Fates and Traitors

[Sally]

Gene: I read this book when it first came out, so it’s been awhile. But I remember that I didn’t care much for it. The author (Jennifer Chiaverini) writes novelized accounts of many historical figures I’m interested in—Mary Lincoln and Elizabeth Keckley, Julia Grant, Kate Chase. So I always read them, yet, I’m always disappointed afterward. It must be her writing style. It just doesn’t work for me, personally.

In “Fates and Traitors” she spends a lot of pages on Mary Ann Booth and Lucy Hale; not as many on Asia Booth and Mary Surratt. Her portrait of Mary Ann Booth was sympathetic. Asia Booth came across as an Angry Young Woman (which she may well have been). Lucy Hale was portrayed as a naïve, goody-two-shoes ninny. And many of her scenes seemed to be based on the goofy “facts” about Lucy that are all over the internet, including the infamous (and patently false) eye witness account of “Mrs. Temple” that was published in the newspapers in the 1870’s.

Mary Surratt’s story got the fewest pages, but that was okay because I’m not sure she really belonged in this book. The full title is “Fates and Traitors: A Novel of John Wilkes Booth and the Women Who Loved Him”. Did Mary Surratt LOVE Booth? If the author wanted four female characters, she might have done better to include Ella Starr Turner instead of Mrs. Surratt.

Bottom line: The book is okay for what it is, but for those of us who are really interested in the history of the assassination, it’s kind of a disappointment.