An Assassin in Utopia: The True Story of a Nineteenth-Century Sex Cult and a President’s Murder, by Susan Wels

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'An Assassin in Utopia' by Susan Wels

Surely the book’s subtitle was the work of a marketing consultant? An Assassin in Utopia relates the story of a presidential assassin who spent several months in one of the many pseudo-utopian communities that sprang up like mushrooms in the damp soil of 19th century America. And yes, this particular community had some unconventional ideas about sexual relations. However, a more accurate title would reflect the book’s lively, entertaining ramble across a vast swath of 19th century America. P.T. Barnum shuffles across the pages, as do Margaret Fuller, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Mark Twain, as well as several presidents and presidential candidates. Most of these historical figures never met the assassin, Charles Julius Guiteau, a crazy man with a gun.

The link between most of the book’s historical personages, and the assassin, was a central figure in American journalism, Horace Greeley. At one point, Guiteau wanted to emulate Greeley; at another, to work for him, but the two men never actually met. While Guiteau floundered through life after his expulsion from the Oneida Community, an “utopian” experiment in communal living and sexual exploitation in upstate New York, Greeley, an eccentric himself with utopian tendencies, seemingly met everyone worth knowing who passed through New York City before succumbing to madness. He died in an asylum in 1872. Nine years later, Guiteau improbably took credit for James Garfield’s election as president and haunted Washington, lobbying for an ambassadorship. Although the murder of Abraham Lincoln was a living memory, security for President Garfield was still relatively loose, and the imbittered job seeker assassinated the man he claimed to admire.

An Assassin in Utopia is a fascinating full-gallop ride down several less remembered paths of American history.