![]() ![]() She is haunted by the ghosts of her dead siblings, while also being forced to take responsibility not only for the surviving children but for her distraught mother. ![]() Most poignant for me is Rosalie, the eldest daughter. This is contrasted with the immediate and subjective voices of a number of John’s siblings, telling their own story, offering glimpses of John from childhood onwards. This gives the sense of the two men moving inexorably closer, while also confining John to the margins – we are some way into the novel before he is even born. There is an omniscient narrator, situating the story of the family in the historical context, and opening each chapter with vignettes from Lincoln’s life. The narrative moves seamlessly between voices. She gives birth to ten children and suffers the loss of many in childhood. He is a successful actor and spends most of his life touring and performing Shakespeare, while she is left to tend the farm with his father (who has a lot to say but doesn’t contribute much). They have married in England and Junius Booth has neglected to tell his bride, Mary Ann Holmes, where she is going to have to live. What did it mean to them to be forever associated with a notorious killer?īooth begins as John’s parents set up home in a remote farm in Maryland. Karen Joy Fowler’s focus is not on John himself, but on his family. I didn’t know anything about John Wilkes Booth apart from the fact that he assassinated Abraham Lincoln, so Booth was an informative as well as an intriguing novel. ![]()
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