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100 Books in One Year: Assassination Vacation by Sarah Vowell

Cannonball Read / Marra Alane

Book Reviews | November 13, 2008 | Comments (18)

Assassination Vacation follows Vowell and a few of her friends and sometimes her sister and her adorable nephew as they make a pilgrimage to various sites that are important to presidential assassination history. The book is split into three parts — one each on Lincoln, Garfield, and McKinley. Vowell has this amazing ability to make even the boring shit fascinating — to be honest, I sort of forgot that McKinley was a president until she made me love the guy. Plus, she draws some really interesting parallels between his administration and the current one (just replace Iraq with Cuba, and bam! foreign policy disaster twins).

While the stuff about the actual assassinations are interesting, its when she gets sidetracked that the book goes from entertaining to absolutely amazing. For example, did you know that the late renaissance king El Hechizado laid with the putrid corpse of Saint Francis of Assissi on his deathbed because people thought it would make him well again? Or that poor Todd Lincoln was present at the assassinations of three separate presidents? Or that John Wilkes Booth’s brother was the most famous Shakespearean actor of his day, and he saved Todd Lincoln from being hit by a train? Or, my personal favorite, that the guy who killed Garfield was a member of the Oneida Community, which currently produces fine kitchenware, but back in the day was a communist vegetarian sex cult that practiced the fine art of the airing of grievances?

Can I just say that it kills me that Nicole Ritchie has sold more books than Sarah Vowell? It kills me that little girls look up to Lauren Conrad and not Sarah Vowell. It kills me that little girls don’t know who Vowell is. Because she is the fucking shit.

This review is part of the Cannonball Read series. Details are here and the growing number of participants and their blogs are here. And check here for more of Marra Alane’s reviews.


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Comments

This is one of my top five favorite books ever written. Ever ever ever. I love Sarah Vowell.

Posted by: Julie at November 13, 2008 4:39 PM

I love this book and I love Sarah Vowell. She was on the daily show promoting her new book ("The Wordy Shipmates") and I was cooing.

Posted by: Stacy at November 13, 2008 4:55 PM

No lie, I JUST finished rereading this book last night for like, the fourth time. I generally find European history to be waaaay more interesting than American history; Sarah Vowell's the only American history-related stuff I'll read. Love, love, love her. Can't wait to get her new one.

Posted by: cake or death at November 13, 2008 5:05 PM

This is a book I take everywhere (usually in both text and audio forms), and I've actually used the little-known facts I learned from it in a number of my classes in college. Knowing that JWBooth had a serious younger brother complex opens up all sorts of avenues when analyzing "Topdog/Underdog."

Also, I forced it on all of my family, so when we were in upstate New York a few years ago, we all agreed to drive 3 hours out of the way to visit the Oneida community (no happy yellow teapots for us, though).

Posted by: foursweatervests at November 13, 2008 6:05 PM

Thank god for the Daily Show. I bought her book because I saw that interview. And I consider myself a bibliophile. Shame on me. SHAME.

Posted by: dsbs at November 13, 2008 6:35 PM

Violet Parr?

Posted by: Eep at November 13, 2008 6:40 PM

A tiny nit to a review I love (because the review loves a book I love): It's Robert Todd. Not Todd.

I love the bit about the guy who spoke "too frequently of Vermont" from the Oneida section. And the sculpted Lincoln hands Vowell mentions? The ones that Edwin Booth picks up at a friend's home before promptly putting them down (this was post-assassination)? A cast of them is on display at the Smithsonian American Art Museum and Portrait Gallery.

Posted by: Mike B. at November 13, 2008 7:32 PM

The scary thing is that this book turns you into her as you begin excitedly recounting the stories to glazed eyes in much the same fashion.

Posted by: Jay at November 13, 2008 7:34 PM

I wouldn't stalk Sarah Vowell, but I'd work very, very hard to try and get one date with her if I wasn't already married. Sarah's voice and her professed insecurities may be a turn off to many people, but I love her mind and she's cute as a button.

And shame on Pajiba if you don't pick up a review of Wordy Shipmates outside the Cannonball Read.

Posted by: idiosynchronic at November 13, 2008 8:34 PM

This little girl loves Sarah Vowell! (Well, if you count teenaged as being little). I heard of her from This American Life, and just had to get more, so I subsequently read all of her books. Brilliant. Her Christmas Carol about Valley Forge for TAL's Holiday Spectacular is hilarious.

Posted by: Elizabeth at November 13, 2008 8:45 PM

This review seems a wee...scant? eh? It seems you mentioned the book, and everybody is excited because they, too, know this book.

Posted by: electricdaisy at November 13, 2008 9:51 PM

i, on the other hand, WOULD stalk sarah vowell, and still might, someday. i have never - EVER - heard or read her and not thought that she was the coolest, cleverest, funniest thing going.

Posted by: matty at November 13, 2008 10:41 PM

There must be something wrong with me, because I have never heard of this book, but I am going to rectify that by picking it up immediately (or as soon as I pay off my enormous fines to the Free Library of Philadelphia). I have a strange Lincoln obsession. I can't explain it. You know that novel by Gore Vidal? I've read it about 15 times. But besides that, isn't it shameful that I can never remember the "other two" presidents who were assassinated?

Excellent review, Marra. Love the enthusiasm. (Why do I feel like a professor grading a paper when I write that?)

Posted by: Nicole at November 14, 2008 10:18 AM

Sarah Vowell is The Shit!

I've read all of her books and find her imminently fascinating and hysterically funny. It is indeed sad that Nicole Ritchie has sold more books than Sarah Vowell has. And although I'm sure Nicole Ritchie is a lovely and interesting woman, if I were trapped on a desert island and had to choose a companion between the two of them, I'd rather have Sarah. Although Nicole may be a better choice for that since she apparently doesn't eat anything so there'd be more food left for me.

Posted by: Adrienne at November 14, 2008 11:15 AM

This book actually got me a job. I read about the Museum of Funeral Customs in it and lo' and behold here I am working there. Kudos Sarah Vowell!

Posted by: Blanquist at November 14, 2008 12:52 PM

I have the audiobook of this, and it so adds to the general awesome to be hearing her voice. Love her.

Posted by: Loob at November 14, 2008 3:01 PM

She has such a great voice. I'm with you Julie, this book is definitely approaching favorite status. Everyone who hasn't read this book, read it. Seriously, stop reading this comment and go read this.

Posted by: becks at November 14, 2008 3:15 PM

Communist vegeterian sex cults...? Color me intrigued! Do they exist anymore?!! Meh, probably in SF, there gay vegan anarchist cults out here too!

Posted by: ph at November 14, 2008 6:52 PM