Assassination Vacation

In the Preface to Assassination Vacation, Sarah Vowell introduces both the book’s subject matter and her personal perspective. Vowell’s goal is not to provide a formal and comprehensive history of presidential assassinations. In fact, for reasons not specified, Assassination Vacation does not cover the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, although Kennedy’s assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, is occasionally mentioned throughout the text.

While Vowell remarks that she did conduct research for Assassination Vacation (7), there is a factual error within the Preface, such as when she cites her friend Jack Hitt, who in describing an anecdote about “a late Renaissance king of Spain” (10) conflates two separate historical figures: The 16th-century Spanish prince Carlos, who was placed in a bed with the remains of Saint Francis of Assisi in an attempt to effect his miraculous recovery, and King Carlos II “the Bewitched” of Spain, who lived in the late 17th century. While Vowell’s concern is with American history and she is more careful in her handling of historical details elsewhere in the text, this inaccuracy illustrates that Vowell is primarily interested in historical anecdotes and trivia, rather than historical arguments and comprehensiveness. Assassination Vacation is explicitly written as a subjective narrative, one that is as much about Vowell’s own personal views, experiences, and opinions as it is about history.

As some critics have pointed out, the narrative in Assassination Vacation can be unfocused, as Vowell does not state a clear thesis or overarching point in either the introductory matter or the conclusion. Nonetheless, there are several clear themes that run throughout Assassination Vacation. The first and most central is The Impact of Political Violence in American History. Vowell’s exploration of this idea is shaped by her own dislike of violence: She writes, “Like Lincoln, I would like to believe the ballot is stronger than the bullet” (7). She is interested in trying to understand what drove the three assassins to violent means. Vowell’s hypothesis is that political assassins, or at least the three assassins in Assassination Vacation, were motivated by political anger in addition to personal factors, like “disappointment, unemployment, delusions of grandeur and mental illness” (7).

Another theme is The Shaping of Civic Memory. Vowell’s own admission that she has a “religious […] faith” (11) in the United States leads her to compare religious relics with historic relics, suggesting that both fulfill similar psychological needs. One’s experience of religion is individual and shaped by personal experience, and Vowell sees her own feelings of patriotism in a similar light. By openly admitting to her biases and beliefs, Vowell is presenting her own unique experience of history and patriotism. Vowell emphasizes this subjectivity by mixing her narrative travelogue with digressions, anecdotes, interactions with travel guides, and views into her relationships with friends and relatives.

Finally, Vowell begins to explore the Tension Between Patriotism and History. Later in Assassination Vacation, Vowell will delve into the United States’ history of enslavement, foreign aggression, and the colonization of the Philippines. Here in the Preface, Vowell contrasts her faith in Lincoln, whom she explicitly presents as a Jesus-like figure, with her “contempt” and “simmering rage” (6) for the presidency of George W. Bush. Even as Vowell connects the dark and tragic trends in the history of the United States to recent politics, however, she does not reject her own faith the founding ideals of the country, and still finds nobility in figures such as Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln. Vowell’s “rickety patriotism” (11) thus acknowledges the balancing act she seeks to perform between honoring her country’s good aspects while confronting its more problematic characteristics.