The beauty of reading history is that the diversity of opinion and interpretation of facts are such a subjective enterprise that one can read many tomes on a single subject (such as Abraham Lincoln for example) and still get a wide range of understanding and literary experiences. We can assuredly add Sarah Vowell to the list of "diverse" authors of history as she pens a unique view on the assassinations of presidents Lincoln, Garfield and McKinley. More like hanging out than lecturing, Vowell takes us on an untraditional journey into these nation altering events and along the way provides a smart and sassy view of presidential history.
Purported to be a study of the first three presidential assassinations, Vowell instead allows us to tag along on road trip after road trip as she pursues dark and anachronistic memorabilia pertaining to these tragedies. With unique anecdotes and astute observations, we learn that the McKinley assassination spot is memorialized by a decaying stone plaque...Garfield's is now the National Archives building (it was the Baltimore/Potomac railroad station) and we follow various paths of the Lincoln conspirators with possibly the most lurid being the prison site of Dr. Samuel Mudd (in the Dry Tortugas west of Key West). Her passion, curiosity and literary skills are only exceeded by the nerdy, sometimes melancholy, always affecting attitude. The reader (this reader anyway) at the end suddenly concludes that this peculiar approach serves the historian well...all the while being delightfully entertaining.
A work that would captivate my seventeen year old daughter as well as the (semi) serious historian, Sarah Vowell conclusively combines history with sentiment and proves that, yes, history can be fun!
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