Publishers Weekly
01/09/2023
Wels (Titanic: Legacy of the World’s Greatest Ocean Liner) centers this intriguing and sprawling survey of late 19th-century America on the Oneida Community, an agrarian society founded by John Humphrey Noyes and based on his religious beliefs and free love. The commune was the first place in the U.S. to experiment with eugenics, with Noyes selectively choosing who among his disciples could breed. The community collapsed after Noyes fled to Canada ahead of a statutory rape charge; he died there in 1886. One narrative thread follows President Garfield’s assassin, Charles Guiteau, who briefly lived at Oneida before becoming an unstable drifter whose obsession with politics led to his murderous turn. Along the way, Wels touches on the career of newsman Horace Greeley, the country’s fascination with P.T. Barnum’s Greatest Show on Earth, the rage for mediums and spiritualism, the dirty presidential politics of the era, and a rift in the Republican party. The title is somewhat misleading, as Guiteau’s story constitutes a relatively small portion of the whole, but American history buffs will find much else of interest. Fans of Candice Millard’s work will want to have a look. Agent: Jacqueline Flynn, Delbourgo Literary. (Feb.)
The Wall Street Journal Gerard Helferich
An Assassin in Utopia offers an engaging glimpse of the times. There is much to enjoy. The descriptions are vivid, the pace is brisk, and the connections among its characters are often surprising. Informative and entertaining.
The New York Times Book Review
"Wels’s kaleidoscopic romp is an undeniable thrill. This is a book to be sidled up to like a buffet...An expert and well-paced dissection of post-Civil War politics."
The Wall Street Journal - Gerard Helferich
An Assassin in Utopia offers an engaging glimpse of the times. There is much to enjoy. The descriptions are vivid, the pace is brisk, and the connections among its characters are often surprising. Informative and entertaining.
From the Publisher
Praise for An Assassin in Utopia:
ABC News correspondent and ESPN reporter Chris Connelly
Juggling incels and libertines, the mighty and the mightily deranged, Susan Wels deftly brings us this close to an amazing cast of real-life nineteenth century characters—admirable and horrific, brilliant and doomed, messianic and utterly mad—making them (and their vivid emotions) newly relatable to our era. You’ll be casting An Assassin in Utopia in your head, even as it demonstrates that Free Love is anything but, and that one man can make a difference, often in the worst way possible. This is like David McCullough on acid.
Professor Emeritus of American Literature and reti Michael Krasny
"Susan Wels is a gifted and masterful storyteller. Her book is a fascinating, well-told tale of a presidential assassination and sexually unbridled would-be utopia. She provides vivid, nuanced details of the time and some of its most interesting characters —including publisher Horace Greely, showman P. T. Barnum, feminist and foreign correspondent Margaret Fuller, the spirit-seeking Fox sisters, a cross-dressing Union spy, and major political figures of the period. An Assassin in Utopia is a deeply researched, riveting book told with impressive command and narrative power. I strongly recommend it.
The Washington Post
"Packed with colorful characters and well-chosen details, this book is an engrossing account of Victorian-era American eccentricity. I was thoroughly immersed. The ending is a page turner as Wels describes Garfield’s last days alive, oblivious to Guiteau skulking in the shadows."
John Kelly
"Susan Wels has assembled a large and rowdy cast of characters in this immensely enjoyable and engrossing book. Self-proclaimed messiahs, patronage-dealing politicians, ink-stained journalists, table-rapping mediums, tent-raising charlatans: All are trying to make their mark in Gilded Age America. And, remarkably, all their paths cross in An Assassin in Utopia, with surprising and tragic results."
Chris Connelly
Juggling incels and libertines, the mighty and the mightily deranged, Susan Wels deftly brings us this close to an amazing cast of real-life nineteenth century characters—admirable and horrific, brilliant and doomed, messianic and utterly mad—making them (and their vivid emotions) newly relatable to our era. You’ll be casting An Assassin in Utopia in your head, even as it demonstrates that Free Love is anything but, and that one man can make a difference, often in the worst way possible. This is like David McCullough on acid.
Booklist (starred)
"Wels, author of a bestselling book about the Titanic, presents an irresistible biography-in-pictures rich in photographs of Earhart and a slew of intriguing documents. Wels’ brisk narrative hits all the main points and captures the spirit of Earhart.
