An Assassin in Utopia, Susan Wels
An Assassin in Utopia, Susan Wels
List: $16.95 | Sale: $11.87
Club: $8.47

An Assassin in Utopia
The True Story of a Nineteenth-Century Sex Cult and a President's Murder

Author: Susan Wels

Narrator: Kitty Hendrix

Unabridged: 7 hr 12 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 02/07/2023

Includes: Bonus Material Bonus Material Included

Synopsis

This true crime odyssey explores a forgotten, astonishing chapter of American history, leading the listener from a free-love community in upstate New York to the shocking assassination of President James Garfield.It was heaven on earth—and, some whispered, the devil’s garden.Thousands came by trains and carriages to see this new Eden, carved from hundreds of acres of wild woodland. They marveled at orchards bursting with fruit, thick herds of Ayrshire cattle and Cotswold sheep, and whizzing mills. They gaped at the people who lived in this place—especially the women, with their queer cropped hair and shamelessly short skirts. The men and women of this strange outpost worked and slept together—without sin, they claimed.From 1848 to 1881, a small utopian colony in upstate New York—the Oneida Community—was known for its shocking sexual practices, from open marriage and free love to the sexual training of young boys by older women. And in 1881, a one-time member of the Oneida Community—Charles Julius Guiteau—assassinated President James Garfield in a brutal crime that shook America to its core.An Assassin in Utopia is the first book that weaves together these explosive stories in a tale of utopian experiments, political machinations, and murder. This deeply researched narrative—by bestselling author Susan Wels—tells the true, interlocking stories of the Oneida Community and its radical founder, John Humphrey Noyes; his idol, the eccentric newspaper publisher Horace Greeley, founder of the New Yorker and the New York Tribune; and the gloomy, indecisive President James Garfield—who was assassinated after his first six months in office.

About Susan Wels

Susan Wels is a bestselling author, historian, and journalist. Her Titanic: Legacy of the World’s Greatest Ocean Liner spent fourteen weeks on the New York Times bestseller list; the book was also a Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and USA Today bestseller. Wels’s Pearl Harbor: America’s Darkest Day also was an instant bestseller. 

About Kitty Hendrix

Kitty Hendrix is from Carmel, California, and has been a professional actor and singer since childhood. She moved to New York City after college and found jobs singing in concert venues, cabarets, comedy clubs, and recording studios. She also acted in theater productions, originating more than twenty leading roles; appeared in film and television; and was a founding producer of Legacy Stage Ensemble, a theater company dedicated to the exploration of generational and social issues. Recording audiobooks since 2013 at her studio in NYC and working in nearly every genre, Kitty has consistently received excellent reviews for her work from AudioFile magazine and others. In 2018 Kitty was nominated as a finalist for an Audie Award for her narration of Daisy Miller by Henry James. She is a proud member of SAG-AFTRA and Actors' Equity.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Eliot

The publishers should be thrown in prison for false advertising because 1. This isn't a story, it's a collection of historical accounts about vaugely related events. 2. If you're going to put sex cult in the title, give me more than like 5% of the book talking about said cult. 3. Who thought this stru......more

Goodreads review by Grant

A altogether fun read, especially if you like reading about Presidential Assassinations. However, the two topics (Charles J. Guiteau, the utopian Oneida Community) are not related enough to justify basing a book off both of them, since Guiteau didn't spend all that much time there, and was pretty mu......more

Goodreads review by Bill

A more accurate title for this book might be SOME LOOSELY CONNECTED EVENTS IN 19TH CENTURY AMERICA THE AUTHOR FINDS INTERESTING. What's missing here is what is commonly called a thesis. Other than the writer's interest and some coincidental relationships, there really isn't much to connect the conte......more

Quotes

“Kitty Hendrix has a truly American voice—full of energy and tough optimism. It’s the perfect voice for this captivating history…It’s the sound of a time when the American Dream turned into a national nightmare. Winner of the AudioFile Earphones Award.” AudioFile

“Wels’s kaleidoscopic romp is an undeniable thrill.” New York Times

“Packed with colorful characters…an engrossing account of Victorian-era American eccentricity. I was thoroughly immersed.” Washington Post

“The descriptions are vivid, the pace is brisk, and the connections among its characters are often surprising. Informative, and entertaining.” Wall Street Journal

“Both fascinating and shocking, with uncanny parallels to today’s news stories.” Library Journal

“A deeply researched, riveting book…I strongly recommend it.” Michael Krasny, professor emeritus of American literature and former host of public radio’s KQED Forum

“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.” Chris Connelly, ABC News correspondent

“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.” John Kelly, Washington Post columnist

Awards

  • New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice
  • Barnes & Noble Bestseller
  • AudioFile Earphones Award
Add to Cart
Add to Wish List