Rating: 
Summary: Great historical fiction and a great first novel!
Review: An enjoyable book to read, and one that is hard to put down. Robertson admittedly takes some liberties but sticks pretty much to the main facts. Telling the tale through diary accounts, we see the relationship between John Wilkes Booth and the POV character, John Surratt, develop much like that of Steerforth's and David Copperfield's in the Dickens novel. Robertson interestingly enough has the aged Surratt meet with film maker D.W.Griffith and uses this to begin the novel, to great effect. An interesting tale with historical tidbits thrown in, and some insight into early American photography techniques as well. I hope to read many more novels by David Robertson in the future.
Rating: 
Summary: Captivating and Thoroughly Enjoyable Novel
Review: Author David Robertson gives the reader a superb view of life in Washington during the Civil War through the retrospection of John Surratt, son of Mary E. Surratt, the most notable of four citizens convicted and executed for the assassination of President Lincoln. Seemingly detached from the events so near the capitol city, a conspiracy develops among unlikely players which will impact events of the period and our nation's history almost more than the divisive war that draws to a close. It's 1916 and John Surratt has been approached by D. W. Griffith who, on the strength of his successful BIRTH OF A NATION, has decided to follow this epic with a film about Lincoln. Griffith seeks out John Surratt as the living history he needs in his research and promotion of the project. As Surratt ponders the opportunity to speak out about the events surrounding that April evening in 1865, he dusts off his diaries of 50 years and many of the photos he has collected from his apprenticeship with the famed Civil War photographer Alexander Gardner. Lifting his self-imposed but painful silence, if only in reflection, Surratt provides the reader the lens to view the events and the history of the period through the context of his relationship with the assassin, John Wilkes Booth. With the addition of text covering John Surratt's life from his acquital in 1867 in the conspiracy, till his meeting with Griffith, this novel could easily be called SURRATT and equally engaging. Read for the pleasure historical fiction offers, BOOTH is a must for your reading list.
Rating: 
Summary: nonsense
Review: I enjoy historical fiction such as John Jakes' novels where the central character interacts with history. Mr Robertson's novel is pure fiction. J Surratt was not a photographer; A Pickerton was not Secret Service. That service began after the assasination. John Surratt was surely guilty, thus his flight. Had he been brought to trial early, he too would have been hung. He certainly was aware of his mother's situation; althought I believe she may have been the only innocent. For readers interested in this plot against Lincoln, they would be better informed reading The Day Lincoln Was Shot by Bishop. Robertson should stick to fiction, without the historical reference which compeled me to select this book.
Rating:
Summary: NOT WORTH YOUR TIME OR MONEY
Review: I have read many, many books related to Abraham Lincoln's assassination. Without question, this is the worst. It adds absolutely nothing to our understanding of America's first presidential assassination.
Rating:
Summary: Best historical fiction I've read in a good long time!
Review: I thoroughly enjoyed this book, it really brought the Civil War era to life for me without being so overly romantic and glorified the way too many books on this period are. There were only a few things that bored me, namely John Surratt's involvement with D.W. Griffith (I could have cared less - I hate that time period), all the photographic stuff - again, who cares how old pictures were made?, and the Allen Pinkerton parts, which somehow assumed everyone would know who this person was and his significance to the plot, and who cared how ugly he was? I also could have done without the stuff about Booth sleeping with Mary Surratt. Gross! But all in all, a good read and one I would highly recommend.
Rating:
Summary: Great Book!
Review: I`m no fan of the American Civil War but I found myself transported by this skillfully written novel. Being a movie fan (and Griffith...) I`ve easily been tempted by the subject matter. The pictures, the recreation of the time, even fictionnal, made this one of my favorite books in the last couple of years. Mr Robertson, keep us informed of what you do!!!
