Booth by Karen Joy Fowler

They talk about their futures. John says that he wants to do something important, something with weight and consequence, something that will leave a mark. Asia can have no such hopes, but she is excited to think that someone might read the book about father. In her own small way, she wishes to add esteem to the Booth name. John is not so interest in that. "No," he says, "I want to be known for something more than simply being father's son."

You know, when you think about it, the fact that John Wilkes Booth killed Abraham Lincoln is pretty crazy. It's like if Luke Hemsworth, or maybe Stephen Baldwin, killed Joe Biden: the lesser-known scion of a great acting family. Credit where credit is due, Booth's actions did the unthinkable, in that they were so momentous that they entirely eclipsed one of the most famous family names in all of America. Although many might be able to tell you that Booth was an actor, few might be able to remember that his father, Junius Booth, was one of the most famous actors of his generation, and that his brother Edwin, following in Junius' footsteps, is considered one of the country's greatest stage actors of all time. John Wilkes Booth was an actor, but not, we're told, anything like his brother. Yet it's John we all remember.

Karen Joy Fowler's book Booth starts from a simple observation: though the assassination of Abraham Lincoln has hidden the Booth family from the sight of history, they were all pretty interesting in their own right. Booth tells the story of the Booth family from its early days until just after the assassination; John, though lurking darkly throughout the book, can't be said to be the novel's center. I had never heard the story that dominates the early part of the novel, about how Junius Booth turned out to be a bigamist, living in America with what turned out to be his second family, while a wife and son still wait for him in England. Fowler's version of Junius Booth is a true actor, a drunk and a rapscallion whose antics put his family constantly on edge. Edwin inherits all his talent, but it seems to be John that inherits his instability, his megalomania, and his flair for the dramatic. The story of the bigamy--which ends with the legitimate British son wresting much of Junius' property away from Edwin, John, and their siblings--also calls into question what gets passed down, and to whom. Edwin, John, and their actor brother June all want to step into their father's shoes, though they are each in their own way to imitate him.

There are a pair of sisters, too, the beautiful and ambitious Asia, and Rosalie, whose sickly and malformed physical nature keep her more or less at home. Asia seems like the most normal of the siblings, seeking middle-class stability while her brothers live the peripatetic and inconsistent lives of actors. But the times in which the Booths lived are not normal times, and the steady march toward the Civil War is always present. Interestingly, Fowler makes much of the fact that the Booths were a Maryland family, right on the border of the conflict, and so it makes sense somehow that while the more respectable siblings are supporters of the Union cause, the unstable John becomes an ardent defender of the confederacy.

Booth has that flaw that most historical fiction has, a dedication to the truth. The story of the Booth family is complicated and strange, and I enjoyed reading about it, but I couldn't always shake the feeling that I was reading thinly-disguised non-fiction, which might have served the material better. Yet, I also would say that, despite a kind of book clubbish present tense that got on my nerves, Fowler is better at pulling out the threads of history than many who do similar things, and effectively manages to write those threads into a convincing "arc" for each of the Booth siblings. Mostly, the impression I was left with was foreboding. In this John Wilkes Booth--his cynicism, his machismo, his delusion, his yearning for a greatness that we see outpaces both his skill and his understanding--I see a familiar avatar for our own political landscape. I think there are many out there who would like to take history into their own hands, and like Booth, some of them may just succeed.