I was totally gripped by this family, and it’s theatre and political connections. Based on a famous theatrical family, of which I was completely unaware, it is a fictionalised telling of the circumstances around the civil war in America, and the catastrophic events leading to the assassination of president Lincoln.
The facts are mixed with a carefully assembled picture of a family in mourning; in poverty and then in riches, loved and then reviled. John Wilkes Booth is given no more space than the other siblings, yet we know his place in history.
I was firstly in admiration of such wonderful writing, and the sensitivity of the characterisation. Then we are given so many details of America leading up to war, family and family members in opposition, North and South, with the abolition of slavery at its crux. A very memorable book on many levels.

Booth by Karen Joy Fowler was not at all what I was expecting. I actually didn’t realise until about half way through that Booth was the family name of the famous assassin of Abraham Lincoln. Despite this I thoroughly enjoyed the novel. The characters were beautifully described and the story leading up to the event at the end was intriguing.

I guessed this was going to be up my street the minute I read the synopsis and I was right. I’m a sucker for a historical family saga and this ticked all my boxes. Likeable plot and characters and could tell the author had done a considerable amount of research. I did find some sections to be wind on a bit but I also realise the reasons why so I haven’t knocked off a star for that. Very much deserving of the upcoming praise! Thankyou for much to Netgalley for the ARC!

Booth tells the story of one of America's most famous assassins - John Wilkes Booth - but he is not the centre of the book. Instead, the focus of Booth is on his family - his many siblings, both dead and alive, and his famous actor father and long-suffering mother. This book follows them over decades, shifting between the perspectives of different family members to provide a broad retelling of the life of an unusual American family at a particular place and time.

I was very excited to read this book. I think Fowler is an excellent writer and We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves is one of my all-time favourite books. However, Booth did not work for me. It's very well written and clearly contains a lot of research - perhaps slightly to its detriment, as the weaving of archival material such as letters into the narrative sometimes felt a bit awkward and forced. There's a lot of 'the Booth family went here, then they went there. They had this for dinner, then this for dinner, then this for lunch, then these people visited, then they left', which is obviously how human lives work, but I just did not find it very interesting to read about. For me, the detail overwhelmed the story in a way that caused my interest in the book to falter in quite a few places. However, I think that is not a failing of the book as much as it is a mismatch between reader and text.

It is a valuable and feminist act to record the lives of those who are so frequently omitted from historical narratives, and in this regard Booth is an important book. I suspect that this is a case where my expectations affected my reading experience, because this book was so different to We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves. It was not for me but I know lots of other people have really enjoyed it.

Many thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC.

I love Karen Joy Fowlers writing, particularly her depiction of families and family relationships and therefore story of the Booth family, epic as it is, is a masterclass in that. I love the straightforward, dispassionate style and the historical details. The pace and length was a challenge for me and I found myself picking it up and putting it down, but every time I gave time to it I got immersed in the story and writing.

This is an extraordinary novel. Though I knew a little bit about John Wilkes Booth I knew nothing about his family and they take centre stage here (the event for which Booth is famous doesn’t happen until 95% of the way through the novel and it’s not at all the focus). I was expecting historical fiction and instead this is a sprawling, tender examination of a highly unusual family with a clear eye on what we can learn from incidents like this one today. I couldn’t recommend it more and I’ve missed this world ever since I finished reading. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

I was given an ARC of Booth in exchange for an honest opinion. An impressively compelling novel of the acclaimed 19th century American Booth family stage actors. Surrounded by scandal, the novel explores the highly complex relationships within this dysfunctional family and their interactions with those in the wider world. Largely based on family correspondence and interviews with those who knew them, the familial characters emerge as spectacularly ordinary citizens, albeit prone to a wild and passionate streak. It’s the actions associated with this passion of righteous belief, sparked by the violent dichotomy of the American Civil War, that marks this family for retribution.

