Product Description

Sarah Vowell exposes the glorious conundrums of American history and culture with wit, probity, and an irreverent sense of humor. With Assassination Vacation, she takes us on a road trip like no other -- a journey to the pit stops of American political murder and through the myriad ways they have been used for fun and profit, for political and cultural advantage.

From Buffalo to Alaska, Washington to the Dry Tortugas, Vowell visits locations immortalized and influenced by the spilling of politically important blood, reporting as she goes with her trademark blend of wisecracking humor, remarkable honesty, and thought-provoking criticism. We learn about the jinx that was Robert Todd Lincoln (present at the assassinations of Presidents Lincoln, Garfield, and McKinley) and witness the politicking that went into the making of the Lincoln Memorial. The resulting narrative is much more than an entertaining and informative travelogue -- it is the disturbing and fascinating story of how American death has been manipulated by popular culture, including literature, architecture, sculpture, and -- the author's favorite -- historical tourism. Though the themes of loss and violence are explored and we make detours to see how the Republican Party became the Republican Party, there are all kinds of lighter diversions along the way into the lives of the three presidents and their assassins, including mummies, show tunes, mean-spirited totem poles, and a nineteenth-century biblical sex cult.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1365 in Books
• Published on: 2006-01-31
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 272 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. What do you get when a woman who's obsessed with death and U.S. history goes on vacation? This wacky, weirdly enthralling exploration of the first three presidential assassinations. Vowell (The Partly Cloudy Patriot), a contributor to NPR's This American Life and the voice of teenage superhero Violet Parr in The Incredibles, takes readers on a pilgrimage of sorts to the sites and monuments that pay homage to Lincoln, Garfield and McKinley, visiting everything from grave sites and simple plaques (like the one in Buffalo that marks the place where McKinley was shot) to places like the National Museum of Health and Medicine, where fragments of Lincoln's skull are on display. An expert tour guide, Vowell brings into sharp focus not only the figures involved in the assassinations, but the social and political circumstances that led to each-and she does so in the witty, sometimes irreverent manner that her fans have come to expect. Thus, readers learn not only about how Garfield found himself caught between the Stalwarts and the Half-Breeds, bitterly divided factions of the Republican party, but how his assassin, Charles Guiteau, a supporter of the Stalwarts and an occasional member of the Oneida Community, "was the one guy in a free love commune who could not get laid." Vowell also draws frequent connections between past events and the present, noting similarities between McKinley's preemptive war against Cuba and the Philippines and the current war in Iraq. This is history at its most morbid and most fascinating and, fortunately, one needn't share Vowell's interest in the macabre to thoroughly enjoy this unusual tour.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From School Library Journal
Adult/High School–Vowell has a perspective on American history that is definitely funny. She visits museums, historic sites, statues, libraries, anything remotely relevant to successful presidential assassins, and a few of those not so successful. This is an amusing way to learn history, but it is also an unusual look at the interconnectedness of things. Robert Todd Lincoln, a.k.a. Jinxy McDeath, was present, or nearly so, at three assassinations–his father's, Garfield's, and McKinley's. To understand Garfield's assassin, the author spends time at the Oneida Colony in upstate New York, a religious commune that preached a combination of free love and the second coming, and connects it with Jonathan Edwards. She tracks the Lincoln conspirators through the process of plot and escape to hanging and imprisonment, even describing Dr. Mudd's enormous contribution when the plague hit the prison island of Dry Tortuga. Garfield's assassin was deeply involved in the redirection of the Republican Party after the Civil War, and McKinley's was an anarchist following, he thought, the tenets of Emma Goldman. There are family anecdotes and real scholarship in this quirky road trip. Teens will get an interesting view of one aspect of American history while picking up odd bits of information about a whole lot more. There is much to enjoy in this discursive yet somehow cohesive book.–Susan H. Woodcock, Fairfax County Public Library, VA
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Bookmarks Magazine
Vowell, a contributor to NPR’s This American Life and the voice of Violet in The Incredibles, has written a funny and engaging history that revels in irony and morbid minutiae. Even when the humor occasionally feels strained or borders on offensive, the author’s delight in her subject wins the reader’s forbearance. If Garfield and McKinley do not quite come into sharp focus, their stories never cease to entertain. Despite her unrelenting keen sense of the ridiculous and absurd, Vowell ultimately finds no real insights into the profound questions of obsession and madness that always lie just beneath her amiable storytelling.

Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.

Customer Reviews

Fluff For History Buffs but...
I just finished Sarah Vowell's Assasination Vacation and found it to be more interesting and cohesive than Partly Cloudy Patriot. Vowell wit and inquisitiveness are endearing and the book is a page turner more to find out her next reaction to something rather than to find out what she is actually doing.
That said, her leftist, wackily liberal politics get in the way EVERY time she inserts them. And also, despite standing up and shouting her atheism, I don't buy it. I see some inner conflict being worked out on the written page, especially the last chapter.
Those criticisms aside, I think it would be fun to take a trip with Vowell, staring at unread plaques or looking at a statue and being the only person within a mile in any direction who knew who it was of.
Vowell does a good job at threading the interconnectedness of history's charachters and events and drawing on this skill her last few sentences are sublime.

A good read, but flawed
This was the first book by Sarah Vowell I've read, although I've been familiar with her work on NPR for many years. Since Sarah Vowell came to fame by writing personal stories and essays, it comes as no surprise that this book is more about Sarah's personal journey of discovery regarding these three assassinations than a straightforward history. In many ways, I found it refreshing. In the book, Ms. Vowell talks about the importance of pilgrimage and veneration of relics throughout history. The journeys in the book, then, become her own personal historical pilgrimage. Experiencing history from this unique approach certainly warrants a book.

That being said, the book contains a lot of really great information on American history, but includes no references or citations. Since this is work for a popular audience, its not surprising that it's not meticulously documented, but at least a list of sources used in constructing the history would have been nice. History is an easily twisted thing, and I felt that some of the facts presented warranted a citation, even in this popular context.

A quick and highly entertaining read, to be sure, but not without its faults. I found an awful lot of poorly-written or confusing sentences, having to re-read sections to make sure I knew what was being referred to. Seems to me that there's a very forgiving editor out there.

I'd recommend it for anyone who wants a fun take on history... but if you're used to reading scholarly work you might find some things a bit irritating.

A little goes a long way
The book made me laugh out loud, but the NPR-approved author is glib, always nervously searching for her next punchline, or attempting to insert a proud, treacly story about her nephew Owen.

I love me some liberals and consider myself one, but Vowell is the type who is off the charts nuerotic and nerdy; every bit as grating as her pinched voice suggests. While learning many interesting details about assassination history, an image is assembed of the neurotic author as a nut who doesn't drive (a phobia), has allergies, and is some sort of assassination coompletist. Though the book is at no loss for wit, a reader is always aware how insufferable it must be to be in the presence of Sarah Vowell.