Assassin in Utopia

This true crimeodysseyexplores aforgotten, astonishing chapter of American history,leadingthe reader from afree-love communityin upstate New York tothe shocking assassination of President James Garfield. It was heaven onearth-and, some whispered, the devil's garden. Thousands came by trains andcarriages to see this new Eden, carved from hundreds of acres of wildwoodland. They marvelled at orchards bursting with fruit, thick herds ofAyrshire cattle and Cotswold sheep, and whizzing mills. They gaped at thepeople who lived in this place-especially the women, with their queer croppedhair and shamelessly short skirts. The men and women of thisstrange outpostworked and slept together-without sin, they claimed. From 1848 to 1881, a small utopian colony inupstate New York-the Oneida Community-was known for its shocking sexualpractices, from open marriage and freelove to the sexual training of young boys by olderwomen.And in 1881, a one-time member of the OneidaCommunity-Charles Julius Guiteau-assassinated President James Garfield in abrutal crime that shook America to its core. AnAssassin in Utopiais the first book that weaves together these explosivestories in a tale of utopian experiments, political machinations, and murder.Thisdeeply researched narrative-by bestselling authorSusan Wels-tells the true, interlocking stories of the OneidaCommunityand its radical founder, John Humphrey Noyes; his idol,the eccentric newspaper publisher Horace Greeley (founder oftheNew Yorkerand theNew York Tribune);and the gloomy, indecisive President James Garfield-who wasassassinated after his first sixmonths in office. Juxtaposed to their stories is the odd tale of Garfield'sassassin, the demented Charles Julius Guiteau, who was connected to all of them inextraordinary, surprising ways. Against a vivid backdrop of ambition, hucksterism,epidemics, and spectacle,the book's interwoven stories fuse togetherin the climactic murder of President Garfield in 1881-at the same time as theOneida Community collapsed. Colourful and compelling,An AssassininUtopiais a page-turning odyssey through America's nineteenth-centurycultural and political landscape.