What I loved most about this book is its tone. There is a sense of matter-of-factness in the writing as the author narrates the Booth family trials and tribulations; contrasting them against Abraham Lincoln’s career. People will generally have heard of John Wilkes Booth’s assassination of the President, but the largely untold story of his family is fascinating. Fowler does a great job of representing the forgotten family members that Wilkes Booth left behind, whilst not glorifying Booth himself or sensationalising their stories. The characters are complicated and seeing the the context of Wilkes Booth from different perspectives is thought-provoking. It is almost a surprise with their family contribution to US theatre, they aren’t better known in their own right. Without much knowledge of American history, I enjoyed learning about the Booths and the context of their time.

A massive tale about huge family. It started off well - the Booth family are intriguing - a drunk actor as the father and many children vying for the attention of their parents. I enjoyed their early days, how they got to America and the introduction of the first Mrs Booth added a sense of mystery. At this point the prose was descriptive, expansive and charming.

Then things took a strange turn adopting a staccato, matter of fact style of an 8 year old who has been tasked with writing about their holidays - along the lines of. 'We left on Monday, I am sharing a room with Tim. We had pizza on Wednesday. We came home of Friday.' I can only think that the author had been having a lovely time crafting her characters when suddenly she looked at her plot scheme and perhaps her bank account, and thought 'Gosh, I have written a vast amount of text and have not started on the story - quick!'

I tried, but I had been reading it for a week and had only got a third of the way through and the text was firing those short sentences at me and I lost the will.

This is the story of the Booth family from Maryland, some of the best actors ever from the USA.
It is not only the story of the infamous John Wilkes who has been portrayed in print and film many times.

Karen Joy Fowler is an accomplished writer, I particularly liked her book We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves.

Historical fiction is my favourite read when it is done well.

It has to read as a good story, and be substantially true to life or at least believably so.

What a balancing act.

The author has chosen a well known story, has she brought anything new to it?

I don’t know, and I don’t care.

The characters all came alive for me, the author engendered empathy from the reader.

Sometimes when reading I have difficulty envisioning the characters, not with this book, the faces may not have been as the author intended but everything else was very clear.

This is a gripping story, obviously well researched, well told, totally believable as true.

What a brilliant job the author has done. First rate, Well done!

My thanks to the publisher for an advanced copy for honest review.

A sweeping historical family saga chronicling the story of the Booth family pre and post John Wilkes Booth's assassination of Lincoln. I particularly enjoyed the details of social history, but must admit there were times when I found it a bit overlong and tedious.
Thank you to netgalley and serpent's tail for an advance copy of this book.

This fascinating new novel by Karen Joy Fowler tells the story, in fictional form, of the Booths, the 19th century theatrical family who produced two of America’s most acclaimed actors, as well as one infamous killer – John Wilkes Booth, the man who assassinated Abraham Lincoln.

Although John Wilkes is, unfortunately, the best known Booth and probably the reason many readers will be drawn to this novel – to find out more about his background and what drove him to commit such a terrible crime – this is not just his story. In fact, he plays no bigger a part in it than several of the other Booths. For much of the first half of the book, the focus is on his father, the Shakespearean actor Junius Brutus Booth, who will have an important influence on the lives of each of his children – despite the fact that they rarely see him, as he spends so much time away on tour while the family stay at home on their farm near Baltimore.

Junius Brutus is a talented and successful stage actor, but as the years go by his alcoholism and eccentric behaviour make him increasingly unreliable, damaging his reputation and his financial situation. Still, he remains the centre of his children’s lives, and when three of his sons – Junius Jr (or June), Edwin and John Wilkes – follow in his footsteps and become actors themselves, they face a lifelong battle to avoid comparisons with him and with each other. It is Edwin who emerges from his father’s shadow to become one of the leading actors of his time and it is from Edwin’s perspective that we see part of the story unfold.

There are also two Booth daughters who survive to adulthood, Rosalie and Asia – and these are the other characters whose perspectives we see throughout the novel. Rosalie is the eldest and her viewpoint is particularly important early in the novel as she has experiences and memories that her younger siblings do not. As Rosalie grows into a sensitive woman who remains unmarried and close to her mother, she becomes known to the family as ‘poor Rosalie’, a sad and slightly tragic figure. Her younger sister Asia, a stronger personality who will become an author later in life, also offers some interesting insights into the dynamics of the Booth family; she has good relationships with both Edwin and John and feels caught in the middle as tensions begin to grow between the two brothers.

