standing in the middle of like it or hate it with no hurt feelings kind of mood at this time.

There are so many interesting facts and creatively built characterization in this book kept me allured but I also expected to learn more about John Wilkes Booth instead of his entire family members but it was still pleasure to be introduced to entire Booth clan: actually most of them were portrayed way too much vividly than John.

Even though biographical perspective would work better for me than the fictional look the author presented us, I still admired the author’s interpretation to the historical facts and entire family saga!

My only hesitation to love this work more is the slowness of the pace. Maybe just because of my lately extra busy schedule made me impatient and I only want to read a story quickly hooks me up from next chapter without needing too much effort to connect with the characters and their inner motives, backgrounds, actions.

As the famous assassin of Abraham Lincoln, I was so invested to read and learn more facts about John Wilkes but it seems like he was the supporting character of this book and till he commits his crime at the very end of the book, tearing his own family apart with his wrongful action we don’t learn much about his characteristics. He’s not the center of this story!
We just keep witnessing the family’s life from Maryland, Baltimore to New York and California.

The family members and their backgrounds are interesting and as I told before they took more place than John including Junius Brutus Booth; troubled patriarch and Shakespearean actor, Rosalie: spinster, caretaker, eldest daughter of the family, Asia; stubborn, youngest daughter, poet, writer, Edwin: tragedian, struggling to take over his father’s acting business.

John was mostly loved and cared by his own family at the toughest times. He was fierce young man, supporting Southern cause.

The author perfectly push us feel empathy for most of the characters. The story’s moving between past and present time giving us brighter vision to understand how things we did in the past shape our future decisions.

Overall: slowness of the storytelling in the beginning made me lose my interest. The author’s creative fictional perception made it more readable. But I think I was expecting to learn more historical facts about John Wilkes Booth and the reasoning behind his assassination.

I’m giving three stars but I’m truly impressed from brilliant writing so I’m still looking forward to read more works of the author!

Special thanks to NetGalley and PENGUIN GROUP PUTNAM/ G. P. Putnam’s Sons for sharing this digital reviewer copy with me in exchange my honest thoughts.

[David · Rating 2 out of 5]

Boy was this a slog. Fowler retells the history of the Booth family, a name known to many Americans courtesy of John Wilkes Booth, assassin of President Lincoln. This is classic historical fiction with multiple points of view and tangents galore. There were certainly some interesting bits, and I appreciated the parallels to our own time, but in terms of the reading experience Booth is the opposite of everything I look for in contemporary fiction. Weighing in at close to 500 pages, readers who enjoy lengthy, well researched historical novels may like this. I am not one of those readers.

[Jill · Rating 5 out of 5]

Let me cut right to the chase: this book, weighing in at nearly 500 pages, is unputdownable. I devoured it within days, and I was sorry when it was over. That’s a high compliment to give to a book but it’s well-deserved.

From the title, many readers might jump to the erroneous conclusion this is a book about John Wilkes Booth, the infamous assassin of Abraham Lincoln. It is not – at least, not in totality. There is equal emphasis on all the Booth family including his immensely talented and alcoholic father Junius — a tragedian Shakespearean actor, his mother, and his siblings. The siblings (there were 10 in all) include his oldest sister Rosalie, a hunchbacked girl who is forced to bear the brunt of all the ensuing children, his tortured older brother Edwin – a fine Shakespearian actor in his own right, and Asia, his high-spirited and charismatic older sister.

Then, of course, there is Johnny, the handsome next-to-youngest son who becomes fanatically pro-slavery and pro-secession, despite being raised in a vegetarian, anti-slavery family that today might well be labeled “progressive.”

How did doted-upon Johnny morph into the historically despised John Wilkes Booth? The answer might well be to remember the words of Cassius, in Shakespeare’s play Julius Caesar. He says “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in ourselves, that we are underlings. Cassius appears to be saying that it’s not our fate that dooms men, but instead their own failings

Or is it both? Karen Joy Fowler leads us to believe it may be. Fated to grow up in a very unorthodox family plagued by alcoholism and emotional instability, JWB is also affected the unsettled times in which he lived. Not unlike today, families are being torn apart by the moral quandary of slavery, politicians are most uncivil, women are limited in their self-actualization, and class delineations and faux “holier than thou” stances are widespread. Mob mentality pervades many areas. It doesn’t take too much of a stretch to compare the times to today, with John Wilkes Booth as the ultimate Trumper.

Yet JWB is still very much a character of his own making. Unlike his older brothers (and younger brother Joe), he chooses his destiny. His action will change the course of the nation’s history. Most certainly, it will reverberate inside his own family, causing repercussions and unimaginable grief to his mother and siblings.

Strongly researched but also partially imagined (particularly when creating the personage of JWB’s sister Rosalie), this is a wonderful example of historical fiction that works. An enormous thanks to G.P. Putnam Sons for enabling me to be an early reader in exchange for an honest review. I loved this book!

[Julie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Booth by Karen Joy Fowler is a 2022 Putnam publication.

I received a few emails about this one from various book sites and publishers, so I decided to give it a try, though I must confess, I’ve never given a great deal of thought to John Wilkes Booth’s family.

The prompt, though, was all about the families of those who commit heinous crimes, which is a subject I have given some thought to in the age of mass shootings.

Unfortunately, this book wasn’t as interesting as I’d hoped. To make sure everyone is on the same page here- the book is not specifically about John. Rather, it is about his family, and though John naturally has a role in the book, he is not the primary focus.

The story gives voice to a handful of John’s siblings – of which there were nine- each with a unique disposition and set of circumstances, but all bound by tragedies, scandal, humiliations, and madness.

With all that going on, John’s antics were not especially troublesome to anyone, until much later, when a few of his siblings did notice him spiraling far away from their belief system- while others excused him or might have even shared some of his political opinions. This is where the question of what the family knew comes into play. What signs did they miss, or ignore- or were they in any way complicit?


The author did a good job with time and place-eerily so, truth be told, which was of more importance to me than anything the Booth family was doing.

The pacing is slow, and often rambling, with many segments being just plain boring. I did become frustrated enough to consider throwing in the towel, but had just enough curiosity to see how the author would build up to the assassination to soldier on- though there was some skimming involved.

In the end, other than the reminder of the undercurrent leading up to the civil war, which so mirrors the undercurrents of today- which probably wasn’t the author’s main goal here- this book is a take it or leave it type story, for me.

It has some interesting moments, sure, but mostly it was a slog.

3 stars

[Liz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Booth is great historical fiction, giving us the history of the Booth family, as in John Wilkes Booth.
Junius Booth brings his family to Maryland from England. An actor, he spends more time traveling than at home. And drinking most of his earnings away rather than sending them home. Mary Anne remains at the farm, popping out children year after year. Mary Anne seems to suffer from nerves and Rosalie, the oldest girl, ends up being the mother figure in the family.
Despite their father’s objections, most of the boys end up as actors.
The story is told from multiple POVs. First Rosalie’s, then Edwin’s, then Asia’s.
Fowler intersperses bits of Lincoln’s life with the Booths’ story. It’s interesting to see some of the similarities.
She does a fabulous job of letting us see all of these characters in all their emotional depth. Rosalie, trapped at home, Edwin, sensitive, John, popular and outgoing, Asia, strong willed and mysterious. The whole family seems to have mental issues of one sort or another and most seem to self medicate with alcohol.
The reader is given a detailed sense of the time and places. The Booth family has the same divided sense of slavery as the state they live in. It’s also a reminder of what times were like when there was no safety net.
Some of my favorite parts of the book were when Fowler delves into the political scene of the day.
Unfortunately, the book is not uniformly interesting and there are early sections that drag. It definitely hit my requirement of teaching me something. In fact, I was impressed by Fowler’s ability to mix in significant facts about the times without muddying the story.
My thanks to Netgalley and Penguin Group Putnam for an advance copy of this book.

