If you know Sarah Vowell, then you know why I picked this up when I saw it at the thrift store. If you don't, then I'll explain a bit: Vowell is a NPR contributor that is obsessed with historical pop cultural. For this book, she travels all across America exploring virtually every spot associated with the assassinations of three American Presidents. Take away the superlative aspect of this book, and the history is not something that I would normally be drawn to read. I thought Sarah would ease me into the uncomfortable endeavor I'm starting-attempting to read outside of my basic genres.
From the preface: "The egomania required to be president or a presidential assassin makes the two types brothers of sorts. Presidents and presidential assassins are like Las Vegas and Salt Lake City that way. Even though one city is all about sin and the other is all about salvation, they are identical one-dimensional company towns built up out of the desert by the sheer will of true believers." Basically, Vowell's humor and enchantment with the mundane takes her (and the reader) on enough tangents to make 258 pages of history palatable for me.
The assassinations she investigates are those of LIncoln, Garfield and McKinley. Lest you think it's an in-and-out visit to the murder sites, be warned that she travels to the Mutter Museum simply to view a piece of John Wilkes Booth's flesh that has been kept for posterity (along with a piece of LBJ's gallbladder and a cancerous growth from the cheek of Grover Cleveland). She's nuts. But her fascination is fascinating.
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