Karen Joy Fowler's Booth has been garnering all sorts of critical acclaim, and it deserves every bit of that praise. Fowler is one of those reliable writers who can make any story a deeply rewarding read, whether or not it fits one's literary tastes, but in this case, Booth is very much my sort of read.Booth is a fictionalized biography of the Booth family. It's written in third person, but different sections present the perspectives of different Booth siblings. John Wilkes' is never the control...

I’m at 10% and throwing in the towel. I like historical fiction on occasion, but this story of John Wilkes Booth’s family and their lives before and after he assassinated Lincoln is just not a story I can do 432 pages of. It’s dense and wordy with very little dialogue to break things up, and so far it’s sickness, death, grief and not much else.In the author’s note before the story even begins, she lets the reader know that she didn't make the book about John Wilkes Booth. I get it. She was moved...

Booth reimagines complex lives of a very talented family of stage actors and the family behind one of the most infamous figures in American history: John Wilkes Booth. In 1822, after a short courtship, Mary Ann agrees to follow Junius to America. They settle in a cabin outside Baltimore. Junius, as a celebrated Shakespearean actor, is gone 9 months of every year, leaving the growing family in the hands of Mary Ann. The story begins with Rosalie, the oldest daughter, who relates the family events...

I really enjoyed reading this book. It was engaging and engrossing and really did a great job of exploring a bit of American history without glorifying the killer. Fowler looks at JWB’s family. The story is told from the perspective of his siblings - Rosalie, Asia, and Edwin. The Booth family, starting with the patriarch Junius Booth, were a famous acting family. This part of their history has long been overshadowed by John Wilkes Booth’s assassination of Lincoln. Fowler created the Booth family...

Another book left me at the thin line between love-hate:Actually I’m more like staying in Switzerland border of book reviewing: standing in the middle of like it or hate it with no hurt feelings kind of mood at this time. There are so many interesting facts and creatively built characterization in this book kept me allured but I also expected to learn more about John Wilkes Booth instead of his entire family members but it was still pleasure to be introduced to entire Booth clan: actually most o...

I didn't want this book to end. I loved everything about it - the narrative, prose, characterizations, and history. It is one of the best books I've read in the last few years.Karen Joy Fowler knows how to weave a tale, create an ambiance and teach history in the process. This novel examines the family of John Wilkes Booth and the context of what led up to Lincoln's assassination.The Booths are a proud clan - cultured, secretive, and full of themselves. Julius Booth, paterfamilias, is a loud-mou...

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Genre: Historical FictionBooth is a historical fiction that tells the story of Booth's family, that is the infamous John Wilkes Booth, the American stage actor who assassinated President Abraham Lincoln at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C. This follows the lives of his parents, Junius Booth and Mary Ann Holmes, as well as his siblings, Rosalie, Asia, Edwin, June, and Joe. The story is set in 1822 with the major part of the book being about the family itself, all the problems and ha...

This was the story of the family of John Wilkes Booth. Note that “family” is the key word in that sentence. Had he not murdered Abraham Lincoln, there would not have been any JWB biographies, let alone a bio of the Booth family. I had a mild interest in the Booths as actors. Some of them were famous in their day. And I thought this book would give me some insight into how JWB turned into an assassin. Unfortunately, the author said that she was curious about what happens to the family of an assas...

4.5 It seems like it took me as long as the Civil War itself to finish Booth . This is a more densely packed 480 pages than you might expect. For the reader interested in the Booth family and American civil war era history generally, then it is a treasure trove of lovingly researched tidbits.It’s important to note that John Wilkes Booth is not the main character here, for most of the novel he is a doe-eyed baby or roguishly handsome young man. The impact he has on the family name is confined t

(3.5) In an epic fictional sweep from 1822 to nearly the close of the century, Fowler surveys the Booth family’s triumphs and tragedies. Short asides chronicle Lincoln’s rise in parallel. The foreshadowing is sometimes heavy-handed, and the extended timeline means there is also some skating over of long periods. Booth is low on scenes and dialogue, with Fowler conveying a lot of information through exposition. Luckily, the present-tense narration goes a long way toward making this less of a dull...