[Annette · Rating 5 out of 5]

Booth reimagines complex lives of a very talented family of stage actors and the family behind one of the most infamous figures in American history: John Wilkes Booth.

In 1822, after a short courtship, Mary Ann agrees to follow Junius to America. They settle in a cabin outside Baltimore. Junius, as a celebrated Shakespearean actor, is gone 9 months of every year, leaving the growing family in the hands of Mary Ann.

The story begins with Rosalie, the oldest daughter, who relates the family events, while setting the stage for the historical background. Her father leases some slaves, but besides paying the lease, he also pays the wages as he believes that every human being should be paid for the labor.

In May 1838, the ninth child is born and is named John Wilkes. Instead of leaving a legacy for who he was - a noted actor from a prominent theatrical family, he stains his name with his own action.

Two years later, after the tenth child is born, the family trades the farm life for the city life in Baltimore. And that’s when the story starts weaving snippets from the life of Abraham Lincoln. At the time, he is a state congressman in Illinois. The vignettes about Lincoln are very short and yet very powerful. With a few sentences, readers get a picture of a man who rose from very humbling beginnings to the presidency.

Edwin, who also becomes one of the leading actors of his time, is good at mimicry and acting, which at first is done behind his father’s back at hotel’s cellar. At fourteen, he is sent on the road to accompany his father to keep him out of trouble and pretty much to save the whole family financially.

The novel skillfully reflects the complex characters of this intricate family. The father is a talented actor, drawing large crowds, but he is irresponsible with his actions and with managing money, leaving the mother to sell produce from a stall in order to provide for family. The contrast between two brothers John and Edwin is evident. John is popular among boys and runs with a gang, who call themselves the Baltimore Bully Boys. Edwin is of more delicate nature, who is the one who gets beat up. John’s rebellious nature trends throughout his life and is well-reflected in the story.

The poignant writing touches upon human emotions and with layers reveals feelings of children towards the father. Despite the father’s faults, the children appreciate his storytelling and artistry, which brings color and vibrancy to their life. He is missed greatly, when sickness claims him.

Booth is a riveting historical novel vibrantly portraying its members on stage and behind the curtains with many triumphs and scandals, set against the boiling point of secession and civil war.

Source: ARC was provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Review originally posted at mysteryandsuspense.com

[Elyse Walters · Rating 3 out of 5]

Having ‘loved’ “We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves”….with much admiration and respect for Karen Joy Fowler….I was looking forward to reading “Booth”……
a story that examined the family members of John Wilkes Booth, who assassinated Abraham Lincoln.

Fowler’s inspiration for this novel came from many of our current mass shootings’…..
…..how do families - of a shooter/killer - deal with such devastation?
How do they cope -both privately and in society?
I couldn’t help but think about
Sue Klebold, author of “A Mother’s Reckoning”…..the mother of her son who killed 13 people at Columbine High School —
Sue Klebold was quoted as saying:
“She would give her life to recover one of the lives lost, but she won’t accept her son was a monster”.


Junius Booth, husband and father, was a Shakespearean actor, and alcoholic….
He spent more time traveling than staying at home on their farm in Maryland, while his wife, Mary Ann, kept giving birth to a new child every year. Ten children.
Mary Ann suffered from grief and mental illness.

We meet the siblings.
Several had died from cholera and smallpox.
Rosalie, oldest daughter, takes it upon herself to be the ‘acting’ mother to her younger siblings.
Nothing was expected of Rosalie other than to be a good girl and a help to her mother.
It was noted that Rosalie was the most “unremarkable child in a remarkable family”.
“Reclusive, reticent, stocky, she is not witty and graceful like the rest”.
Yet… it’s Rosalie who was her mother’s keeper.

“Grief has destroyed Rosalie‘s parents right before her eyes. No wonder Edwin was born so anxious. No wonder Asia was born so angry. It seems to Rosalie that God has reached down and scooped out the middle of her family as casually as if He were eating a watermelon”.

So many deaths. So much grief.
Rosalie became cautious. She was the only child who had not suffered neither cholera or smallpox.

This historical fiction is told from multiple points of view from John Booth’s siblings: Rosalie, Edwin, and Asia.
We learn about their actions, temperament, personalities, their childhood, poverty, adulthood: marriages, divorces, remarriages, successes and failures…
But…
Unfortunately I found much of the childhood stories inconsequential — much too drawn out. They felt irrelevant to me.

I struggled staying interested with the ongoings from each sibling about playing with bugs, building branches from mulberry, neighborhood friendships, building forts, drawing birds on windows, dining table chairs, who was popular, who was not,
trees rattling in the wind carrying the smell of pigs….
thoughts about ‘not’ giving much thought to slavery, mixed with ongoings and ongoings about Mother’s happiness (not), and Father’s sanity (not).

We learn about the characters. I had empathy for them —their many hardships of being in a family with so many kids - deaths of siblings, illnesses, an absent father -a mentally unwell mother, financial struggles, daily life filled with loss, death, alcoholism, other family dysfunctions….
but I would have felt this empathy for this family even without the assassination….

I felt the pacing in “Booth” was much too slow — slow to ‘get-to-the-heart’ matter….of how the siblings responded immediately after the assassination.

How did they each reconcile with the horrific evil of their brother: personally and within their community—and how did they function knowing they were stigmatized by society.
Too long of a wait - with little self-expression…..other than the family existed in a kind of Twilight dark space.

My favorite parts of ‘Booth’ were the factual history itself…
aka…..
Lincoln speeches and debates about slavery.

Lincoln and the Final Act:
“This war is eating my life out; I have a strong impression that I shall not live to see the end”.
— Abraham Lincoln to his friend Owen Lovejoy 1864


“Booth” (for me), it hurts me to say this….
was sufficient in an okey-dokey way….
but also sadly disappointing. I just didn’t find it remarkable.

Many thanks to Netgalley, Penguin Group Putnam, and Karen Joy Fowler for the offering of an advance copy.

[Meike · Rating 4 out of 5]

Longlisted for the Booker Prize 2022
I see what you did there, Fowler: This book is crafted as a Great American Novel, meaning that it shows the destiny of an American family in its time in order to say something about the country as a whole, particularly regarding the promise of liberty and the pursuit of happiness, a.k.a. the American dream. Alas, the immigrant family we meet here is that of John Wilkes Booth, the murderer of Abraham Lincoln. Focusing on his parents and three of his nine siblings, we also get a panorama of the time leading to the Civil War, and Fowler points out that she sees parallels to the current political situation, with a Confederate flag being carried through the Capitol during the recent insurrection.

I can understand much of the criticism that was aimed at the book: It is long and it defies expectation in as far as John Wilkes Booth always stays in the background, which means his character and his convictions are more hinted at than fully developed, IMHO. But I was fully absorbed by the story of his father Junius Brutus Booth, a British immigrant, highly respected Shakespearean actor and raging alcoholic, as well as John Wilke's famous alcoholic actor brother Edwin, who is said to have been the greatest Hamlet of the 19th century. Edwin as well as John Wilke's sisters, Asia, a writer, and Rosalie, whose ambitions were never fulfilled, offer the three main narrative perspectives on the family and the time, and the text is also interspersed with historical vignettes giving context that focuses on the political deeds of Lincoln.

