Booktalkers: Booth by Karen Joy Fowler

In 1822, a secretive family moves into a secluded cabin some thirty miles northeast of Baltimore, to farm, to hide, and to bear ten children. Junius Booth—breadwinner, celebrated Shakespearean actor and master of the house in all ways—is at once a mesmerizing talent and a man of terrifying instability. Of his children, it is John Wilkes who is most (in)famous. This historical novel by Karen Joy Fowler focuses on the very things that bind, and break, a family.