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

Wels (Titanic: Legacy of the World’s Greatest Ocean Liner) centers this intriguing and sprawling survey of late 19th-century America on the Oneida Community, an agrarian society founded by John Humphrey Noyes and based on his religious beliefs and free love. The commune was the first place in the U.S. to experiment with eugenics, with Noyes selectively choosing who among his disciples could breed. The community collapsed after Noyes fled to Canada ahead of a statutory rape charge; he died there in 1886. One narrative thread follows President Garfield’s assassin, Charles Guiteau, who briefly lived at Oneida before becoming an unstable drifter whose obsession with politics led to his murderous turn. Along the way, Wels touches on the career of newsman Horace Greeley, the country’s fascination with P.T. Barnum’s Greatest Show on Earth, the rage for mediums and spiritualism, the dirty presidential politics of the era, and a rift in the Republican party. The title is somewhat misleading, as Guiteau’s story constitutes a relatively small portion of the whole, but American history buffs will find much else of interest. Fans of Candice Millard’s work will want to have a look. Agent: Jacqueline Flynn, Delbourgo Literary. (Feb.)