So this is a family novel and Künstlerroman about a bunch of bohemian, leftist eccentrics that experience a period of historical turmoil, and one of them changes sides and not only roots for the South, but becomes a political assassin. I don't think John Wilke's development is sufficiently explained, and I also think that the parallels to today, while clearly existing, are not fully worked out, but I was so intrigued by these characters and the (mostly real!) events that unfold that I listened to the audiobook every second I could spare.

This Booker jury rules, as this is not the first novel that I read solely because it is longlisted, and it was a good decision.

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer · Rating 2 out of 5]

13th and last (by some margin) in my 2022 Booker Prize longlist rankings - my Bookstagram rating, ranking, summary review and Book themed Golden Retriever photo is here: https://www.instagram.com/p/ChiL--FMu...

The latest novel from the already Booker shortlisted author of “We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves” and one in which she continues to demonstrate both her considerable versatility and her more limited ability to hit literary excellence.

The author’s early writing was in the Fantasy and Science Fiction area; her breakthrough novel “The Jane Austen Book Club” was more of a romantic drama with a shameless play for Janeite readers; her Booker shortlisted novel a really odd and for me unsatisfying mix of earily-spoiled witheld revelation, interesting metaphor and then not-interesting non-metaphor …………… and this novel is a move into fairly conventional historical fiction.

Now as a non-American I have enough interest in US history to for example have enjoyed what I learnt of the life of Abraham Lincoln through the stunningly original “Lincoln in the Bardo”. In turn a book about Lincoln’s assassin – John Wilkes Booth – and the forces that drove him to his actions, could I think be of interest, particularly if accompanied by some excellent writing. But a book only partly about Booth’s family – and particularly one written in a very conventional prose (see below) is not one really likely to grab me, although having said that I did find the book an entertaining and informative diversion on a lengthy car journey (clarification: I was not driving).

The book tells the story of Booth’s family and particularly his larger than life, famous Shakespearean acting, bigamist English father Junius through the viewpoints of: his oldest sister Rosalie – the one character that the author has had to largely imagine and for which she draws up a convincing portrayal of someone frustratingly but seemingly powerlessly drawn into a life as the unmarried and elder sister including as default carer for her mother as well as for any children of her siblings, as well as mentally and physically growing into a physical deformity; Edwin – who over time becomes the family provider and patriarch after the death and disgrace of their father as Edwin is himself a very famous and celebrated Shakespearean actor at a time when such actors were like the sports stars of today (including rivalries between different camps of supporters) but who like his father suffers with the demons of alcoholism – and whose relationship with the younger John is conducted in a series of Shakespearean quote duels (all of the family naturally interpret their lives through the Bard’s dialogue) and then later fierce arguments over the course of American politics; Asia – the younger sister (later famous as her family’s biographer) who seems to go through life on a series of disputes – maturing (if that is the correct word) from childhood tantrums, to teenage resentments to young adult family feuds.

The story is interwoven with extracts from the life of Lincoln – which parallel what is happening in the family’s story and in the wider society as it rapidly descends towards civil war. Fowler interestingly makes it clear that for all her sympathies lie with the North and that Lincoln’s quotes on the dangers of a populist President inspired her writing, that Lincoln is no believer in or practitioner of racial equality (either of the white and black races, or of the settlers and the Native Americans).

I felt that the book did not really succeed on the author’s stated aims – of examining how the family of someone who commits an atrocity deal with “their culpability, all the if-onlys” as the aftermath of the events had too little coverage.

The writing as I have implied is fairly conventional – two words that I had mentally noted were “plodding” and “pedestrian” and when I decided party way through to pick a piece of descriptive writing to illustrate this, the first example I found had both a plodding horse and a pedestrian character!

She stands for a long time looking out the parlor window, where Father's death has not changed the view. The clouds are low and unbroken, a gray lid set over the city. A strong wind is ripping the few remaining leaves from the trees, tossing them into the air, trapping them against the fences and the snowdrifts. A man passes on a plodding bay horse. Another, on foot, keeps his hat on his head with his hand. There was no reason for Mother not to have taken her along. Father would have been pleased to see her face. She turns back to the room.

Overall I found the most interesting parts of the book the references to various historical incidents and the portrayal both of the world of superstar actors (and their passionate supporters) as well as of the descent to civil war – and I did end up concluding that I would have preferred this book as a non-fictional account as the fictional writing did not really add much in terms of language or style while still having the disadvantages of the extraneous detail of biography.

[karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

i won a goodreads giveaway!!!

[Bruce Katz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Going into this book, I didn't know what to expect. I hadn't read any of Fowler's other books, and to be honest, the idea of a novel about John Wilkes Booth's family struck me as... how shall I put it? A Petri dish for melodrama? But several GR friends really liked it so I decided to give it a try. I expected little.

I was wrong. "Booth" is now on my "favorites" shelf. It's difficult to explain why, because it's one of those novels where the story pulls you along and you find yourself observing and judging the characters, but you become more and more aware that there's a great deal more going on here than a compelling plot. "Booth" is many things, but melodramatic it ain't. It's an incisive look into the lives, personalities, and interpersonal dynamics of a real, larger-than-life family. It's historical fiction that actually cares deeply about history rather than merely using it as a stage set, and is deeply sensitive to how the currents of the times -- changing tastes and circumstances, major events, and controversies -- all work from the outside to shape the lives of individuals and families. It's a book filled with startling events, coincidences and chance encounters that bring the reader to a sudden halt to wonder, 'Can this be true? Did this really happen?' Based on what I've been able to discover thus far, yes, they did happen. (Fowler talks a little about this kind of thing in an afterword.)

The book begins with two epigraphs, both of which speak powerfully to our own time: "America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future" (Frederick Douglass) and "We cannot escape history" (Abraham Lincoln). It doesn't take long for the reader to understand how powerfully apt the two quotations are.

"I began thinking about this book," Fowler writes at the outset, before the story itself begins, "during one of our American spates of horrific mass shootings. Among other things… I wondered about the families of the shooters — how would such a family deal with their own culpability, all the if-onlys?" Something about the family of John Wilkes Booth drew her in the aftermath of a shooting, but what story should she tell? It was neither her intention nor her desire to write a book about John Wilkes Booth (“a man who craved attention and has gotten too much of it”), that much was clear to her. How does one write a novel about the family of the best-known murder in American history, the template for how all subsequent assassinations are framed and talked about, without making it about the assassin himself?

Fowler might well have taken a different narrative path than she ended up doing, but history intervened, gave her a nudge: "Donald Trump was elected to the presidency while I was still in the early stages of research. The shock and despair of this waylaid me for more than a year. It seemed pointless to be writing about anything else and it took me much longer than it should have for me to realize that I wasn’t writing about anything else. The more I read of Lincoln’s warnings concerning the tyrant and the mob, the more I immersed myself in the years that led to the Civil War, the more brightly lit the road from there to here became."

Fowler was midway through her final edit when the events of January 6, 2021, took place.

