Booth

LONGLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2022, A SUNDAY TIMES HISTORICAL NOVEL OF THE YEAR 2022, A TELEGRAPH BEST FICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR 2022, A WATERSTONES BEST HISTORICAL NOVEL OF THE YEAR 2022, AN EVENING STADARD MUST-READ NOVEL OF THE YEAR 2022

From the million-copy bestselling author of We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves comes an epic novel about the infamous, ill-fated Booth family.

SIX BROTHERS AND SISTERS. ONE INJUSTICE THAT WILL SHATTER THEIR BOND FOREVER. Junius is the patriarch, a celebrated Shakespearean actor who fled bigamy charges in England, both a mesmerising talent and a man of terrifying instability. As his children grow up in a remote farmstead in 1830s rural Baltimore, the country draws ever closer to the boiling point of secession and civil war.

Of the six Booth siblings who survive to adulthood, each has their own dreams they must fight to realise – but it is Johnny who makes the terrible decision that will change the course of history – the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Booth is a riveting novel focused on the very things that bind, and break, a family.

Praise for Booth:

‘Accomplished, immersive and profoundly satisfying’ Cathy Rentzenbrink

‘Effortlessly resonant … breathes rich imaginative colour in her characters’ Daily Telegraph

‘In its stretch and imaginative depth, Booth has an utterly seductive authority’ Guardian

‘Booth is a triumph!’ Ruth Ozeki

‘Captures with enthralling vividness a country caught in the grip of fanatical populism, ripped apart by irreconcilable political differences and boiling with fury and rage … An unalloyed triumph’ Literary Review

‘Brilliantly recounts the story of the American theatrical dynasty that produced Lincoln’s assassin’ Sunday Times Book of the Month

‘Her finest, most beautiful novel to date’ Neel Mukherjee