The murder of Abraham Lincoln doesn’t take place until near the end of the novel and there’s not much time left after that to explore the impact this terrible incident has on the rest of the Booth family. Neither are we given any real answers as to what went wrong with John Wilkes Booth and what led him to carry out the assassination. It’s hard to say why, coming from a family who were loyal to the Union and largely anti-slavery, it is only John who ends up supporting the Confederacy and opposing abolition. All we can do is make our own assessment based on the information we are given, through the eyes of his siblings, about his childhood, his relationships, his education and his political views.

The novel has clearly been thoroughly researched (although in her author’s note, Karen Joy Fowler explains that as there’s very little information available on Rosalie Booth, it was necessary to use her imagination to fill in the gaps where Rosalie’s character is concerned). However, the book is incredibly detailed and this does slow the plot down a lot, particularly in the middle. We are also given some biographical information on Abraham Lincoln himself and on the events that lead to the Civil War and his presidency. These sections are interspersed with the Rosalie, Edwin and Asia chapters and are presented as non-fiction, which I didn’t really like as I felt it disrupted the flow of the story.

Despite the negative points I’ve just mentioned, I loved this novel. Even the use of present tense and heavy foreshadowing didn’t put me off. I enjoyed learning about a group of historical figures I’d previously known almost nothing about – I particularly liked the parts about the colourful theatrical careers of Edwin and Junius Brutus – and every time I picked the book up I looked forward to finding out what would happen to the family next. I haven’t read anything else by Karen Joy Fowler, not even We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, but having enjoyed this book so much I’ll consider reading some of her others now.

This story’s central appeal is to readers who would unlikely seek out a pure non-fiction narrative concerning Booth and his family. It flits deftly between historical fiction and contemporary fact. It is rich with literary quotes that remain as pertinent and applicable today as they were during the story, and at the time Shakespeare penned them:

<i>‘Tis the time’s plague when madmen lead the blind</i> (King Lear)

<i>The fool doth think he is wise</i> (As You Like It)

Indeed, <i>What’s past is prologue</i> (The Tempest) in many ways sets the context for this story, which is the prequel to the infamous ‘final act’ we’re all taught at school where Booth’s life is generally reduced to a nutshell: one vile act of madness was all we ever needed to know about the perpetrator.

Although this story gives a deeper insight into the family heritage, societal conflict, and lawlessness that was the US during the latter half of the 19th Century, it doesn’t seek to condone nor offer any justification for JWB’s actions. Although ultimately centred on the protagonist, he plays a lesser role throughout the story and doesn’t dominate or take centre stage. His moment of notoriety occurs in the final 10% of the story, which might be the reason why some readers’ attention may not have been held longer (it occasionally suffers from a lack of tempo).
That said, it is a gloriously detailed, exhaustingly researched, and very well-written story.

My thanks to NetGalley and Serpent’s Tail/Viper/Profile Books for granting this e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

All the world’s a stage ★★★☆☆

The Booth family became infamous when John Wilkes Booth assassinated President Lincoln. This is the story of who they were before that fateful day: a family of six surviving siblings, the sons destined to follow their father’s footsteps as an actor and as an alcoholic.

This is a slow-burning novel which really digs into the lives of Junius and Mary Booth and their children June, Rosalie, Asia, Edwin, John, and Joe. We are witnesses to the eccentricities of their thespian father and the challenges of farm life, the day-to-day grind mixed with a passion for Shakespeare and the precarious American stage.

From childhood bonds and the loss of four infant siblings to brotherly rivalry on the stage, “Booth” captures the complex, close and mercurial relationships between the siblings. Spanning the 1820s to the 1860s, the story is set against a background of rising tensions between the northern and southern US states and the ever present issue of slavery.

A slow and incredibly detailed historical family novel.