The story begins with the feel of a curtain rising on a stage. We see a two-room log cabin in Maryland with whitewashed walls and red shutters. A farm, or something like. Then the actors: a famous (and, many think, quite mad) Shakespearean actor. A paternal grandfather from England, working to translated The Aeneid into English and turning it into a play that his son can star in. An "indulgent" mother. A family with nine children, four who are already dead when curtain goes up. Although they themselves don't know it, we are told, the children are a secret. (We find out why soon enough.)

Next, the mise en scene, words that feel similar in purpose to the prologues in "Henry V" or "Romeo and Juliet." Here, the words are drawn from a speech given by a young Abraham Lincoln in 1838: Is it unreasonable to expect, that some man possessed of the loftiest genius, coupled with ambition sufficient to push it to its utmost stretch, will at some time, spring up among us? And when such a one does, it will require the people to be united with each other, attached to the government and laws, and generally intelligent, to successfully frustrate his designs.

It was Lincoln's first major speech. The occasion: two murders, one the horrible lynching by a mob of a 26 year old Black man (the grand jury convened afterwards was instructed by the judge not to blame the mob, but rather the abolitionists who were stirring up trouble). The other victim is White, a minister and newspaperman. He too is murdered by a mob... because he is an abolitionist. The chair of his jury was a member of that very mob, and the judge served as a witness for the defense.

And so history and mythology and fiction, past and present, all come together to form the lens through which we watch the Booths.

I won't try to provide any kind of summary of all that happens in "Booth." It would be pointless to do so, for the greater part of many lives unfold here. As I said, the book begins in the Spring of 1838. It ends, more or less, in 1893. In between those years we follow the lives of the Booth family: grandfather, Father and Mother, sons and daughters. Children who die young, others who grow into adulthood, some famous, two nearly invisible to us, one infamous. There are marriages (in one case, bigamy), deaths, successes, failures, moments of grace and moments of depravity and ignominy. Moments of rage, regret, and self-delusion.

The story is told primarily through the eyes of three Booth children (though Fowler does peek through now and again): Rosalie (oldest daughter, "neither dead nor beautiful though the first is easier for her to imagine than the second,"), Edwin (born with a caul, often beaten up as a child, desperate to become an actor like his famous father), and pretty Asia ("a strong and stormy nature"). And on the perimeter, appearing now on stage, now disappearing offstage, there is mercurial Johnny (who, as one man put it, "the whole neighborhood thinks is possessed by the devil"). It is a small detail -- one among many in the book -- that gave me a moment's pause: the notorious John Wilkes Booth, whom we cannot think of now without all three parts to his name, was once to his family a Johnny.

Through these characters we see vividly enacted the complicated dynamics of familial relationships — the balancing acts between love and anger, care and resentment. This dynamic might be dramatic stuff in any family, but in so theatrical (in all senses) a clan as the Booth family, it becomes the stuff of legend, particularly with regards to Father -- away on theater tours more than he is home but always a presence in the house. The children adore their father, world-famous actor, a drunk ("the children all believed inebriated was the very highest praise until Grandfather, in an unkind moment, told them otherwise"), who controls their lives, they want to follow in his footsteps, they dread being like him. Do they have a choice? It's unclear. This was, after all, a time when the father made decisions for the family. But perhaps another hand is at work? I found myself wondering at times whether the characters were acting out some preordained fate. Indeed, at one point Johnny goes to a palm reader who tells him, "Now, young sir, I've never seen a worse hand, and I wish I hadn't seen it, but every word I've told is true by the signs." Reading groups will doubtless wrestle with the question of how much control the children of Junius Brutus Booth really had over how their lives played out. Were their paths essentially predetermined, fated in some way? Hamlet's words to Horatio -- "There's a divinity that shapes our ends/ Rough hew them how we will" -- seem apt.

The Booth family saga is compelling and dramatic, of course. We know these people existed but they're ciphers to us before we meet them on the page; we arrive with no preconceptions. Who are they? What forces are shaping their personalities? (Early on we read, "Grief has destroyed Rosalie's parents right before her eyes. No wonder Edwin was born so anxious. No wonder Asia was born so angry. It seems to Rosalie that God has reached down and scooped out the middle of her family as casually as if He were eating a watermelon.".) We know what's coming but we don't know how we'll get there, how the family will react when it comes. We become invested in the lives of these people, compelled to find out what will become of the children as they age. Their loves, marriages, disappointments, failures, feelings of envy and guilt.

There are lighter moments, to be sure. The father-child relationship, more often than not troubled here, offers an opportunity for some amusing moments, as when Father imperiously announces one evening that young Edwin will not become an actor but a cabinetmaker. Mother, cowed as always, waits until Father leaves the room to feebly remark, "Jesus was a carpenter." Edwin's unspoken rejoinder: "As if Jesus is remembered for his woodwork."

And elsewhere: "The way Rosalie sees it, pretty much everyone in London was abandoning their wives to run away with their sweethearts around the time Father met Mother. It seems to have been quite the fad. Sodom and Gomorrah with tea."

This is as good a place as any to acknowledge with awe the research Fowler must have done in writing the book. As she acknowledges, most of what she writes about Rosalie is made up because so little is known now about her life. As for the rest, their actions, comments, etc., are based on memoirs, surviving letters, and numerous other resources. (Though as Fowler playfully reminds us, "No one in the world is a reliable source for their own story.")

There are countless treasures to be discovered here, some related to the narrative itself, others historical. I didn't know, for example, that southern states simply refused to put Lincoln's name on the ballot for the 1860 presidential election.

Most arresting -- to me, at least -- are the countless times (all historical) when the lives of the Booths and Abraham Lincoln crossed paths. I won't share a list of them, that would ruin the experience. I'll give but one example: One evening, Lincoln was so impressed by John Wilkes Booth's performance in a play called "The Marble Heart" that he actually invited the actor to visit the White House. Booth, who loathed Lincoln, didn't bother to respond.

Other things that struck me: The evocative way in which Fowler brings in Abraham Lincoln -- quotations from speeches and events from his life, all of them eerily apposite... if not to the story, then to the times. so many of Lincoln's experiences and life circumstances parallel those of the Booth family or stand in counter-point. (We get a lot of Shakespeare too, of course.)

Also: How deftly Fowler shows us the world in which her characters move, a world that would feel quite alien to us today: pigs roam wild through city streets, as do violent gangs with names like the Gumballs, Neversweats, and Cock Robins; the act of voting could very dangerous (if you were lucky, you'd get a beating; if not... some elected officials stopped voting altogether rather than take the risk); travel was perilous (a trip Father and Edwin take across Panama is hair-raising); theater and actors play a much greater part in the lives of ordinary people of the time (deadly riots erupted over disputes about which actor was to be on the stage -- most notably, the Astor Place Riot); tastes in theater and acting styles are changing, though actresses are still thought of in much the same way as prostitutes; the ubiquity of alcohol; the awful risks of childbirth and childhood disease; the constant presence of death; and of course, the angry -- and then deadly -- debates over slavery and secession.

Powerful motifs that run through the book, all more than a little Shakespearean in tone: characters fearing they are teetering on the precipice of madness; attempts at suicide; episodes of drunkenness; dark presentiments and ghostly visitations; a nation at war with itself, a family at war with itself.

I found "Booth" difficult to put down. It's filled with life and substance and ideas, and is thoroughly satisfying: as story, history, and as something of a mirror to our times.

My sincere thanks to Putnam and Netgalley for an advance digital copy in return for an honest review.

