Assassination Vacation | 
| Author: Sarah Vowell
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
List Price: $14.00
Buy Used: $5.89
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Rating:  141 reviews
Sales Rank: 5087
Media: Paperback
Pages: 272
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.8
ISBN: 074326004X
Dewey Decimal Number: 973.099
EAN: 9780743260046
ASIN: 074326004X
Publication Date: January 31, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Sarah Vowell exposes the glorious conundrums of American history and culture with wit, probity, and an irreverent sense of humor. With Assassination Vacation, she takes us on a road trip like no other -- a journey to the pit stops of American political murder and through the myriad ways they have been used for fun and profit, for political and cultural advantage.From Buffalo to Alaska, Washington to the Dry Tortugas, Vowell visits locations immortalized and influenced by the spilling of politically important blood, reporting as she goes with her trademark blend of wisecracking humor, remarkable honesty, and thought-provoking criticism. We learn about the jinx that was Robert Todd Lincoln (present at the assassinations of Presidents Lincoln, Garfield, and McKinley) and witness the politicking that went into the making of the Lincoln Memorial. The resulting narrative is much more than an entertaining and informative travelogue -- it is the disturbing and fascinating story of how American death has been manipulated by popular culture, including literature, architecture, sculpture, and -- the author's favorite -- historical tourism. Though the themes of loss and violence are explored and we make detours to see how the Republican Party became the Republican Party, there are all kinds of lighter diversions along the way into the lives of the three presidents and their assassins, including mummies, show tunes, mean-spirited totem poles, and a nineteenth-century biblical sex cult.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 136 more reviews...
 I'll buy a Vowell, Pat. March 29, 2005
James Hiller (Beaverton, OR)
111 out of 136 found this review helpful
Actually, two. Or maybe three. Or as many as I want! Sarah Vowell has produced a delightfully charming, witty, and introspective look at, of all topics, presidential assassination, in her new witty and evocative book "Assassination Vacation".
Those of us who know Vowell from her numerous and witty appearances on the highly respected "This American Life" series know exactly what to expect when picking up a Vowell book: something interesting, funny, with pieces of introspection thrown in. She delivers her promise in her new tome. Vowell, a self-avowed history nut, decides to drag certain hapless aquaintances around the places associated with three presidential assassinations: Lincoln, Garfield, and McKinley.
Along the way, she shares information she has researched or learned, which makes this book one of her more scholarly, if that word could ever be applied here. She actually makes history more palpable, more real for people to digest in an entertaining way. How many of us would desire reading a book about the famed assassin Leon Cgolgosz? Put Vowell's name on the cover, slap a salty title on the book, and bang, we're lining up book-in-hand to purchase it. (Oh, and by the way, Vowell finally deciphers the mystery of pronouncing Cgolgosz, which is.... is... hmmm, I suddenly can't remember).
Whenever you read a piece by Vowell, invariably, you never read it in your own voice, but her Sarah's voice ringing through, or was it Violet Parr from the Incredibles... oh wait, it's the SAME person). I guess that's the mark of a good writer, that she has developed her own style strong enough for us to hear her reading it to us. At any rate, this history nut who also goes ballistic whenever he comes across a plaque, gives this book five stars for a truly enjoyable read from a truly enjoyqable writer.
If only Vowell wrote the texts.... March 29, 2005
Grant Barber (scituate, MA)
84 out of 98 found this review helpful
I've never really gotten the whole idea behind "American Studies" in universities. I really did not enjoy history as a student. If only Sarah Vowell had written the texts or been the teacher. She is a history nerd, geek, whatever--she is brilliant, laugh out loud funny, and earnest all at the same time. Her take is on three presidents who were assasinated (the majority of the book describing Lincoln's life, assasination, and the lives of his assasins). This book is something of a departure from her previous two collections of esssays, which ranged over a wide variety of topics. This book is more focused, but Vowell's voice and wit are intact, even more entertaining than in previous volumes. I hope Vowell's next book tells us about Hollywood, animation, and her other passions on the heels of her performing a voice in The Incredibles. There has to be so much fodder for her droll observations there. Sedaris might be getting a little stale these days; Vowell certainly is not.