Rating:
Summary: An entertaining curiosity
Review: Most (though clearly not all, judging from previous comments here) Civil War and Lincoln buffs will applaud David Robertson's debut novel, which rescues a friend of John Wilkes Booth from obscurity and places him at center stage. Robertson brings to life John H. Surratt, tried as a co-conspirator and acquitted -- two years after his mother was convicted on the same charge and became the first woman to be hanged by the U.S. government. But "Booth" is a book for even readers with no special interest in the Civil War. It opens a fascinating window onto those turbulent times and offers insights -- though, granted, fictional ones -- into a story whose ending everyone already knows.The novel opens with Surratt's 1916 New York Times obituary and then shows us diary entries he had written a few days before. In his initial entry, Surratt reveals that he has been plucked from shipping-clerk obscurity by none other than D.W. Griffith, who wants to put the reminiscences of the long-forgotten historical figure on film for an epilogue to his new movie, "The Birth of a Nation." He considers Griffith's proposal: "Perhaps," he writes, "it was time to tell the full truth about the Lincoln assassination." And with that, the septuagenarian opens up his diaries from the fateful months of 1864-65, offering up the observations and narrations of his younger self. At 21, already a failed playwright, Surratt has just landed a job as a photographer's assistant that both affords him gainful employment and helps him avoid the draft. It was a strong recommendation by his friend Booth (one of the country's most popular actors) that got him the position, and, as he finds out, the favor comes with strings attached. According to Robertson's somewhat defensive five-page essay on his sources, Surratt wasn't actually a photographer, but the author's invention is welcome -- it enlivens both the novel and Surratt's character and allows for some remarkable bits about the Civil War photographer's art: the metal rack that painfully hol! ds subjects' heads and bodies still; the delicate glass-and-chemical work to produce photographic plates; and "the bane of the photographers' art" -- the light-absorbing fabric called bombazine. Surratt's boss complains that "with the fashion in ladies' dress, a pretty maiden of twenty who comes to my studio in her best bombazine outfit becomes . . . a fleshy blob of a face swimming in an inky darkness." The truly fascinating element of the novel, though, is the relationship between Booth and Surratt, who is torn between obligation and independence, struggling for control over "Booth's presence in my life." Robertson's Surratt is a reluctant cipher, a humorless man searching for a cause; it's all too easy to fall under Booth's sway. He's aware of this influence, disturbed by it, fights it. He frets about his place in Booth's shadow even as his friend worries that "he is not the great man onstage" that his father, Junius Booth, was. At times Surratt reflects upon "how lucky I was to be able to call a man like John Wilkes Booth my friend." But he's fully aware that Booth is a "subtle manipulator and egotist"; even as he marvels at his friend's generosity, "I couldn't help wondering what Booth wanted." It turns out that what Booth wants is help with a wild scheme: He intends to kidnap President Lincoln as a prisoner of war, to stop all the killing; his primary concern is that the Union army is bent on humiliating the South. His safety compromised, Surratt turns against his friend: "Booth has reduced my life to comical farce, and a low bumbling comedy. . . . I fear he is a loose cannon, and sure to get me killed -- and over something about which I am utterly disagreed with him on. Why did I ever think Booth was my friend? How can I now disassociate myself from him?" He tries to disentangle himself, deciding that "with the return of peace I will back away from Booth, and turn once again to my own hopes, my own future." But, of course, eventually it's too late, and Booth commits "the one act that would write! my name forever in the history books, and, I prayed, make the South whole again." This last bit is from Booth's diary, written during his flight after Lincoln's murder. Booth's entries are by turns contemplative and thrilling -- and, considering the harried circumstances of their writing, a little too glossy to seem genuine. Indeed, both diaries read more like meticulously edited historical fiction than contemporary journals. They're far too nuanced and accomplished, laced with italicized flashback phrases and artful foreshadowing. The entries conclude with teasing cliffhangers. There are no missteps, no unsurety, no spontaneity. They don't *sound* right. Surratt's recollection of even throwaway dialogue is too pitch-perfect to be real, as when Booth tells a colleague: "Lewis, there is also a sideboard at the bar with pickled eggs, oysters, and beefsteaks for sandwiches. . . . You must get yourself something to eat. It's all right." Not even Truman Capote would have remembered these lines! Many readers have trouble when an author gives us an unreliable narrator, but sometimes a narrator can be *too* reliable. The upside to the writing's shininess is that "Booth" is very smooth reading -- though I can't resist pointing out a rare stumble, when Surratt describes his dread: "I felt a cold shiver in my bowels, as if the shadow of death had sent a chill wind through them." Somehow I doubt Robertson was aiming to instill an image of wind in Surratt's bowels. But this type of lapse is unusual. "Booth" is a gripping, enlightening read that's well worth the time of even those who don't often pick up historical fiction. And for Civil War aficionados: Don't miss this one.
Rating:
Summary: Non-fiction accounts are far more compelling
Review: One man involved in the conspiracy to assassinate Abraham Lincoln was acquitted. Based on contemporary diaries, reminiscences, and court transcripts, biographer David Robertson attempts to tell lowly John Surratt's story in the historical novel Booth, set in 1916 and in the last days of the Civil War. The action begins as D.W. Griffith is premiering his 1916 movie "Birth of a Nation" in Washington, D.C. where he arranges a meeting with the aged Surratt, who has long kept silent about his role in Lincoln's death. Griffith, a publicity hound, would like to get Surratt on film sharing reminiscences and photographs of the Civil War. For Griffith, Surratt is pure gold: a chance to further claim the spotlight and publicize his film. But Surratt is torn, having lived most of his adult life anonymously after the tragic events surrounding Lincoln's assassination. Through his diary, we learn exactly how he was drawn into the conspiracy in 1864, and the tale takes some exciting and even grotesque turns before reaching its predictable conclusion in 1916. Character development is not Robertson's strength and the book is filled with stick figures, including Surratt's own as an ingenuous young man. More importantly, until near the end, Booth himself is pretty much an enigma in the book. Though he is supposed to be charismatic, Robertson hasn't demonstrated that by giving us a rich, living character. The author's skills as a writer lie elsewhere: He brings to teeming and fascinating life a Washington DC (Washington City in the book) as distant to us in its own way as Ancient Rome. It's a city with a half-finished Washington Monument and a Capitol dome under construction. A city where a traffic jam is caused by troops in transit colliding with cattle being driven to market; where the smell of produce and corpses mingles; where officers (but not their troops) enjoy nudie tableaux vivants in grimy saloons. Since the beginning of the war, Washington City has been flooded with prostitutes who offer momentary forgetfulness of the horrors of war, and with mediums who offer contact with the dead. "In the midst of so much death, shipped from the battlefields by the Union army in the tens of thousands each year.... and the daily arrival in the city of so many distraught family members and spouses desperate for contact with a loved one, these people made a very good living." There's a dramatic and intriguing scene of a medium being unmasked as a fraud here. The novel's most gripping sequence is a trip to the nearby battlefront in Virginia to photograph Confederate dead. Most fascinating of all, Robertson brings us in on the contemporary craze for portrait photography that reaches even into the White House. We learn a great deal about the mid-century art and science of working with a camera indoors and in the open air. By taking some clever liberties with the historical record, he makes photography central to his story. Booth is unexpectedly full of evocative details and insights into what the craze meant and how it changed Americans. Lev Raphael, author of LITTLE MISS EVIL, the 4th Nick Hoffman mystery (www.levraphael.com)
Rating: 
Summary: Evocative, but not Gripping Enough
Review: One man involved in the conspiracy to assassinate Abraham Lincoln was acquitted. Based on contemporary diaries, reminiscences, and court transcripts, biographer David Robertson attempts to tell lowly John Surratt's story in the historical novel Booth, set in 1916 and in the last days of the Civil War. The action begins as D.W. Griffith is premiering his 1916 movie "Birth of a Nation" in Washington, D.C. where he arranges a meeting with the aged Surratt, who has long kept silent about his role in Lincoln's death. Griffith, a publicity hound, would like to get Surratt on film sharing reminiscences and photographs of the Civil War. For Griffith, Surratt is pure gold: a chance to further claim the spotlight and publicize his film. But Surratt is torn, having lived most of his adult life anonymously after the tragic events surrounding Lincoln's assassination. Through his diary, we learn exactly how he was drawn into the conspiracy in 1864, and the tale takes some exciting and even grotesque turns before reaching its predictable conclusion in 1916. Character development is not Robertson's strength and the book is filled with stick figures, including Surratt's own as an ingenuous young man. More importantly, until near the end, Booth himself is pretty much an enigma in the book. Though he is supposed to be charismatic, Robertson hasn't demonstrated that by giving us a rich, living character. The author's skills as a writer lie elsewhere: He brings to teeming and fascinating life a Washington DC (Washington City in the book) as distant to us in its own way as Ancient Rome. It's a city with a half-finished Washington Monument and a Capitol dome under construction. A city where a traffic jam is caused by troops in transit colliding with cattle being driven to market; where the smell of produce and corpses mingles; where officers (but not their troops) enjoy nudie tableaux vivants in grimy saloons. Since the beginning of the war, Washington City has been flooded with prostitutes who offer momentary forgetfulness of the horrors of war, and with mediums who offer contact with the dead. "In the midst of so much death, shipped from the battlefields by the Union army in the tens of thousands each year.... and the daily arrival in the city of so many distraught family members and spouses desperate for contact with a loved one, these people made a very good living." There's a dramatic and intriguing scene of a medium being unmasked as a fraud here. The novel's most gripping sequence is a trip to the nearby battlefront in Virginia to photograph Confederate dead. Most fascinating of all, Robertson brings us in on the contemporary craze for portrait photography that reaches even into the White House. We learn a great deal about the mid-century art and science of working with a camera indoors and in the open air. By taking some clever liberties with the historical record, he makes photography central to his story. Booth is unexpectedly full of evocative details and insights into what the craze meant and how it changed Americans. Lev Raphael, author of LITTLE MISS EVIL, the 4th Nick Hoffman mystery (www.levraphael.com)
Rating: 
Summary: FAILED METAPHOR & POOR CHARACTERIZATION
Review: Thankfully, I borrowed this book from the local library. Robertson has little skill as a novelist and obviously is attempting to capitalize on the success of literary historical thrillers like Caleb Carr's two recent books. Problems I have: 1. The narrator is a dullard, a naive and uninteresting photographer wannabee who is constantly astonished and amazed by the actions of everyone around him. 2. The attempt to incorporate the metaphor of photography throughout the novel (the 2 epigrams at the novel's start hint at extensive use of this device) has potential but in the hands of this slipshod and unimaginative writer is maddening. 3. John Wilkes Booth, the title character, is not made full use of and when present is as uninteresting as Surratt, the photographer. Those interested in the real facts would do well to read a brief and far more exciting account of the life of one of Robertson's peripheral characters, William "Lewis" Powell, in the Spring edition of DoubleTake magazine. Powell was one of Booth's cronies in the kidnap plot and according to the author of the DoubleTake article was a violent, complex young man. Certainly the adventures Powell lived would make better reading in the novel, but Robertson consigns Powell to the background and, strangely and ironically, strips him of his complexity and violence transforming him into a nearly invisible man. I'm halfway done with BOOTH and most likely will return this failure to the shelves of the library where, hopefully, it will be forgotten.
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