[Peter Boyle · Rating 2 out of 5]

I heard that Karen Joy Fowler had written a novel called Booth and thought to myself: "Great! I'd like to learn more about this John Wilkes Booth fella." But that's not what this book is about at all. It's more concerned with the wider Booth family and their circumstances in the lead-up to the murder of Abraham Lincoln.

We learn far more about the siblings of the infamous assassin than we do about the man himself. Rosalia is the eldest daughter, affected by scoliosis, single all her life. Edwin intends to become an actor, just like his father Junius, and he has plenty of ability, though the family addiction to alcohol has been passed to him. Younger sister Asia is beautiful but prickly. All of the Booths become anxious about the schemings of John. He's also an actor, a person who constantly strives for attention. And his opinions on the topic of slavery alarm his brothers and sisters. He makes bold claims and his sympathies with the South go against the liberal leanings of his family. But none of them ever truly believe that he is willing to act upon them.

This is a long, slow-moving tale, bogged down in lots of unnecessary information. John is a peripheral figure in the book, and we never really get underneath his wild exterior to see what makes him tick. Of course his unstable home life must have had a profound effect on him, not helped by the malign influence of his troubled father. But as for what his going through his mind in the lead up to the assassination, it is not explored by this story in a satisfactory way. I didn't find his siblings all that interesting, apart from Edwin, who led quite a colourful life. And the crime itself happens so late in the book - we only get a glimpse of the shock and dismay that it thrusts upon the Booths. I found this a frustrating read overall. It's understandable that the author does not want to glorify the ideals and motivations of a murderer. But we end up with far more information about his family than we need, and learn precious little about of the personality of this historical figure, who is notable for all the wrong reasons. It's an unbalanced novel, and though it's rich in certain detail, it left me discontented.

[Eric Anderson · Rating 4 out of 5]

In an author's note at the end of this novel Karen Joy Fowler expresses her feelings of ambiguity about fictionally recreating the life of John Wilkes Booth, one of the most notorious figures in US history. He was famed for being a handsome and talented actor until the age of 26 when he became infamous for assassinating President Abraham Lincoln in Ford's Theatre on April 15, 1865. Why give more attention to a fanatic and egotist? This was a defining moment in American history which forever reshaped the country so it's only natural to wonder how it came about. Fowler was interested in the way it affected the rest of Booth's family. She's also haunted by Lincoln's warnings about tyrants and mobs in this country and how this still resonates today. The impetus for this novel which recreates the story of the Booth family also presents a conundrum for the reader who will most likely only know of John Wilkes Booth for a single defining action. Therefore, following the story of his life from birth we're naturally attentive to any action which indicates a propensity for mental instability, extreme views or violence. Fowler peppers the text with such signs and we can only warily witness an emboldened John who states at one point: “It's a wonderful thing... to be right in the middle of something so momentous. To feel that you've touched history and history has touched you.” Unlike the author's previous novel “We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves” which contains a famous twist, there's never any doubt about how “Booth” will end but that makes this story no less gripping.

The thing about significant historical events is that they can come to feel inevitable, but obviously in the present moment we're faced with an infinite number of possibilities. We also cannot know the many repercussions of our actions. Though Fowler describes John as having certain propensities, his family definitely didn't view him as having the potential to be a monster. This novel primarily focuses on the point of view of John's surviving siblings and the dramatic story of their challenging family life leading up to John's murderous action. Their father Junius was a famous Shakespearean actor and a complicated tyrannical larger-than-life figure. On one hand, he was an intelligent artist who respected all life as sacred. On the other, he was bigamist who abandoned his first wife, frequently neglected his family and occasionally drunkenly terrorized his mistress and children. Naturally living under his shadow his children grew to both revere and hate him. It's fascinating reading how they change over time and wrestle with their identities as the offspring of Booth. Crucially, their interactions with John feel like any complicated sibling relationship. There's closeness and distance as well as moments of tenderness and frustration.

Read my full review of Booth by Karen Joy Fowler at LonesomeReader

[Faith · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was the story of the family of John Wilkes Booth. Note that “family” is the key word in that sentence. Had he not murdered Abraham Lincoln, there would not have been any JWB biographies, let alone a bio of the Booth family. I had a mild interest in the Booths as actors. Some of them were famous in their day. And I thought this book would give me some insight into how JWB turned into an assassin. Unfortunately, the author said that she was curious about what happens to the family of an assassin and she didn’t want to give JWB more attention than he has already received. Therefore, she focused on his parents and many siblings. That left too many holes in JWB’s story and motivation. And the Booth family wasn’t very interesting, with the exception of Edwin.

I had zero interest in the childhood’s of the many Booth siblings. That part of the book was interminable, so I started skimming. The bits of the book that discussed Lincoln were so brief they were practically insulting. If all you are going to do is throw in a Lincoln quote now and then you might as well leave him out of the book completely. This wasn’t the book I was expecting and it was mostly a miss for me.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.

[Taury · Rating 3 out of 5]

Booth by Karen Joy Fowler took me a good 3 days to get through. It is a long wordy book with little dialog about the Booth family. Much less about John Wilkes Booth. Almost reading a history book of only the Booths. I was terribly disappointed. It was not at all what I expected

[Constantine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Genre: Historical Fiction

Booth is a historical fiction that tells the story of Booth's family, that is the infamous John Wilkes Booth, the American stage actor who assassinated President Abraham Lincoln at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C. This follows the lives of his parents, Junius Booth and Mary Ann Holmes, as well as his siblings, Rosalie, Asia, Edwin, June, and Joe. The story is set in 1822 with the major part of the book being about the family itself, all the problems and hardships they face. There is also the social and political background of the country in that period that keep affecting the lives of the members of the family and the society.

This was a very intriguing read for me. I have never read anything about John Booth before and was truly interested to know more about him. This book doesn’t just focus on him but on his whole family, which pleases me even more. I’m always in for dysfunctional families. Maybe not all the readers would agree if this family can be termed as dysfunctional but at least we can agree that it was a family with lots of issues and problems. The fascinating thing is that the author was concentrating on each one of the members, especially the siblings. And she did a fabulous job with that. Rosalie is my favorite character in the book. As for the issues, there is slavery, racism, alcoholism, and bigamy to mention a few.

Another thing I appreciate the author doing is keeping the timeline linear which helped me to understand these characters’ situations. I’m glad about it. Towards the middle, the pace did slow down a bit but I wouldn’t call that a major issue as the beautiful writing style kept me engaged. How much of this book is true and how much of it is fiction is a questionable thing. But regardless of that, the author must’ve done an extensive research to come up with this story. It always impresses me when a book ends up being entertaining and educational at the same time. This is where Booth shines for me.

Many thanks to the publisher Penguin Group Putnam, G.P. Putnam's Sons, and NetGalley for providing me with an advance reader copy of this book.

[Trudie · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5

It seems like it took me as long as the Civil War itself to finish Booth . This is a more densely packed 480 pages than you might expect. For the reader interested in the Booth family and American civil war era history generally, then it is a treasure trove of lovingly researched tidbits.

It’s important to note that John Wilkes Booth is not the main character here, for most of the novel he is a doe-eyed baby or roguishly handsome young man. The impact he has on the family name is confined to a few dozen pages at the end. This is a family saga, the story of a young theatre family, presided over by an unstable artistic genius, Junius Booth. All the Booths suffer great loss and misfortune but are united by their love of theatre and their determination to uphold the Booth name.