Omaha World-Herald
The ship itself is the star of the book Titanic: Legacy of the World’s Greatest Ocean Liner. Susan Wels has skillfully woven history and potent human drama with modern oceanic recovery and preservation techniques to produce a magnificent book . . . telling the widely known sea-disaster story with revealing new data and insightful tales.
San Francisco Book Review
"Susan Wels combined history, politics, business, and all branches of arts in her massive collection based on an impressive body of research. Whether you love history or arts, Arts for the City belongs in your book collection, or on your coffee table.
Michael Krasny
"Susan Wels is a gifted and masterful storyteller. Her book is a fascinating, well-told tale of a presidential assassination and sexually unbridled would-be utopia. She provides vivid, nuanced details of the time and some of its most interesting characters —including publisher Horace Greely, showman P. T. Barnum, feminist and foreign correspondent Margaret Fuller, the spirit-seeking Fox sisters, a cross-dressing Union spy, and major political figures of the period. An Assassin in Utopia is a deeply researched, riveting book told with impressive command and narrative power. I strongly recommend it.
professor emeritus of American Literature Michael Krasny
A deeply researched, riveting book told with impressive command and narrative power.”
ABC News correspondent Chris Connelly
Juggling incels and libertines, the mighty and the mightily deranged, Susan Wels deftly brings us this close to an amazing cast of real-life nineteenth century characters—admirable and horrific, brilliant and doomed, messianic and utterly mad—making them newly relatable to our era.”
Washington Post columnist John Kelly
An immensely enjoyable and engrossing book. Self-proclaimed messiahs, patronage-dealing politicians, ink-stained journalists, table-rapping mediums, tent-raising charlatans: All are trying to make their mark in Gilded Age America. And, remarkably, all their paths cross in An Assassin in Utopia, with surprising and tragic results.”
BookNews
"The volume is well researched and abundantly illustrated and will delight and intrigue those lucky enough to live in San Francisco, those who just visit and leave their heart, and anyone involved with cities and public art."
The San Francisco Examiner George Calys
"Arts for the City thoughtfully and comprehensively makes the case for San Francisco as a great urban center for art."
The Sacramento Bee
Susan Wels’ companion volume to a Discovery Channel documentary offers the best overview of the ship’s construction, the sinking and modern-day efforts to examine the wreckage at the bottom of the ocean.
Professor Emeritus of American Literature Michael Krasny
Susan Wels is a gifted and masterful storyteller. Her book is a fascinating, well-told tale of a presidential assassination and sexually unbridled would-be utopia…An Assassin in Utopia is a deeply researched, riveting book told with impressive command and narrative power. I strongly recommend it.”
Library Journal
12/16/2022
Wels (Titanic: Legacy of the World's Greatest Ocean Liner) weaves together several narratives centered around the assassination of President James Garfield and the Oneida Community, a controversial 19th-century communal society. John Humphrey Noyes, who believed that Christian perfection is attained through overthrowing societal taboos, led the group into practicing and condoning incest and pedophilia. Despite this, Noyes found supporters, including publisher Horace Greely, President Rutherford B. Hayes, and hundreds more. Charles Guiteau, one of its members, assassinated President Garfield. It is this connection that guides the book. The intersecting narratives can be difficult to follow, with many historical figures introduced throughout the telling, often with diminutive connections to the protagonist of the climatic event. VERDICT Still, readers will find Guiteau's devolution into an assassin and the history of Oneida both fascinating and shocking, with uncanny parallels to today's news stories.—Bart Everts
June 2023 - AudioFile
Kitty Hendrix has a truly American voice--full of energy and tough optimism. It's the perfect voice for this captivating history of America's wild, often overlooked mid-nineteenth century, a period populated by utopian visionaries, con men, impresarios, politicians, and Civil War heroes, such as Horace Greeley, and P.T. Barnum. Especially noteworthy is John Humphrey Noyes, the charismatic founder of the cultish Oneida Community, which was based on a radical theology of free love, group marriage, and eugenics. Hendrix captures the author's tone of quick-witted derision and sadness as he describes narcissistic political office seeker and Oneida outcast Charles J. Guiteau's delusional 1881 assassination of President James A. Garfield. It's the sound of a time when the American Dream turned into a national nightmare. B.P. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine
