I've just finished reading the most interesting historical novel: Booth's Daughter. It's YA fiction based on the life of Edwina Booth, daughter to famous Shakespearan actor Edwin Booth (the Brad Pitt/Tom Cruise/Will Smith sort of pop star of the mid to late 19th century) and niece to Lincoln assassin John Wilkes Booth. It's written by Raymon Wemmlinger, the curator and librarian of The Hampden-Booth Theater Library, which "specializes in nineteenth-century Britis hand American theatre." So basically the guy knows what he's writing about.

Edwina Booth is a fascinating protagonist. She's the classic "famous person's child" in that she does not wish to be personally in the limelight but does everything she can to assist her father and help him through his career. Of course this means not upsetting her father when he is going to perform, and sitting by his side with the proper smile on her face during endless press interviews. And she must never ever respond with disgust when her uncle's infamous crime is brought up. What's interesting is that this is simply the life Edwina has always had and since her mother died when she was very young, and her stepmother (an actress who sacrificed her career for marriage) suffered from depression (almost slight madness in the book) and died from tb when Edwina was a teenager, being the famous man's daughter has pretty much always been her sole reason for living. Things get interesting as Edwina begins to see her father as a person and not just a larger than life parent. She also falls in love (not once but twice) and both of those men affect how she sees her father as well. This all prompts her to make some decisions about how she chooses to live her life which make for very interesting reading.

Wemmlinger could have written this book as much more about John Wilkes and his impact on the rest of the Booths then he did. But Edwin Booth is front and center here - in fact Edwina eventually comes around to wondering if John WIlkes succumbed to his own madness because of his difficult relationship with his older brother, and not due completely to an unreasonable hatred for Lincoln. In the end the book is as much about celebrity and the price that everyone who is near it must pay as it is about being related to someone who commits a horrible crime. I really enjoyed the history - such amazing history about a truly fascinating American family - but it was Edwina who I loved. She has a hard road to walk, particularly as she lived in a time when women had practically no rights or ability to strike out on their own, but she slowly comes to want more than what her father wants for her. Her awakening is a beautiful thing to read and makes this book a major winner for me. (I found it interersting to learn that she named her son for her father - of course, I suppose in her heart she felt she had to.)

I'll be reviewing it in more detail in my June column but really this is the perfect sort of book for teens learning about the assassination of Lincoln. I was told next to nothing about John Wilkes when I was school - he came from an acting family, he was a failed actor, he was a southern sympathizer - and I've always wondered why he did what he did. Wemmlinger clearly is not the final word on all this but he offers a full portrait of the Booths and that goes a long way toward understanding just where a man like John Wilkes comes from. (Oh - and how weird that only a year before the assassination, Edwin saved Robert Lincoln's life when he fell before an oncoming train? Crazy coincidence!)

(If you do a search for Edwina be sure to include her last name of Grossmann - there was another Edwina Booth who was an actress in the 1920s, but that's not our girl.)