What a wonderful novel! Karen Joy Fowler recounts the lives of the Booth family from 1830s to the 1860s; the most famous Booth sibling today is John Wilkes Booth who assassinated Abraham Lincoln, but prior to this, both his father Junius Brutus Booth and his brother Edwin Booth were seen as the greatest Shakespearean actors in America. Fowler therefore writes about John Wilkes Booth without writing about him, by focusing on all six siblings and their parents, mainly from the perspectives of Edwin, his older unmarried sister Rosalie, and the younger sister Asia.
There is plenty of material for Fowler to work with - Junius Brutus, who is the initial focus of the novel, is a particularly colourful character: he was the son of a leading abolitionist lawyer who left England to avoid bigamy charges; he refused to let his family eat meat, and battled with alcoholism (in the same way that several of his children would go on to do), meaning that he became very unreliable as a stage performer and his family remained close to poverty for much of his life. Four of his ten children died in childhood, leaving a ten-year gap between his eldest two and youngest four surviving children.
One of the things I loved about this novel is the seamless way that Fowler combines the epic with the intimate, the political and theatrical with the domestic. The political backdrop to the Booths' adventures is always present and the novel also offers a fascinating insight into 19th Century American performance practices, but there is equal attention given to the realities of life for married and unmarried women during this time. In the same way, Fowler manages to explore slavery both on the large and small scale, as debates between abolitionists and secessionists are rehearsed at the same time as we see the challenges faced by the Hall family of slaves who are gradually earning money to free themselves and their children from the Booths' Maryland neighbours.
Rosalie, Edwin and Asia's experiences are interspersed with short sections charting Lincoln's development as a politician, never allowing us to lose sight of his ultimate destiny - and that of the Booths. Fowler's present-tense narrative propels us through the novel, and she is really adept in her manipulation of the third-person narrative voice: at times she fully inhabits her characters' consciousness and other times she views them with a cool historical distance and detachment from the present day.
Perhaps what makes this most powerful as a novel is the resonances Fowler finds within the Booths' lives with contemporary American politics. She never makes these overt (until her afterword) but allows each moment to speak for itself. However, they all add to the urgency and eloquence of this novel.
This is both a brilliant read and a major achievement in historical fiction - it is surely a frontrunner for all of this year's literary prizes. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for sending me an ARC to review.

Thanks to Serpent's Tail / Viper / Profile Books, Serpent's Tail and Netgalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I must be the only human on the planet who hasn't read " We are all completely beside Ourselves" ( But I will rectify that after reading Booth. I absolutely loved this book about the family of John Wilkes Booth. It is an epic but completely compelling all the way through, even though we are aware of how it must inevitably end. Ifound the writing had a strange dream-like quality which drew me in and held me until the end. Wonderful..

Detailed historical fiction, narrating the lives of the Booth family from multiple points of view. Bits of Lincoln's life together with the story of the Booths and their most infamous member, John Wilkes Booth. Absent throughout the family history, he becomes the centerpiece once he accomplishes his deed, leaving his mother and siblings to deal with the aftermath.

In April 1865, a few days after the end of the American Civil War, US President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth at Ford's Theatre, Washington DC. This event only occurs towards the end of Karen Joy Fowler's novel, but as it is one of the most famous events in American history, I don't think it really counts as a spoiler.
The book begins in the 1830s and slowly builds up to the disaster. It is not so much a whodunnit as a whydunnit. It is the story not just of the assassin himself. but of his wider family. Brother Edwin, like John, is following in his father's footsteps, enjoying a distinguished acting career while also succumbing to alcoholism and an unstable personal life. His sister, spinster-in-the-making Rosalie, meanwhile, is a sensitive soul, meanwhile, who claims to be able to convene with the souls of her long dead siblings who died in childhood. Brother John grows up volatile and quick to anger, although as his siblings notice during hunting, is a good shot.
A compelling and thought-provoking insight into the real world origins of an American tragedy.

I loved we are completely beside ourselves and I thought that I wouldnt read anything by Karen Joy Fowler that I enjoyed as much, until I read this book. Being honest I dont know much about Booth apart from the assination of Abraham Lincoln so I went into this book with no previous knowledge and so I found it to be an interesting and engaging read, some parts were slow paced and felt a bit lengthy but overall that didnt stop me enjoying the book. I would recommend to anyone who likes historical fiction.

It is a well done historical fiction that has it roots in the history of booth family and one of its members (john wilkes booth). If I am to be honest, I went in this book blind, not knowing what it is about, so I was pleasantly surprised. It was good, I liked the prose, but there was also weaker moments, when the plot dragged too much. 3,5 stars from me.