Booth

By: Karen Joy Fowler

Narrated by: January LaVoy

Best Book of the Year
Real Simple • AARP • USA Today • NPR • Virginia Living

Longlisted for the 2022 Booker Prize

From the Man Booker finalist and bestselling author of We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves comes an epic and intimate 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 sixteen years. Junius Booth—breadwinner, celebrated Shakespearean actor, and master of the house in more ways than one—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 frighteningly closer to the boiling point of secession and civil war.

As the tenor of the world shifts, the Booths emerge from their hidden lives to 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 criminal disasters begin to take their toll, and the solemn siblings of John Wilkes Booth are left to reckon with the truth behind the destructively specious promise of an early prophecy.

Booth is a startling portrait of a country in the throes of change and a vivid exploration of the ties that make, and break, a family.

Grow then rise

I began with some skepticism. Shortly after the trajectory of this story became apparent and the author surely did her work. I found myself researching what is out there about the Booth family.

Incredible. Absolutely incredible.

If you condemn the sinner as simply insane you do yourself an injustice. You allow yourself the belief that devastating tragedy happened because of a momentary imbalance or mental illness. But the truth is so much more complex and can’t be portrayed in a headline on social media. Karen Joy Fowler’s BOOTH shows us the life and times of the booth family. It is a time that eerily resembles our own and if it doesn’t scare you how easily one domino hits the next, hits the next, hits the next until the world is changed forever, then I’m unsure if we’ll be able to stop the next, and the next, and the next great tragedy. If we don’t make an effort to communicate (listening as well as speaking) with those we vehemently disagree with, we will one day again realize we missed our chance to stop a tragedy.

To think . . .

Every member of the Booth family didn't have the same beliefs as John Wilkes??? I don't think I entirely believe that. From this story I can definitely believe that Edwin was staunchly opposed and I think Rosalie was too sweet to think ill of anyone unless they'd wronged her or her family . . . The rest of them? Junius Jr may have been indifferent, but Asia, definitely complicit as John was her favorite brother and she adored and looked up to him. This was sad, because you feel for the family, but clearly John Wilkes has always been a menace.

4 stars

Excellent!

Loved the story and narration! Very interesting way to relate this fascinating history. Going to find more from this author.

Fascinating

Tells the story about how the family was affected by Lincoln’s assassination and in addition just tells the story of the family entirely. Really good book