Killing Lincoln: Collateral Damage, a Fit in Two Spasms, Spasm Ducks
[Read yesterday’s post before this one, unless you want to be even more confused and irritated than I am.]
But perhaps O’Really and Druid, seemingly aiming to write the facts as far as they know them and extrapolate from there, may be hoping to let us in on the hard truth that the actual world ignores the novelist’s obligations to the plausible, even in matters of syntax and diction. The epilogue announces that “America is a great country” but “influenced by evil,” which sounds pretty candid and rousing, but maybe they’re pulling our legs just a little, though not for nothing, of course. Americans need to be reminded how in our greatest hours of crisis our citizens and leaders behaved – wild and noble, shameful and vigorous, human. It is a good story, even if we don’t have to look to the past, if we want to find dark and depraved behavior in leaders and pundits. But seriously . . . . [faux transition]
I confess to bewilderment as to why worldly and intelligent men would so heavily rely on the worn rags of cliché, the amusing conventions of moustache-twirling melodrama, hyperventilated romance novels and tabloid journalism, non sequiturs and stumblation (stumble-ation? stumble-nation?) surely wrought by the dark of the moon. Probably they understand their agenda and target audience better than I do. If this element of their style attracts you (as a moth to a flame, perhaps), here are a few of the phrases of breathless, lifeless prose in store for you: “the downward spiral of mental instability” (twice, both referring to the same person), “But evil knows no boundaries,” “ soldiers. . . have been shot through like Swiss cheese,” “As blood flows in Virginia, wine flows in Rhode Island,” “these cannonballs are the slap in the face that Washburn needs,” “Men fall and die all around as Washburn rides tall in the saddle,” “euphoria now floats through the air like an opiate,” “tears streaming down his cheeks, their salt mingling with the blood of his still-fresh wounds.” [Zounds!] AND: “any chance of Lee snatching victory from the jaws of defeat.” Hold, enough! [Exeunt fighting. Alarms.]
I’m all in favor of filling in some shadowy gaps left by history, occupying the territory and throwing up huts, even digging latrines. Poetic license (though you have to pass a rigorous background test and take a safety course). But it’s important that a work of non-fiction (or maybe even non-non-fiction, also called “creative non-fiction”) provide some key, even if a little cryptic, to let the reader know where the records leave off and the fantasizing begins. Without leaving a trail of crumbs, R and D go where angels fear to tread – into the pillow talk and thoughts of Booth and his financy, the bedazzled brain of Adzerodt, the hearts and minds of Grant, Seward, Stanton, Lincoln, Blinken and Nod. These flights of fancy might be harmless, if they’d only help us guess the point of liftoff. I won’t actually suggest that Lee never “boast[ed] that his Army of Northern Virginia can hold out forever in the Blue Ridge Mountains,” but since he was not particularly keen on boasting, guerilla warfare or “forever,” I’d love to hear when and how he said that. As Housman wrote,” Three minutes’ thought would suffice to find this out; but thought is irksome, and three minutes is a long time.”
I’m of two minds – which is close to no-mind, a Zen thing – about the insinuations of larger, wraithlike conspiracies running through the book. We all know that the results of assassination investigations are murky: how much did Dr. Mudd know and when? Did Mary Surratt, who had heard about kidnapping aspirations, ever overhear whispers of murder most foul? Was John Surratt on the grassy knoll? How badly did Stanton want to be president? Or king? But scholars usually approach the muddle of evidence head-on. Dugard and O’Reilly like to weave those cryptic fibers into the fabric of their own narrative, offering a wily tonal wink (if I had an editor, here’s where s/he’d say I was past the point of no return, solipsistic and alone on the bismuth azimuth) even as they indicate that the governmental dark network theories of scholar Ray Neff are widely “repudiated and dismissed.” They seem hospitable to some of the far-fetched connecting of dots (and dashes, Abe would have added; he was addicted to the telegraph and might have been fond of texting), but they never quite let the reader in on the overall reasoning of any of these popular, sometimes outrageous but occasionally provocative theories. I, too, have been on the holodeck, and recognize the allure of the phantoms of delight that therein dwell. Even in the volume in question I have found all the letters to form the sentences, “Booth was railroaded” and “Vick was innocent.”
In a less hyperventilating, more academic account, registration of these wilder surmises might be the signs of responsible reportage, reminding us that this is one very cold case under discussion, but importantly still under discussion. But here they seem akin to horror film cliché in which the last scene quietly suggests that, despite relief on the wan and weary faces of the survivors, a dangerous sequel is already slouching toward Bethlehem.
O’Reilly’s and Dugard’s primary purpose here is likely to reach a large audience who would find reading Shelby Foote laborious. I suspect that target is well struck (a hit, a palpable hit), though there’s nothing new in KL but the presentation, and the collateral damage involves credibility. The omissions and slippery facts, the mercurial shifts in tone and the simple gaffes and contradictions are enough to diminish any reader’s trust. And after all, so many books, so little time. For accuracy, context and insight, I recommend (and in, fairness, the authors suggest a splendid list for those who want to know more): Manhunt, American Brutus and American Gothic, to get started, and I’m happy to report that none of the three is either a sluggish “scholarly” read or a wobbly thriller.
Nota bene: Auden says it’s dangerous to review bad books because it’s tempting to have fun at the author’s expense, only to find it turning back on you.
Which is why