 Sarah's Got A Political Axe to Grind - Don't Bother May 5, 2005
Alan Rockman (Upland, California)
30 out of 154 found this review helpful
Frankly I am disappointed.
When I first read about Sarah Vowell's book on visiting the assassination and burial sites of Presidents Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley and Kennedy, I was quite eager to get a copy. I have many books on the murder of Abraham Lincoln and it is an episode of American History that often brings tears to my eyes. I too have read much on McKinley and his assassination, and have personnally visited the tombs of Presidents Lincoln and Kennedy in my lifetime.
However when I read Ms. Vowell's comparison of Theodore Roosevelt to Paul Wolfowitz, and in a manner disparaging to both gentleman, I quickly put the book down and walked away. It is one thing to write a emotive, pathos-filled work on the assassination of four of our most beloved Presidents (whether or not you liked them), it is quite another to put your own political perspective in such a work. In her anger at the U.S. War in Iraq - and taking a swipe at the decision to go to war with Spain in 1898, Ms. Vowell has chosen the deplorable latter over what could have been a major historical accomplishment.
The reasons why we went to war with Spain were honorable ones, whether or not the U.S.S. Maine was sunk by the Spaniards. Did Ms. Vowell ever hear of the "Virginius"? or of Weyler and the Concentration Camps??? She even takes a swipe at the heroism of the Rough Riders!!!
Buy the Bishop and Manchester books on the Lincoln and Kennedy assassinations, or Margaret Leach's insightful bio of McKinley.
By far the best book on the assassination Lincoln besides the works written by Jim Bishop and Carl Sandburg is the pictorial history -"Twenty Days" by the Kunhardts. Put your shekels down on it - not on some Lefty's complaints-filled tourguide...
 Good idea, shame about the poor execution (sorry for the pun) December 27, 2005
David Ljunggren (Ottawa, Ontario Canada)
25 out of 36 found this review helpful
Sarah Vowell has a good idea -- study the assassinations of three U.S. Presidents and see what these violent events can tell us about modern-day America -- but she spoils it rather by deciding to tell us at great length what a goofy, original and generally fascinating person she is. This approach works if, for example, you were born to an itinerant Outer Mongolian family of yak herders and by some magical sleight of hand found yourself washed up on a Florida beach. Now that's interesting. I'll read more about that.
Vowell isn't all that unusual or interesting, which in itself is not a problem. After all, she's writing a book about three assassinations, isn't she? In theory she is, but she can't help turning the camera on herself time and time again, relating stupendously dull anecdotes about herself, her friends and her relatives. Four or five pages into the introduction I was muttering "Oh be quiet, lady", which is not a good sign. Where I come from we call this padding. Yet again I found myself wondering what on earth had happened to the editors, the people charged with ensuring that the book you read is the best possible product, the ones who tell an author "Cut out this self-serving drivel and focus on the topic at hand".
When Vowell does forget about herself long enough to focus on the assassinations, she produces an intriguing tale about the crackpots who pulled the triggers, what influenced them and the effect on the United States. What I like about her approach is that she has clearly done her homework and isn't afraid to trudge all over the map to the most unprepossessing spots on the off-chance she might find out something new. She writes well and the chapter about the lunatic who gunned down President McKinley is well-paced, insightful and full of off-beat information. If she'd stuck to this approach the book could have been much better than it is.
Save your money and your time. August 24, 2005
Traffic Goddess (Amish Country, PA)
21 out of 94 found this review helpful
Out of the many thousands of books I have read, there have only been two that I have found that I was sorry I wasted my time on. This is one of them.
I had high hopes of learning about the little known facts behind the assassinations of our Presidents, instead I'm treated to a regurgitation of whining liberal litany of what is wrong with the current administration. Vowell goes so far as to identify with past Presidential assassins because of her same frustration with George W. Bush. Then, she does a not-so-convincing job to state that she is not advocating assassinating the current President, even making a smart comment to an "FBI agent" that might be reading to investigate.
Vowell's continued opinions about current events throughout the book completely disrupted the flow. If you are looking for yet another book by a liberal author bemoaning current events and blaming the fall of society on the Republican Party, this is your book. If you were looking to learn something about history, don't bother. Your time would be better spent elsewhere.
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