Fowler, Karen Joy

Karen Joy Fowler is the author of six novels, including two New York Times bestsellers, and four short story collections. She is a PEN/Faulkner and California Book Award winner, has been a Dublin IMPAC nominee, and was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2014. In 1822, a secretive family moved into a cabin some 30 miles northeast of Baltimore to farm, hide, and raise 10 children over the next 16 years. Junius Booth is the breadwinner. A celebrated Shakespearean actor and master of the house, he is a mesmerizing talent and a man of terrifying instability. The children arrive as the country draws closer to secession and civil war. As the world shifts, the Booths emerge from their secret lives to cement their place as one of the country’s leading theatrical families. But behind the curtains, multiple scandals, family triumphs, and criminal disasters begin to take their toll, and the siblings of John Wilkes Booth are left to reckon with a specious promise of an early prophecy. Booth (G.P. Putnam’s Sons) is a portrait of a country in the throes of change and a vivid exploration of the ties that make – and break – a family.