October 2005    

Assassination Vacation Author: Sarah Vowell Publisher: Simon & Schuster $21.00 Cloth (258 p.) ISBN: 0743260031 B&T         YBP Reviewed by Marcia Amidon Lüsted, Statusing Sarah Vowell, who is best known at the moment for being the voice of the character Violet Parr in the animated the movie The Incredibles, is the author of this book that on the surface seems like a slightly quirky look at the assassinations of three United States presidents. While I did learn some new and unusual historical tidbits about the deaths of Lincoln, Garfield, and McKinley, as well as other related historical figures and incidents, by the end of the book, I felt like this was just a thinly veiled vehicle for a lot of political commentary. Vowell has a talent for turning just about any topic into a discussion of her negative views of the current presidential administration and the war in Iraq, and while I don't begrudge her the right to voice her opinions, after a while I felt like I had been tricked into reading them through the promise of a book that I thought would be historical in nature. She does take a large number of trips to places of historical tourism that are quite interesting in a travel-narrative kind of way, but by the end of the book I was looking for episodes that had something of interest. Her occasional flashes of humor weren't enough to carry the entire book. Assassination Vacation is built on an interesting premise, but with far too much political opinion -- a genre of book I usually avoid. I picked this up thinking that it would be historical in nature, and although I was interested to learn facts such as that Robert Todd Lincoln was present at all three of these presidential assassinations, I could probably have learned this fact in a more riveting fashion elsewhere. If you like reading about other people's political opinions, this will be an interesting book for you, but if you like your history straight, look elsewhere. Published by YBP Library Services 999 Maple St., Contoocook, NH 03229 USA v: 800.258.3774   f: 603.746.5628 w: www.ybp.com   e: academia@ybp.com All rights reserved.