However, the drumbeats of destiny are skilfully woven into the story, in the background, the nation tilts ever closer to civil war. We check in on Lincoln from time to time, his quotes haunting the pages here and there. It’s telling the author references both the rise of Trump and the 2021 Capitol rebellion in her author's note. This is a book with one eye on understanding those events through the lens of history.

( Lincoln ) warns of two possible threats to the republic. The first is found in the lawless actions of the mob, the second in the inevitable rise someday of an aspiring dictator. The gravest peril will come if the mob and the dictator unite

There remains the issue of all this research threatening the flow of the novel, it's just a tiny bit like historical note-taking at times, partly that is Fowler's style but some judicious editing would help.

However, for the most part, I was totally swept up in the tragedy of the Booth clan and was mesmerized by their story.

[Elizabeth George]

Full disclosure: Karen Joy Fowler is a dear friend. But here's the truth of the matter. If I didn't like her book, I would simply not offer a review of it.

In "Booth" --probably the most infamous surname in the history of the US --Karen Joy Fowler has made an interesting and fascinating artistic decision. Instead of writing about John Wilkes Booth, she has chosen to create a historical novel based upon the family of the notorious assassin. And what a family it is! With a truly remarkable attention to detail, KJ puts her reader right into the middle of the Booth family, a group of people plagued by alcoholism and ruled by the king of alcoholics Junius Booth, who also is the foremost Shakespearean actor of his time. Capable of carrying off any and all of Shakespeare's great tragic heroes while sober, drunk, or in between, Junius Booth looms large to his children among whom are four living brothers, three of whom follow him onto the stage. Of these three, John Wilkes is the heartthrob but Edwin is the more famous and better actor. The reader gets to know all of the Booth children who survived to adulthood -- four did not --through viewpoint shifts throughout the novel. As a result, no one of them gets precedence over the other. All of them are equally fascinating. And of course, John Wilkes is fascinating, too. But the spotlight doesn't stay on him. Instead, KJ gives each of the siblings an importance that has been long lost to time. In this way, the reader sees the influences that shaped each of the children, allowing them to grow, develop, and--ultimately--cope with a horrific crime perpetrated by one of them as best they could.

[Doug · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5, rounded up to 4.

#10 in this year's Booker Longlist Marathon, and one of the most polarizing amongst my GR friends/cognoscente. I was somewhat predisposed to like this based on the subject matter, since my doctorate is in theatre, and the theatrical history of the Booths has always fascinated me. And although I knew the rudimentary facts of the story, Fowler provides many fascinating details of which I was unaware.

I found the beginning a bit slow - it took me 4 days to read the first 40%; but then it picked up and I breezed through the final 60% in 2 days. And, man, could this have definitely used an editor with a more determined red pencil. Fowler's prose stylings are nothing terribly exciting, and I am not quite convinced telling the story largely through the eyes of the two daughters (surely the two least interesting family members) was a wise choice. But the story being told is so intriguing and resonates on so many levels - although the author's claim to parallels to recent American demagoguery isn't quite clear to me either.

Finally, though, I really enjoyed reading about this eccentric family, and as I read primarily for plot and character, rather than any other attributes, I ranked this higher than some other Booker nominees that proved perhaps more inventive, but less comprehensible. Although I am also wondering why anyone wouldn't just read the biographies Fowler used as source material, rather than wading through this fictionalization.

[Krista · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Booth family is gratified by the depth and breadth of national mourning for Junius Brutus Booth. Every American paper reports Booth’s death and most include long eulogies. But one response is memorable for its brevity. Rufus Choate, a storied trial lawyer turned Whig congressman, a man famous for his soaring and sustained bouts of oratory, says simply, “There are no more actors.”

In an Author’s Note at the end of Booth, Karen Joy Fowler explains that “during one of our American spates of horrific mass shootings”, she began to wonder about the families of shooters — what it must be like to love someone who becomes universally despised — and then she began thinking of the Booth family, and started working on a novel about the family of John Wilkes Booth; pointedly not focussing on John himself as he was a man who had sought notoriety and was not deserving of Fowler’s attention. Then when Trump was elected president, Fowler recognised that “Lincoln’s warnings concerning the tyrant and the mob” were still true in the modern day, and she realised that the story she was writing about the radicalisation of the man who would become Lincoln’s assassin could be seen as a warning for the present: it is still true that a house divided against itself cannot stand and growing partisanship imperils the Union. So, on the one hand, Booth is stuffed full of interesting historical information about the Booth family (I had no idea how famous the Booth father and older brother, Edwin [the nineteenth century’s “greatest Hamlet”], were), and on the other, Fowler never lets us forget that she’s drawing a line between the past and the present; the parallels are obvious and underlined. As a work of historical fiction, this was well done (with the caveat that, as a longish book, too much detail can feel tedious to me), and as a work of political commentary, an essay expanding on the Author’s Note would have sufficed for me. This felt a bit of a slog; just okay to my taste.

They were wrapped together in a single blanket, John’s little body hot against Mother’s breasts. She was looking down into his flushed and fretful face, when on sudden impulse she’d said a prayer asking to know what his fate would be. Instantly a flame rose from the ashes and, shaping itself into an arm, stretched toward the baby as if to knight him. In that flame, Mother said, she could read the word Country, followed by Johnny’s name. And then the arm fell back and faded away. This strange, unfirelike behavior taking place on their own little hearth has the whole family excited. It may be an ambiguous fate, but it’s clearly a glorious one, a narrative of such power that Asia will write a poem about it one day, forgetting how angry she once was not to have been given a glorious fate of her own. She was less upset by her own lack of a destiny than by the fact that nobody had ever even bothered to ask the fire if she had one.

Junius Brutus Booth — celebrated Shakespearean actor of the London stage — wooed the beautiful Mary Ann Holmes, and in 1821, moved her to the United States, eventually settling her in a “secret cabin” in the woods northeast of Baltimore. Over the course of twenty years, Mary Ann will give birth to ten children, six of whom will survive to adulthood, and as Junius (equal parts genius, madman, and hopeless alcoholic) spends around nine months of every year touring with acting troupes, Mary Ann (and the enslaved people the family “leases”), work the farm and raise the children and try to stay above the poverty line. The family will move into Baltimore and back to the countryside again; eldest son June will leave to make a name for himself on the stage; Edwin will be taken out of school to travel with his father; the two youngest boys — John and Joe — will be sent to a boarding school; and the two daughters — Rosalie and Asia — will be left to take care of Mother, their brothers, and watch for marriage prospects. Throughout all the years, John Wilkes will be the pet; the scamp, the matinee idol, his mother’s and sisters’ favourite who can do no wrong.

Fowler tells this story from three perspectives: From Edwin’s (the most celebrated actor in the family, his biography is well documented); from Asia’s (she wrote several [some would say apologetic] memoirs of herself and her more famous family members); and Rosalie’s (of whom very little is known, so Fowler was free to have Rosalie’s sections fill in the historical bits from the newspapers and the typical family life of the time). This rotating POV gave a satisfying backdrop for John Wilkes’ formative years, while never presuming to imagine what the future assassin was thinking or feeling. And by giving us the whole Booth story (ending not long after the assassination), Fowler is able to pinpoint a few transformative moments: John was present at “the battle of Christiana” — in which free Blacks repelled a Marshal’s attempts to capture escaped slaves — which some historians point to as the beginning of the beginning of the Civil War; he joined the Richmond Grays militia unit to march on Charles Town to ensure John Brown’s hanging (the battle flag of the Grays reads “Sic semper tyrannis”); he was visiting Edwin’s house in New York City when the anti-draft riots happened (and apparently delighted in watching the city burn). Fowler makes clear that all of the Booth family thought of themselves as pro-Union Northerners, except for John Wilkes, and other than apparently suffering the mental illness and alcohol abuse that seems to run through the Booth family (Edwin says of his brother, “He has all of Father’s madness without the genius”), and some slightly different experiences at school (and particularly coddled at home), there’s no real explanation for how one of the Booths could become a murderer. But again: this isn’t really meant to be John Wilkes’ story; this is the story of America and how slippery the slope is towards considering your countryman your enemy once the drums start beating.

