annieb123's Review of In the Houses of Their Dead

by Terry Alford

In the 1820s, two families, unknown to each other, worked on farms in the American wilderness. It seemed unlikely that the families would ever meet—and yet, they did. The son of one family, the famed actor John Wilkes Booth, killed the son of the other, President Abraham Lincoln, in the most significant assassination in American history. The murder, however, did not come without warning—in fact, it had been foretold.

In the Houses of Their Dead is the first book of the many thousands written about Lincoln to focus on the president’s fascination with Spiritualism, and to demonstrate how it linked him, uncannily, to the man who would kill him. Abraham Lincoln is usually seen as a rational, empirically-minded man, yet as acclaimed scholar and biographer Terry Alford reveals, he was also deeply superstitious and drawn to the irrational. Like millions of other Americans, including the Booths, Lincoln and his wife, Mary, suffered repeated personal tragedies, and turned for solace to Spiritualism, a new practice sweeping the nation that held that the dead were nearby and could be contacted by the living. Remarkably, the Lincolns and the Booths even used the same mediums, including Charles Colchester, a specialist in “blood writing” whom Mary first brought to her husband, and who warned the president after listening to the ravings of another of his clients, John Wilkes Booth.

Alford’s expansive, richly-textured chronicle follows the two families across the nineteenth century, uncovering new facts and stories about Abraham and Mary while drawing indelible portraits of the Booths—from patriarch Julius, a famous actor in his own right, to brother Edwin, the most talented member of the family and a man who feared peacock feathers, to their confidant Adam Badeau, who would become, strangely, the ghostwriter for President Ulysses S. Grant. At every turn, Alford shows that despite the progress of the age—the glass hypodermic syringe, electromagnetic induction, and much more—death remained ever-present, and thus it was only rational for millions of Americans, from the president on down, to cling to beliefs that seem anything but. A novelistic narrative of two exceptional American families set against the convulsions their times, In the Houses of Their Dead ultimately leads us to consider how ghost stories helped shape the nation.

Originally posted on my blog: Nonstop Reader.

In the Houses of Their Dead is a meticulously researched and annotated history of the Lincoln family, their interaction and common themes and the relationship of both families to spiritualism written by Dr. Terry Alford. Released 14th June 2022 by W.W. Norton on their Liveright imprint, it's 320 pages and is available in hardcover, audio, and ebook formats.

This was a fascinating look at the general social and economic realities of the USA in the mid to late 19th century. The author has written a much more extensive biography of the wider families and contemporaries of Lincoln, John Wilkes Booth, and the relatively newly minted "scientific" study of spiritualism and how it informed their fateful decisions.

The book is layman accessible and extensively annotated. The chapter notes and bibliography will provide many hours of further reading.

The text is liberally annotated and illustrated with line drawings, facsimiles of period documents, and an impressive number of photos. Although the treatment is admittedly academic, there's enough annotation and chapter notation and bibliography to satisfy the staunchest pedant - at the same time, there's a clear and compelling biographical narrative. I'm amazed that there's enough period record to reconstruct the stories of these families after all this time (despite their fame, and in the case of the Booths, their notoriety).

The unabridged audiobook has a run time of 9 hours and 14 minutes and is capably narrated by Danny Campbell. The narrator has a rich and rugged voice and reads clearly and distinctly. Sound and production quality are high throughout the recording. The down-side of the audiobook format is the lack of photos and reference notes.

Four and a half stars. It's an interesting synergistic look at a mostly unfamiliar facet of Lincoln and his wife. I would recommend this book to readers of American history, war history, American culture, as a support text for classroom instruction on Civil War history, or allied subjects.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

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