Monday, November 11, 2024

Review: Booth, by Karen Joy Fowler

Review: Booth, by Karen Joy Fowler

by Rich Horton

Recently someone told me that Karen Joy Fowler has a novel coming out soon, perhaps next year. I can't remember who told me that, or where, and so I cannot be sure that it's true -- but I hope it is! At any rate, that seemed a spur for me to finally read her latest novel, Booth, from 2022. Fowler is perhaps the only novelist that both my wife and I read regularly. And, of late, it works out that when a new Fowler novel appears, my wife gets the first crack at it. So she read Booth when it came out -- and it has lingered on my TBR pile until just now!

Fowler has been one of my favorite writers at least since her first novel, Sarah Canary (1991). Probably before then -- earlier stories like "The Lake was Full of Artificial Things", "The Faithful Companion at Forty", and "Game Night at the Fox and Goose" had already make a big impact on me -- and on enough people that her first collection, Artificial Things, appeared in 1986, the year following her first published story. It is notable that her short fiction is largely (though not entirely) fantastika, to use John Clute's preferred term, while her novels are largely, if often ambiguously, realistic. (This is one reason my wife reads her!)

Booth is an historical novel -- the third of her novels to be set in the US in the 19th Century, though the other two (Sarah Canary and Sister Noon) are only loosely based on historical events, while Booth is to an extent about arguably the most traumatic event in our history -- the Civil War, and especially the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. The Booth of the title is not strictly speaking John Wilkes Booth -- the novel concerns his entire family -- his father, Junius, one of the greatest American actors of his generation; his brother, Edwin, pretty much indisputably the greatest American actor of HIS generation; his mother Mary Ann, his sisters Rosalie and Asia, and his brothers June and Joe. (There were four other children who died in childhood. There were other actors in the family, as well -- John Wilkes Booth himself, Asia's husband Sleeper Clarke and their sons Creston and Wilfred, June's third wife Agnes and their son Sydney Barton Booth, who acted in silent films, and Edwin's wives, Mary Devlin and Mary McVicker.)

The novel is told primarily via the points of view of Rosalie, Asia, and Edwin, with brief interludes about Lincoln. It opens in 1838 in rural Maryland. Mary Ann lives there with her several children by Junius Booth, but Junius spends most of his time touring. Nonetheless, they end up with 10 children, the last born in 1841. Rosalie, who turns 15 in 1838, narrates this section, which describes a somewhat pleasant country upbringing, though punctuated with the deaths of four siblings, and the stress surrounding her father's careless handling of money, and his eccentricities, which include alcoholism, a somewhat inconsistent vegetarianism, and a strong abolitionist viewpoint. Rosalie herself is much put upon -- acting as a second mother to her brothers and sisters, feeling herself less attractive than her generally beautiful siblings, and suffering from scoliosis. They are brought up with black servants -- freed slaves -- and while this novel is closely centered on the Booth family we do not miss the terrible condition of black people, even freedmen, and neither do we miss the way the nominally abolitionist Booth family members don't really see how their servants live.

We continue from then until, of course, April 1865. The Booths move to Baltimore, and the surviving children grow up. Rosalie has one love affair (perhaps just in her head) but her family squash it, and she is resigned to spinsterhood. Asia grows up a beauty. Edwin, bullied as a child, eventually turns to the stage against his father's will. June does the same, and moves to California where he marries. John is popular with his fellow boys, but an indifferent student, and for a time returns to the Booth farm, which he hates, then he too becomes an actor. In the mean time he is increasingly pro-South, and his repulsive racism is readily on display. The whole family is upended when a woman claiming (correctly) to be Junius Booth's actual wife, along with her son, turns up, and relatives all but force the Booths from their farm. Edwin eventually follows his father on a somewhat disastrous tour to California, partly in order to see June, and Edwin stays behind when his father returns home -- or, as it happens, does not. Edwin, upon his own return, establishes his reputation, and is soon regarded as one of the country's greatest actors -- and so he also becomes the family's means of support. And he marries a young actress, and has a daughter. Then comes the war. The Booths, by now in New York, mostly sit out the fighting, though they witness such events as the Draft Riots. Asia tells much of this story, and as John is her favorite brother, we see a bit of him, and his increasing radicalization, including threats to kidnap Lincoln. And so comes the inevitable climax.

There is much more going on of course, much based on the historical record, but many personal details of course invented. And the book beautifully and convincingly depicts all the main characters: John's charisma mixed with violence, Rosalie's disappointment, Edwin's depressive nature, acting brilliance, and distrust of his brother, Asia's sometimes unpleasant fierceness. The black characters -- mostly the servants at the Booth property -- are naturally less prominent, but as I said their condition is clearly portrayed, with such details as the adult couple who work for the Booths desperately saving money to buy their children out of slavery. The way John Wilkes Booth's faults distort the entire family is clear, and of course his final act falls heavily on them as well. (Edwin is jilted by a woman he wanted to marry, Asia's husband, as well as June, are imprisoned as suspects in the conspiracy, though they are eventually released. Edwin nearly quits the stage, and does stay off it for months.)

It's a strong novel, involving, honest, and -- like some but not all historical fiction -- informative. We really do learn about this period in American history -- a familiar period to most Americans at least superficially, but reading about it this way does deepen our understanding. The characters are real as well, though (as Fowler certainly admits in her Afterword) much of this aspect is due to the novelist's imagination. Still, seeing this time through the eyes of people of that time -- when those people are faithfully reconstructed as I trust Fowler to do -- is a way of learning more about how they lived. It was a fraught time -- aren't they all -- and that comes through powerfully. Definitely a worthy novel, though I will confess, I don't place it at the top of my lists of Fowler's books. (I have, I think, four tiers -- at the top, Sarah Canary, We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, and the collection Black Glass; second level, The Sweetheart Season, The Jane Austen Book Club, Booth, and the collection What I Didn't See; third tier: Sister Noon and the collection Artificial Things; and then Wit's End at the bottom. I should probably reread both Sister Noon and Wit's End, and I should emphasize that her lowest tier would be top tier for most writers.) 

1 comment:

  1. Sounds interesting. Have you ever read David Stacton's 1961 novel The Judges of the Secret Court? It covers some of the same ground and is one of the finest historical novels I've ever read; I can't recommend it too highly.

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