On authors and the Lincoln assassination

Last night I went to see Anthony Pitch at Politics & Prose discuss his new book, "They Have Killed Papa Dead!", which is about the Lincoln assassination. (Of course I spent part of my Friday evening going to hear an author talk about the Lincoln assassination. And I was far from alone, actually; it was standing room only.) It was interesting, in that the book itself looks good, but the author rubbed me the wrong way. Which took talent, as he's British.

Overall, it was that he struck me as...not arrogant, really, but a bit show-offy. If that makes sense. He kept talking about how he used primary sources, like journals and letters. Is that supposed to impress me? Dude, you're a historian writing a book. I would certainly hope that you used primary sources. I mean, I used primary sources extensively when writing my undergrad thesis. And he went on about how he uncovered all this new stuff, and I'm sure he did, but he talked about uncovering stuff about torture of the conspirators. And when he talked about it, it was stuff that I already knew (i.e., the conspirators wore tight hoods with only a slit at the mouth). But their cells were really small! Like, OK, dude. It was interesting hearing how small they were, and that a doctor wound up advocating for the prisoners to get exercise time, but still. It seems like he found out some interesting details, but nothing earth-shattering. And I'm not knocking that--I'm all about details.

And one of his big new stories is about Benjamin Brown French, who was at Lincoln's second inauguration and wrote a letter to his wife including this story of how at the inauguration, there was this man who was all wild and crazy and trying to get to Lincoln, but French stopped him as Lincoln passed by. And that crazy man? Was Booth. Dun dun dunn! Which is an interesting story, but I'm wondering if it was at all exaggerated, seeing how the letter was written on April 24--10 days after the assassination. French apparently recognized the pictures of Booth in the newspaper. What's interesting is that he didn't know who Booth was at the time, because Booth was pretty darn famous. Obviously the incident didn't leave much of an impression. It could've happened; Booth was certainly at the inauguration. And French certainly could've seen him. But who knows if that's actually how it went down.

Part of my problem was that Pitch wasn't that great a speaker. He was captivating when he was telling a story that he had obviously told many times before, like the story of the night of the assassination (logically, as he actually gives assassination tours), but not that great an extemporaneous speaker. He got lost of a few times. Plus, he gave a lot of general information about Lincoln and the assassination. If people are there to hear him, it's probably safe to say that they already know the general assassination story. Get into the interesting details, dude!

And what I found frustrating was that he never said why he wrote the book. He talked a lot about why he likes Lincoln and how great Lincoln was and why he wanted to write about Lincoln, but never about why the assassination, except that it was so sad. Which, yes. But that doesn't really clarify anything for me.

The best, though, was when someone asked him what he thought of the success of Manhunt, the book that is partially to blame for my interest in the Lincoln assassination. He was all, "Well, there are some authors in this area who like to bash each other. And I'm not one of them, but I will tell you a story that illustrates that I think he's a bit of a hack, but I'll make it OK by saying that it's just that all of us have different takes on the story." In flipping through my copy of Manhunt, I can't find the passage he was referring to. Doesn't mean it isn't there, but it was a bit of a strange interlude.

Anyway, I am looking forward to reading the book. I asked Pitch what he thought about Mary Surratt, and he said he found some new information about her (...), so we'll see. If nothing else, he wins bonus points for including my absolute favorite Lincoln assassination illustration, which is a poster of the conspirators. It has their pictures arranged in a circle, with a large picture in the center. That big picture? Is of Mary Surratt.