Assassination Vacation, by Sarah Vowell, leaps from relics to historic landmarks on a vacation, and gives us insight into the fatal gunshot that killed President Lincoln or another, lesser-known incident brought to light after Vowell’s curiosity was sparked by a particularly dainty ceramic teacup. For Vowell, history is often about the physical objects- guns, tombs, letters, plaques, buildings, furniture, and clothing- that memorialize and are fetished by their contact with greatness. Vowell’s obsession with American history, can be a bit intense but she shows us something that we often ignore. History is often about the physical objects and one of the morals of the novel is that, the President as a man is not always relatable; the President as a symbol always is.…show more content… Vowell described her journey by saying, “...there is a name for travel embarked upon with the agenda of venerating relics: pilgrimage,” (page 9).
“Relics were treasured as something close to the divine[...]so, getting near a relic, touching it, being near it was considered beneficial and treasured[...]I crave my relics for the same reason Señor Bewitched bunked with the late saint. We're religious. I used to share the king's faith. And while I gave up God a long time ago, I never shook the habit of wanting to believe in something bigger and better than myself” (page
