Booth's Mental health

[Lincoln Wonk]

(05-14-2015 01:28 PM)Juan Marrero Wrote:  I am still reading "Fortune's Fool" and learning quite alot.

As I read it, I keep thinking that Booth possibly suffered from a borderline personality disorder--a very inflated sense of self, volatile and destructive personal relationships, rapid mood swings and a tendency towards despair. This is certainly not new ground for I am sure that his mental state has already been brought up and discussed. Morever, anyone who shoots an American president has to be, almost by defintion, crazy.

At the very least, he was an adrenalin junkie. Hard to believe how many times he was stabbed, cut, shot, etc. His reckless sword play on stage suggests someone barely in control of himself. Did he have to drive himself that hard just to feel anything?

It's a wonder that he did not (apparently) drink as much as his father did. Someone living at such speed would llikely look for a liquid or chemical way to come down at the end of the day.

As an aside, I think that JWB looks physically much like Lee H. Oswald in the photo in which Booth is photographed with his two brothers wearing Roman togas.

Juan, You bring up a lot of interesting questions. Does anyone have an educated guess on how many drinks JWB had on April 14? It's amazing to think that it was his habit to drink quite a bit and he combined that with swordplay on stage. Unless the other actors were also, to use the 1865 word, tight.