Booth by Karen Joy Fowler

[m_oonmoon]

Boy, was this book a slog to get through. I don't know if it's my fault for not looking into what the book was really about or if it's the publisher's fault for marketing it as a historical fiction about Abraham Lincoln's assassin. Either way, this veered completely away from my expectations. I know the author wanted to de-center the assassin from the story, hence focusing more on his family, and how the aftermath of his actions affected them but I felt that there wasn't really anything to sell us to the story, at this point. We were given so much information about his family, starting from childhood, and the whole time I felt like I was just waiting for anything that could tie it up with his actions. It turns out to be nothing more than vignettes that have no bearing on his story except as background noise. I don't really understand what the author was trying to do here. I read in another review that the author wrote this book in response to the excessive gun violence in America. I do get the vague sense of doom whenever we are shown glimpses of John's descent to extremist ideology but there was too little of this to really drive the point home. 

I'm not American so I did enjoy learning a little bit about American history through this novel. Other than that, this book was a pain to get through. I think I've read enough Booker prize finalists to know that the style of books that usually get listed just aren't for me.