In the Houses of Their Dead The Lincolns, the Booths, and the Spirits

“Abraham Lincoln and John Wilkes Booth take long walks together in the afterlife! We are in no position to marvel at the things our forebears managed to believe, but, through the lens of spiritualism circa the Civil War, In the Houses of Their Dead shows these famous families—the Booths and the Lincolns—in a new and fascinating light. With his customary meticulous scholarship and his uncanny ability to rediscover what's been forgotten, Terry Alford has written yet another lively, often surprising and always enjoyable masterwork.”
—Karen Joy Fowler, New York Times bestselling novelist

“If there is a more fascinating and eerie book on the strange but true side of Lincoln's world, I have not read it. Here is Lincoln in the Bardo—for real. You couldn’t make it up—necromancers, mad actors, frauds, true believers, and, in the middle, the greatest President.”
—Sidney Blumenthal, author of The Political Life of Abraham Lincoln

“If religious faith offered the promise of heavenly reunion with the deceased, not everyone who lived through the Civil War wanted to wait that long. Now Terry Alford brings us into the realm of nineteenth-century spiritualism, a world inhabited by the families of the president and his assassin alike. Whether communion with the dead was a matter of deceit, delirium, derangement, or consolation—or simply inexplicable—Alford illuminates these very personal experiences with admirable sensitivity and empathy.”
—Martha Hodes, author of Mourning Lincoln

“The slaughter of the Civil War coincided with a wave of popular belief that the spirits of the dead dwell just a shadow away. In this beautifully wrought work of history—not fiction—Terry Alford places Abraham Lincoln and his murderer inside the web of American spiritualism, in ways that will startle you as well as instruct.”
—Sean Wilentz, author of No Property in Man

“While shedding a bright and welcome light on Lincoln’s curiosity about spiritualism (a subject inadequately covered by previous historians), Terry Alford’s highly readable, entertaining book also illuminates the many parallels between the families of the sixteenth president and his assassin. Based on unusually thorough research and written with droll wit, this work, chock-full of amusing anecdotes and colorful character sketches, serves as a worthy companion to the author’s outstanding biography of John Wilkes Booth.”
—Michael Burlingame, author of An American Marriage: The Untold Story of Abraham Lincoln and Mary Todd