Booth is great historical fiction, giving us the history of the Booth family, as in John Wilkes Booth. Junius Booth brings his family to Maryland from England. An actor, he spends more time traveling than at home. And drinking most of his earnings away rather than sending them home. Mary Anne remains at the farm, popping out children year after year. Mary Anne seems to suffer from nerves and Rosalie, the oldest girl, ends up being the mother figure in the family.Despite their father’s objections...

Having ‘loved’ “We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves”….with much admiration and respect for Karen Joy Fowler….I was looking forward to reading “Booth”…… a story that examined the family members of John Wilkes Booth, who assassinated Abraham Lincoln. Fowler’s inspiration for this novel came from many of our current mass shootings’….. …..how do families - of a shooter/killer - deal with such devastation? How do they cope -both privately and in society? I couldn’t help but think about Sue Klebold...

Going into this book, I didn't know what to expect. I hadn't read any of Fowler's other books, and to be honest, the idea of a novel about John Wilkes Booth's family struck me as... how shall I put it? A Petri dish for melodrama? But several GR friends really liked it so I decided to give it a try. Still, I expected little.I was wrong. "Booth" is now on my "favorites" shelf. It's difficult to explain why, because it's one of those novels where the story pulls you along and you find yourself obse...

Let me cut right to the chase: this book, weighing in at nearly 500 pages, is unputdownable. I devoured it within days, and I was sorry when it was over. That’s a high compliment to give to a book but it’s well-deserved.From the title, many readers might jump to the erroneous conclusion this is a book about John Wilkes Booth, the infamous assassin of Abraham Lincoln. It is not – at least, not in totality. There is equal emphasis on all the Booth family including his immensely talented and alcoho...

Booth by Karen Joy Fowler is a 2022 Putnam publication. I received a few emails about this one from various book sites and publishers, so I decided to give it a try, though I must confess, I’ve never given a great deal of thought to John Wilkes Booth’s family. The prompt, though, was all about the families of those who commit heinous crimes, which is a subject I have given some thought to in the age of mass shootings. Unfortunately, this book wasn’t as interesting as I’d hoped. To make sure ever...

Full disclosure: Karen Joy Fowler is a dear friend. But here's the truth of the matter. If I didn't like her book, I would simply not offer a review of it. In "Booth" --probably the most infamous surname in the history of the US --Karen Joy Fowler has made an interesting and fascinating artistic decision. Instead of writing about John Wilkes Booth, she has chosen to create a historical novel based upon the family of the notorious assassin. And what a family it is! With a truly remarkable attenti...

Booth is superbly readable. The pages flow by even when nothing particularly thrilling is happening. Fowler paints intimate portraits of each family member, and the narration includes deft wink-nods to the reader and the future. I was most impressed by the way Fowler kept the day-to-day family drama in the foreground – it struck me as very realistic.My full review of Booth is up now on Keeping Up With The Penguins.

Reacting to the headline of a mass shooting, Karen Joy Fowler wondered about the families of the shooters. Did they struggle under the burden of notoriety? Were they stigmatized, or able to navigate in society? She realized she knew little about the family of the most notorious American shooter–the man who killed President Lincoln, John Wilkes Booth.As she researched extensively to understand the Booth family, she realized the relevance of this episode in American history, especially after the J...

BOOTH will eternally evoke the name John Wilkes, the assassin of Abe Lincoln. All I knew about the family was that Booth was a stage actor. Actually, nothing about his family came to mind. But now, wow! I feel intimately close to his brothers and sisters, his parents. John Wilkes is not the main character in Fowler’s brimming character study of the Booths, and the author nailed it by choosing this way to deliver her story. There isn’t one family member that I don’t feel I can talk about with fam...

"What is it like to love the most hated man in the country?" Karen Joy Fowler tells us. We are introduced to Johnny as "the swimmer in Mother's belly", not as the firebrand breaking his leg as he leaps to a stage having committed the most heinous crime imaginable. The title Booth title refers to the entire family, with second-to-youngest son not being the central figure until his actions put paid to their future. Father Junius Brutus Booth was a star in his time, seeking his fortune in America a...