Garfield's Train
Feather Schwartz Foster
(Reviewer - Dr. Alma Bond)
2005 Publish America
ISBN: 1413769152

The assassination of President James Garfield, as told by a lifelong friend of his daughter.

Garfield's Train is a novel of the New Jersey Shore, when Long Branch was the “Gilded Strand” of the Gilded Age. The wealthiest families in the country built elaborate 30-room cottages along the seacoast, frequented the casinos & racetracks, & lived the good life. Then President Garfield was shot by an assassin in 1881. He lingered in pain for three months, & was finally brought to Long Branch to die.

The fictional Dunbar family interacts with a supporting cast of General Grant, Roscoe Conkling, James Blaine, Susan B. Anthony, & the entire Garfield family, recreating the bygone era of Long Branch's proudest hours.

Sr. Associate Reviewer Dr. Alma H. Bond writes:

Garfield's Train is an interesting glance into the not-so-distant past. Feather Schwartz Foster has been an “amateur” presidential historian for more than three decades, with a personal library of over 1,200 presidential related volumes. The depth of her scholarship is evident in Garfield's Train, which is an ideal shortcut for readers who enjoy learning about history but don't wish to spend time or energy delving into the research thoroughly investigated by the author. The shooting of the president is particularly well written, & leaves the reader rapidly turning pages to follow the course of Garfield's decline & eventual death.

Garfield's Train is an interesting & informative historical novel, & is recommended for history lovers of all ages, particularly those few who are old enough to remember events of the early twentieth century, when tales of Garfield's assassination were still rampant. It is also a good story of a deep lifelong friendship between two women, & the part it played in both their lives.

Despite its historical value, in the opinion of this reviewer, it is not of the caliber of Foster's first novel, Ladies: A Conjecture of Personalities, one of my all-time favorites.
(11/20/05)

Dr. Alma Bond
2005©Alma Bond
A RebeccasReads.Com Sr. Associate Reviewer

A RebeccasReads author featured in Authors & Books

Reviewer's Bio:
Dr. Alma Halbert Bond is the author of ten published books, including:
The Deadly Jigsaw Puzzle;
The Tree That Could Fly;
Tales Of Psychology (2005);
I Married Dr. Jekyll And Woke Up Mrs. Hyde (2000);
The Autobiography Of Maria Callas, A Novel (1998);
On Becoming A Grandparent: A Diary of Family Discovery (1994);
Who Killed Virginia Woolf? A Psychobiography (1998);
Profiles of Key West (1996).

She recently recorded her new manuscript, Old Age Is A Terminal Illness, as an audio book.

She is also the author of a just published children's picture book called The Tree That Could Fly.

Dr. Bond teaches Psychology & Writing online at WriterSchool.