"I am a cards-carrying history nerd who likes to have fun" — that's basically Sarah Vowell's thesis statement in the first twenty minutes, and honestly? Same energy as me explaining to my husband why I just spent $47 on a used copy of a presidential biography at the library book sale. Except Vowell's version of fun involves dragging friends to assassination sites and contemplating the cursed life of Robert Todd Lincoln, who somehow managed to be present at THREE presidential assassinations. History has a way of producing these almost cosmically unlucky figures — I bumped into a similar kind of moral bewilderment reading Slavery of Our Times, where the absurdity of real events kept hitting harder than any fiction could. The man was basically the Forrest Gump of political murder.
I started this one during Sophie's Tuesday nap — the miraculous one where she actually slept for ninety straight minutes — and I was genuinely cackling into my cold coffee by minute fifteen. Which, if you know me, is high praise because Tuesday naps are reserved for either sleep or staring at the wall in silence.
Jon Stewart as James Garfield Is the Casting Choice I Never Knew I Needed
Okay, so here's the deal with the narration situation. Sarah Vowell reads most of the book herself, and her voice is... distinctive. I'm being diplomatic. She has this nasal, almost squeaky quality that took me about thirty minutes to stop noticing. It's like when your kid's favorite show has an annoying theme song — eventually your brain just accepts it as background texture. And once I settled in, her deadpan delivery actually MADE the humor land. The dry sarcasm needs that voice. It wouldn't work in a smooth, radio-perfect alto.
But the real treat is the guest narrators popping in for specific roles. Jon Stewart voicing James Garfield and his assassin Charles Guiteau? Genuinely funny and surprisingly committed. Stephen King reading Lincoln passages with this gravelly intensity that made me grip my steering wheel a little tighter during pickup line. Conan O'Brien and Dave Eggers show up too, though their parts are shorter than I wanted. It's like getting a sampler platter at a restaurant where two of the items are incredible and the others are just... fine. The McKinley sections drag a bit compared to the Lincoln and Garfield material, and I think part of that is the guest narrator energy just isn't as electric there.
Small gripe: there are a few dialogue scenes — one with Catherine Keener that felt weirdly stilted, like two people reading a script at a table read before anyone's had coffee. But it's brief enough that it didn't derail anything.
History That Survived Being Paused for a Diaper Blowout
Here's what I really appreciated: the structure. Vowell organized this around the three assassinated presidents — Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley — and their killers, but she bounces between historical deep dives and her own road trip experiences visiting the relevant sites. So you get these manageable chunks. I could pause mid-Garfield-assassination, deal with Lucas's existential crisis about his sock being "wrong," come back ten minutes later, and still know exactly where I was.
At seven and a half hours, this is a perfect week-length listen at 1.25x. I finished it in exactly five days — two nap times, three school drop-offs, and two car-sits-in-the-garage sessions. The pacing is uneven in spots (McKinley's section really does feel like Vowell was running out of steam, or maybe just out of good murder tourism destinations), but the Lincoln and Garfield material is so packed with bizarre, delightful details that it carries the whole thing.
Like: did you know there was essentially a nineteenth-century sex cult mixed up in Garfield's assassination? Or that there are mean-spirited totem poles in Alaska connected to this whole story? Vowell drops these little history grenades so casually that you find yourself going "wait, WHAT" while sitting in the Target parking lot. Which is an improvement over my usual Target parking lot activity of questioning my life choices.
Who This Is For (And Who Should Run)
If you're an NPR listener, a Jon Stewart fan, or someone who thinks history should be allowed to be funny — this is your book. If you need a traditional narrative arc with rising action and a climax, you'll be frustrated. This is more like a really smart friend telling you stories over wine, jumping between topics but always circling back to something interesting. My book club would love this (if I ever have time for book club again).
If voices that skew nasal genuinely bother you, maybe grab the print version instead. I'm serious — Vowell's voice is polarizing, and no amount of "give it thirty minutes" will fix it if you're in the camp that finds it grating. You'll know within the first chapter.
Also: Michael Giacchino did the original music for this, which is a fun little bonus. The man scored The Incredibles and he's here doing transition music for a book about presidential assassins. I respect the range.
Car Time Approved, Yogurt Cleanup Not Required
Not groundbreaking, but sometimes you don't need groundbreaking. What you need is a smart, funny book about dead presidents that makes you feel slightly more intelligent while folding tiny socks. Satisfying ending — well, as satisfying as three assassinations can be — and I walked away wanting to visit Ford's Theatre, which is either a sign of a great book or a sign that I desperately need a vacation. Probably both.