What’s it like to love the most hated man in the country? Loving John is something the world simply will not have. Not loving John is something Rosalie and Asia simply cannot do.

As I’m not an American, I had only a general knowledge of John Wilkes Booth and what Fowler writes about his background and upbringing (and particularly the stories of the more famous and celebrated acting Booths) was interesting and informative to me. And since the symbols of the United States aren’t emotionally affecting to me, it did take this whole, long novel and Fowler’s Author’s Note at the end for me to really understand what it meant for the Confederate Flag to have been “carried through the halls of the Capitol for the very first time” during the insurrection of January 6th, 2021: the events of that day were, naturally, shocking to witness as a non-American, but their meaning wasn’t really clear to me until now. It still felt like a bit of a slog — this is not at the top of my own Booker picks — but it wasn’t entirely a waste of time.

[Nancy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reacting to the headline of a mass shooting, Karen Joy Fowler wondered about the families of the shooters. Did they struggle under the burden of notoriety? Were they stigmatized, or able to navigate in society? She realized she knew little about the family of the most notorious American shooter–the man who killed President Lincoln, John Wilkes Booth.

As she researched extensively to understand the Booth family, she realized the relevance of this episode in American history, especially after the January 6 insurrection.

In her new novel Booth, Fowler brings to life the nine children and parents of the Booth family, beginning with Junius Brutus Booth, a famous actor. He was also a deeply flawed man, a bigamist and an alcoholic. Junius abandoned his English wife and child when he met the beautiful Mary. He settled their family on a farm, scrambling to survive as their patriarch was on tour most of the year. As the boys came of age, they are tasked with being their father’s guardian and caretaker, endeavoring to keep him sober. The eldest son, June becomes an actor with a career in the West. Edwin had hoped for college but was next tasked with his father’s care; he falls into the same bad habits as his father, going on to forge his own acting career. The youngest son to go into acting is John Wilkes, beloved and handsome but demonstrating disturbing traits since childhood. He had little academic interest, joined a gang, and was swayed by extremist politics.

The eldest daughter Rosalie experienced the death of younger siblings. She was plagued by physical handicaps, a limp and a curved spine, keeping her at home, a perpetual daughter and caretaker. Asia, strong willed and beautiful, settles for a comfortable marriage, but she remains devoted to her brother John Wilkes.

These deeply flawed characters share family trauma of loss and poverty and alcoholism, revering their absent, unreliable father and idolizing their long suffering, beautiful mother. They move from the hard life of the farm to city luxury as the family fortunes rise. The family is apolitical, but Republican, but for John Wilkes who comes to hate abolition and defends slavery.

Interspersed are chapters summarizing President Lincoln’s life, career, and speeches–which today seem prescient, referring to mobs and political division and populist leaders. Baltimore and Maryland’s political strife and division are central to the story. The political division in Maryland mirrors the entire country, then and now.

Fowler’s story is deep and rich. The Booths seem like a family meant for fiction, encompassing such a broad swath of human experience.

I received a free egalley from the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.

[switterbug (Betsey) · Rating 5 out of 5]

BOOTH will eternally evoke the name John Wilkes, the assassin of Abe Lincoln. All I knew about the family was that Booth was a stage actor. Actually, nothing about his family came to mind. But now, wow! I feel intimately close to his brothers and sisters, his parents. John Wilkes is not the main character in Fowler’s brimming character study of the Booths, and the author nailed it by choosing this way to deliver her story. There isn’t one family member that I don’t feel I can talk about with familiarity now, so deep did the author mine her story, her cast. Booth’s father was one of the most celebrated Shakespearean stage actors of his time, until one of his sons took up the mantle. The entire novel is Shakespearean, the way Fowler structured it, threaded throughout with lines from his plays showing up on the page in the exact right moments. This is a powerhouse of a great American novel. A great American tragedy.

Another element that pulled me in was the old-fashioned third person POV, yet there was nothing fusty about this narrative. It felt fresh, with knowing parallels to today’s times, as well as particular character traits that almost had me believing that Fowler lived with the Booths! From Maryland, to Philadelphia, NYC, Richmond, London, and other settings, I felt that, no matter where the setting, I felt the insular, insulated feeling of the family, how the tight-knit brood kept others out, even when celebrated and well known in polite and high-toned society.

There was a detached attitude to almost everyone outside the family; no matter how broad the travels and influence, the author showed how sequestered they were, how inside themselves they remained, no matter how social or cosmopolitan. The brothers and sisters—even Mother--had their favorites and expectations. Moreover, at their secretive heels, ghosts were constantly nipping. There were those that died as babies, and never stopped haunting Mary Ann, the matriarch. Births and deaths were momentous. One baby’s death: “There were no bouts of uncontrollable weeping, only an endless stream of silent tears. It was as if Frederick had taken her spirit along with him when he went, leaving only a Mother-shaped husk behind.” Or a birth: “Edwin is the family’s seventh child and…arrived with his caul still over his face. The caul has been saved in a small box in her mother’s cupboard. It has the feel of a well-worn handkerchief.”

This is no saga—BOOTH is a momentous and character-driven story that will hold you in its grip from start to finish. Even history buffs will fall prey to the exciting and nuanced narrative, despite knowing the climax. But, is the assassination the only climax in this book? There’s more to this intrepid story than John Wilkes Booth, a peripheral character in his own story.

Thank you for the free/gifted book from Putnam @PutnamBooks #partner

[Cheri · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 Stars

This is a somewhat fictionalized story centered around one of the most infamous figures in America: John Wilkes Booth. Most of us know of him, from history class somewhere along the line. Infamous for being responsible for the death of Abraham Lincoln.

So many others have written reviews for this story, so I’m not going to go into the ins and outs of the story. But I will tell you why I wanted to read it - despite it being a long and winding road of a novel, one that meanders through this story with over four hundred pages.

Many years ago, not long after my father had passed away, my mother was going through some things she’d had since she was still a young, single woman and asked me to help her figure out what things to keep and what to toss. In the process, I came across an old photo album of hers filled with old black & white photos and came across a photo that was of several people in a boat, wearing very old-fashioned swimwear, with a relatively young woman being the only one standing. Since I had no idea who most of the people were, the exception being one man who I recognized as one of my mother’s uncles, I asked her who this young woman in the photo was. She nonchalantly said her name was Jane Booth, as in the grand-daughter (or great-grand-daughter, perhaps) of John Wilkes Booth, married to my mother’s favourite uncle. I wanted to read this since I’d thought about this family off and on after this book came out. Mainly, how the actions of one member of a family, in this case John Wilkes Booth, can impact more than just that one person, and in this case, I can’t imagine how difficult it was for the other members of the family in the years that followed.

An unexceptional story, aside from the history of this event, but I kept reading because I was hoping for more, something that would make me excited to continue reading this, although I did finish reading this, but it was, for me, unexceptional.

