Booth's Sister [Paperback]

Jane Singer (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1, 2008

"My brother killed Abraham Lincoln. That is my weight, my shame. While he remained at large, I was held captive in my home. I should have told the soldiers who came with guns drawn and bayonets at the ready this true thing: I might have stopped him, for I harbored him and kept his secrets. I was a pie safe locked tight and guilty as he." Asia Booth Clarke was twenty-nine years old and pregnant when Union soldiers and Federal detectives stormed her Philadelphia home in search of her assassin-brother. John Wilkes Booth's older sister had grown up in one of America's most notoriously troubled but spectacularly acclaimed acting families. "Johnny" and Edwin, her handsome brothers, were the matinee idols of the era. When John Wilkes Booth's crime left the nation in furious mourning and the Booth family under a dark cloud of accusation, it was Asia who bore the brunt. Booth's Sister was inspired by Asia Booth Clarke's personal memoirs. Author, Civil War scholar and storyteller Jane Singer has masterfully imagined the family dynamics and intimate dilemmas that led to one of America's most fateful crimes and left a sister's life in shambles.

Product Details

• Paperback: 228 pages
• Publisher: Bell Bridge Books (July 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0980245338
• ISBN-13: 978-0980245332
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (48 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,704,363 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Jane is a Civil War scholar and author of Booth's Sister, a novel about the reckless, enchanted and tragic life of Asia Booth,the sister of Lincoln's assassin, John Wilkes Booth.(Belle Bridge Books, August, 2008)

Her nonfiction work, The Confederate Dirty War: Arson, Bombings, Assassination and Plots for Chemical and Germ Attacks Against the Union was published by McFarland & Company in August of 2005. In November of 2006, the History Channel based a two-hour special called Civil War Terror on her book. She was both the historical consultant for the project as well as the primary on screen narrator. Her writing has been featured in the Washington Post Magazine (The Fiend in Gray), The Washington Times (Felix Stidger and the Sons of Liberty). Her research and discovery of Stidger; a little-known American hero, were illuminated in a Chicago Sun-Times article. Singer is a member of The Author's Guild, Pen West and The American Historical Association. She is also a professional actor, voice-over artist, narrator and lecturer. Born and raised in Falls Church, Virginia, she now lives in Los Angeles, California, and is available to speak to various groups across the country about her writing.

She has recently written, produced and directed Green Zone Blues: Voices of War; a series of voices of ordinary men and women caught in the crosshairs of our troubled times. A CD of the production will soon be available.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Transporting!, August 6, 2008

By 

Moah Anboss "Moah Anboss" (New York New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Booth's Sister (Paperback)

I love this book. Jane Singer is an amazing writer. Often I would go back and slowly re-read a sentence just to savor it. Particularly compelling is the multi-dimensional relationship between Asia and John first as children then, as innocence wanes, adults. I found myself wanting to know more about John and his motivations but that's for another book (Hopefully one by Ms. Singer) The histrionics of the father were amusing but I would have liked to get to know him not always "on". With Asia, I felt I knew her so well by the end of the book: her bravery, her fears, her playfulness, beautifully revealed by the author. All in all it's a wonderful story and I found myself wanting more.

Moah

21 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Exquisitely Written, July 30, 2008

By 

J. Rubiner - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Booth's Sister (Paperback)

I see another review for this title seems to have neglected to notice that it is fiction. And it's beautiful fiction. Much of the writing has the lilt and imagery of poetry. It's a wonderfully imagined story and chock full of fascinating history. All around, a great read.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Historically Inaccurate to an Incredible Degree, March 25, 2010

By 

K. Vaughan - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Booth's Sister (Kindle Edition)

While I realize this book is the author's re-creation of what she believed Asia Booth's life was like, the imposition of 21'st century lifestyles and her beliefs onto a character who lived in mid-1800's America was so awful I could not finish reading it. Although impoverished, and at a time when most families could typically only afford a Bible in their home, we are to believe that in John & Asia Booth's childhood home, "Books were stuffed under chairs and tables...piled high as a man's head."

When there was little to eat, we are expected to believe that only Johnnie and Asia Booth are working the farm ("I don't mind the work, Gillie. It makes me muscled.") while others sit around getting educated, acting as an audience. ("The Negroes are godly good folk and will be made wiser by the verses.")

The book plays into an awful stereotype: "The Negroes would rather be an audience than farm."

Finally, the book seemed the author's way of stuffing in as many quotes from other sources as she could, which I found very distracting. As stated above, I could not finish the book - an extremely rare occurrence for me.