#BookReview ‘The Garfield Conspiracy’ by Owen Dwyer

About the book…

Richard Todd, an award-winning writer, is outwardly successful but inwardly plagued by uncertainties. Worst of all, he can’t seem to write any more. When a bright young editor, Jenny Lambe, arrives on his doorstep to work with him on his latest book, about the assassination of US president James Garfield, his life is sent spinning off in a new direction.

President Garfield was killed by Charles Guiteau, who was tried and hanged for the murder. But was he acting along, or was there a more sinister force at work? Richard hears Guiteau’s voice in his head, and as his relationship with Jenny deepens, he is visited by other characters in the drama. Are they helping Richard solve the mystery surrounding Garfield’s murder – or pushing him further towards the edge?

A remarkable, disturbing portrait of a middle-aged man torn between his carefully constructed life and new adventures which may beckon, in the present and the past, from one of Ireland’s most exciting emerging authors.

My thanks to Midas PR and Liberties Press for my gifted review copy of The Garfield Conspiracy by Owen Dwyer which is out now in hardcover and e-book formats.

It’s an intriguing read, that I did have concerns about whether I would actually be able to understand the plot-as a reader, I tend less towards literary fiction and thought it might be beyond me. What I found, however, was an accessible tale of a middle aged writer, who thinks his new angle on the Garfield assassination will lead him back to his previous, lofty, literary heights.

His publishers have sent along the intriguing Jenny Lambe-understated, laying down boundaries like a lion, they must not fall in love and become the cliché of the artist and the ingenue-to help with his research. At first, outraged at the notion, Jenny’s gently asked questions reveal to her, and the reader, that Richard has no real idea how to research, he has the kernel of a notion about an under recognised part of electoral U.S history to explore, but lacks the wherewithal to do it justice.

Andrew Garfield was the second assassinated president, I know next to nothing about him, and found the almost time slip notion of his death being a catalyst to America’s future such an intriguing notion. His shooting meant that he did not get to serve his term, and this novel is presented as the great writer motif of ‘what if….’ taking to a seemingly logical conclusion.

The notion that the sad little man, with obvious mental health issues after suffering emotional abuse as a child could derail a nation , sparks the idea that he could not have conceived of it. Charles’ punishment, of death by hanging, is how the novel begins, sparing no detail of the imagined scene , how he presented himself, his final words and so on, a timely reminder that capital punishment awaits the careless criminal, even in these so-called enlightened days. And yet, he seems such an unlikely candidate, could there have been someone hiding behind these actions? Someone keen to see Garfield gone, a patsy executed in his place, and move on to the next president?

It is such an interesting thought experiment, I can see why it would spark interest for Richard who has a woman taking care of his physical needs-his wife, Valery, caring for his home, his progeny, and allowing him the space to exist as a writer. And then, academically, Jenny is providing the support to get this tale written.

Yet, even with this support, or maybe, because of it, Richard becomes so entrenched in the notion that there is a story behind it , that he begins to be taken over by it, to the point that real life characters begin to speak to him. It starts of small, with him asking Jenny if she hears other voices, hears people speaking to her, and escalates into a full blown trial by media .

I am probably not reading this correctly, but these are my thoughts on the book-maybe a story is just a story, maybe the conspiracy is something that can, essentially, be created around any such incident if a person looks hard enough. And maybe, research should be something carried out to support a hypothesis , rather than the other way around.

Who the story belongs to, and why, is something I consider often, as there is this constant argument that films made from books can never match the movie that plays in  your head, and that the story belongs to each reader, who paints with their own individual palette of experiences. I picked this novel up knowing next to nothing about Andrew Garfield, and ended it knowing a bit more, understanding a little better about the process of writing-always a fascinating thing to read about-and enjoying myself immensely.
It is a cleaver, intriguing book the likes of which I have not read before, and found it thoughtful, and wryly funny. Definitely recommended, by this reader!

About the author…

Owen Dwyer’s latest novel, The Garfield Conspiracy, will be published on 7 September. His previous novel, Number Games, was described by the Irish Independent as “Irish fiction as we’ve rarely seen it“.

Among other awards, Owen has won the Hennessy Emerging Fiction Prize, the Silver Quill (twice) and the Biscuit Fiction Prize, and has had stories published in Whispers and Shouts magazine. He is also the author of The Agitator and The Cherrypicker. Owen has a degreee in European Humanities. He lives in Dublin with his wife and their three children.

Links-The Untold Story Of the man behind President Garfield’s Assassination:Charles Julius Guiteau

OWEN DWYER – Home (owendwyerauthor.com)

Twitter @OwenDwyerAuthor @LibertiesPress @midas_pr

Further behind the scenes details can be uncovered in the link below-

https://youtu.be/4X-b0B5WY94