[Sheree | Keeping Up With The Penguins · Rating 5 out of 5]

Booth is superbly readable. The pages flow by even when nothing particularly thrilling is happening. Fowler paints intimate portraits of each family member, and the narration includes deft wink-nods to the reader and the future. I was most impressed by the way Fowler kept the day-to-day family drama in the foreground – it struck me as very realistic.

My full review of Booth is up now on Keeping Up With The Penguins.

[Sarah-Hope · Rating 5 out of 5]

Karen Joy Fowler's Booth has been garnering all sorts of critical acclaim, and it deserves every bit of that praise. Fowler is one of those reliable writers who can make any story a deeply rewarding read, whether or not it fits one's literary tastes, but in this case, Booth is very much my sort of read.

Booth is a fictionalized biography of the Booth family. It's written in third person, but different sections present the perspectives of different Booth siblings. John Wilkes' is never the controlling perspective, which was a brilliant decision on Fowler's part. Instead he's seen as one among many—difficult, but loved—who ends up tearing his family apart when he assassinates Abraham Lincoln.

All of the Booth children struggle under the shadow of their famous actor father, Junius Brutus Booth. Three of his four surviving sons (a number of Booth children died before reaching adulthood) become actors: Junius Jr., Edwin, and John Wilkes. His two daughters who live past childhood, Rosalie and Asia, live very different lives. Rosalie who becomes an invalid for uncertain reasons, cares for her mother and is generally expected to pick up all of the family's domestic needs. Asia seems more of a virago, fiercely assertive and temperamental. Joseph, the youngest and last of the surviving brothers studies medicine. Both Booth parents and all of the Booth children struggle with mental health challenges. Alcoholism also runs in the family.

The novel becomes particularly interesting following the death of Junius Sr., as the Booth children do (or don't) shoulder family responsibilities and as their relationships with one another wax and wane.

Fowler's introduction to and afterward for Booth are well worth reading. The introduction describes her original conceptualization of the novel early in the Trump presidency. This was a story that deserved telling, but Fowler did not want to make John Wilkes the central character—the U.S. already having more than enough present-day violent conservatives. We witness Fowler's version of John Wilkes' ethical development and the justifications that he offers his family for his choices, but these come via his siblings who are sometimes adoring and sometimes deeply uncomfortable.

Booth is a don't-miss title, whether or not you generally read historical fiction. Pick up a copy or request it from your local library sooner, rather than later.

I received a free electronic review copy of this title from the publisher via EdelweissPlus; the opinions are my own.

[Claire · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've got a complicated relationship with Fowler, and I am relatively picky about historical fiction so I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed Booth. I was aided in having picked up from reviews I'd read before embarking on this novel, that it's not REALLY about John Wilkes Booth, but rather his family. This does feel like a bit of a bait and switch which is probably the fault of marketing rather than the novel itself. In this way, Booth is both sprawling and meditatively paced. Where I'd ordinarily find such sedate pacing over a pretty lengthy novel frustrating, I instead found this immersive. What I think Fowler does well is explore history through the eyes of those who sit in its periphery. Rather than looking at exceptional players, we see how shocking events are experienced by those adjacent to them. It is a thoughtful examination of the ripple effect of reckless and extreme actions, and what it means when someone you love turns out to be someone who does awful things. I found these characters, and this question thoughtfully compelling.

[Ari Levine · Rating 3 out of 5]

LONGLISTED FOR THE 2022 BOOKER PRIZE
This is sitting right in the middle of the middlebrow lane this year: a perfectly decent and unchallenging piece of historical fiction. And even though Fowler is trying much too hard to produce a Great American Novel about the ripped-from-today's-headline themes of collective guilt and white supremacy, her prose rarely rises above the serviceable, with sporadic moments of grace, magic, and lyricism. But she also strains for profundity and mostly misses the mark, with frequent cringeworthy clunkers, flat sentence rhythms, and on-the-nose metaphors (especially the family farm as Garden of Eden).

Fowler has written a collective biography of the Booth family of mid-nineteenth-century American Shakespearean actors, which frequently reads like a lightly fictionalized Wikipedia entry, with historical details awkwardly bolted on. But few of these protagonists actually feel like psychologically plausible nineteenth-century people, and speak in contemporary self-help jargon.

The political conflicts of North and South, slavers and abolitionists, are crudely drawn, with little insight into the complexities and contradictions of the historical record. Joe Hall, a freed slave, and his enslaved wife Ann, who run the Booth farm and its household, are the moral center of the novel, and when Fowler turns her focus to their divided family, the results are extremely affecting.

Junius Brutus Booth, the unstable alcoholic bigamist father, flees from London to the woods of Maryland with his long-suffering common law wife Mary Ann, leaving his legal wife Adelaide behind, to start a new family in the States and continue a glorious if erratic stage career. Only half of his troubled brood of children survive to reach adulthood, and alcoholism runs strong in them: depressed spinster Rosalie, the dull drunk and future stage star Edwin, the vain and narcissistic beauty Asia, and the somewhat-successful actor and future presidential assassin John Wilkes.

Fowler places John Wilkes Booth mostly at the fringes of the narrative, and he exists in the perceptions of his family members, which are skewed by self-absorption and willed ignorance. And of course, none of them realizes that their increasingly unhinged brother becomes radicalized into self-recruiting as a Confederate agent, spinning a conspiracy to murder Abraham Lincoln (that can't possibly be considered a spoiler, folks). The present-day inspiration for the novel was the surviving family members of mass shooters and the 2016 election of a raging white supremacist, but very little of the novel deals with their post-assassination self-recriminations in any morally substantive or serious way.

Interleaved with the Booth saga are flatly-recapitulated moments from Abraham Lincoln's biography. Every time Lincoln stepped onto the stage, especially when mourning his son Willie, I was reminded how a writer as talented as George Saunders handled this material with so much more human insight. And while this novel had the sweep and ambition of an epic, it suffered from narrative bloat and clumsy pacing that made these 500 pages an occasionally enjoyable slog.

[Jerrie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed reading this book. It was engaging and engrossing and really did a great job of exploring a bit of American history without glorifying the killer. Fowler looks at JWB’s family. The story is told from the perspective of his siblings - Rosalie, Asia, and Edwin. The Booth family, starting with the patriarch Junius Booth, were a famous acting family. This part of their history has long been overshadowed by John Wilkes Booth’s assassination of Lincoln. Fowler created the Booth family in a way to explore how their infamous son and brother impacted their lives. It presents an issue that other families in America still deal with today with the mass shootings that occur with far too much regularity. Does the family or should the family shoulder any blame? How does the family deal with this terrible thing that a beloved son/brother has done?

[Hugh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Longlisted for the Booker Prize 2022
Another long overdue review. This was my penultimate book from this year's longlist, and my least favourite, but that does not make it a bad book, as the overall standard has been very high this year.

This is a historical novel focusing on the Booth family, whose most (in-)famous member was John Wilkes Booth, the man who killed Abraham Lincoln. He was part of a large family, and several others were interesting and famous in their own right, notably the father Junius Booth, a distinguished English actor. Several of the children also became actors, some of them quite successfully, so there is quite a lot of theatrical history here, and plenty of other well researched social history. My problem was that my interest in the subjects was insufficient to maintain my enthusiasm over almost 500 pages, and Fowler's treatment though well written is a little lacklustre.