\nEngland abolished slavery in 1833. It took the United States of\nAmerica another 32 years, and a civil war leaving more than 750,000\nbodies in its wake.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nJohn Wilkes Booth was 26 when he shot and fatally wounded Abraham\nLincoln in a the theatre, just five days after Confederate General\nRobert E. Lee surrendered, marking the beginning of the end of a war\nin which white people in North America were fighting for the right to\nkeep slaves. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nA Confederate sympathiser, John Booth never fought in the war. He was\nan actor. His family can be blamed for the latter, but not the\nformer. His father, Junius, who was the<\/em>\npre-eminent stage actor of his time, was opposed not just to slavery,\nbut to violence. He forbade meat to be cooked in his house, or\nanimals to be slaughtered on his 150 acre farm in Maryland, if Karen\nJoy Fowler, author of the historical fiction, Booth,<\/em>\nis to be believed. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n \nHow then did his son, who like his two brothers before, followed in\nhis footsteps professionally, come to be a Confederate agent and\nassassin?<\/p>\n\n\n\n \nFowler doesn\u2019t try rationalise his beliefs, much less his actions,\nand she certainly makes no attempt to justify them. She does,\nhowever, provide some clues, of the type only literature can: A point\nin John\u2019s adolescence. During that crucible of original feeling, a\nslave belonging to his best friend\u2019s father escapes. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n \nIt is disconcerting to be faced with how slavery was part of life\njust a few generations ago, in the South as well as the North. Junius\nSnr. freed Joe Hall, a slave who lived on the farm although that\ndidn\u2019t mean Joe\u2019s children, previously bought or raised by other\nlandowners, were free. But John\u2019s friend\u2019s household was more\nconservative, more stable for the third living son of father who was\naway touring more often than he was home, and an alcoholic. So when\nJohn\u2019s friend\u2019s dad gets shot dead while trying to retrieve his\nslave, John is outraged. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n \nThe way Fowler tells it, you get the impression he may have been\novercompensating. A feeling nurtured beyond its original expression\nis one you have to define yourself by, or admit you\u2019re wrong. In\nthe twisted world in which a man could own another man, he felt it a\ngreat injustice that a man could be killed in the process of\ncollecting his own property. So begins his romance with the South,\nthe grooming of white superiority. Indoctrination is ages old, and\npreys on the disaffected. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n \nBut Fowler does not dwell on John, who craved attention and does not\ndeserve it. The book is not about him, but about the family. Rosalie,\nthe eldest, who never married, who was afflicted by a crookedness of\nthe spine, and who not only had to bear the deaths of three beloved\nyounger siblings but also the grief of her mother, receives most of\nthe author\u2019s affection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \nThere is also more focus on Edwin, the second brother and most\ntalented of the three, who came to define the role of Hamlet as his\nfather had Richard III. Much of Junius Snr is seen from his\nperspective, his life large, with the accompanying prices that\nextracts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \nIt\u2019s a great novel to read. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n \n\u201cAll the world\u2019s a stage,\u201d\nobserved Shakespeare. We are all players. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n \nFowler has a knack for showing the scene and letting us grimace,\napplaud, or laugh. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n \nEdwin watches his father Junius board a ship from California,\nunaccompanied. As America\u2019s foremost actor of the time, he\u2019s come\nto expect having an assistant \u2013 up until then one of his sons,\nmostly Edwin \u2013 so as he steps up the gangplank there is some fuss\nover his baggage:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \n\u201cFather asks a deckhand to carry his trunks. The man says that\nhe won\u2019t. \u2018I\u2019m no flunky,\u2019 he says.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n \n\u2018Then what are you, sir?\u2019 Father asks.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n \n\u2018A thief.\u2019 <\/em>\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n \nIn an instant, Father is in character, his favorite character \u2013\nBertram from the play with the same name. \u2018Take my hand, then,\nsir,\u2019 he shouts, \u2018for I\u2019m a pirate.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n \nThis makes the deckhand laugh, clasp Father\u2019s arm, and haul him\nin.\u201d <\/em>\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n \nThen there is Asia, the tempestuous younger sister and John\u2019s\nconfidante, both of them removed from the older siblings, gravestones\nmarking the years between them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \nThe overall picture is of a family squinting through the glare of\nfame at a country enthralled by celebrity, riven by violence, and\nblindly shackled to the most appalling racism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \nReplace emails with letters, instant\nmessages with telegrams, cars with horses, planes with steamboats,\ntelevision with theatre, social media with gossip andthe\nBooths could be the Kardashians, except the Booths actually had\ntalent, and endured the limelight as an inconvenience that came with\nthe profession, rather than pushing to the front and deliberately\nprostituting themselves to the lowest common denominator. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n \nBooth <\/em>reveals how little\nAmerica has changed. The January 6th<\/sup>\ninsurrection, the lethal racism, the guns and mass shootings, the\npolarisation within society. The story, and its facts laid out in\nBooth <\/em>shows the road\nthe country had set upon, and has not left. It is a fascinating\nstory of a unique family, and an historical lens with which to\nunderstand America\u2019s current situation. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n \nPerhaps Lincoln would have changed that course, had he lived. We\u2019ll\nnever know.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"