Dead Presidents

February 15, 2016
Inspired by a lifelong fascination with America's chief executives, Carlson, a reporter and NPR host, adopts a novel perspective on American history by exploring the ways in which past presidents have been remembered and memorialized. Blending political biography and road tours of memorials and monuments across the nation, he digs into the stories beneath each grave and behind every tomb. A lover of details regardless of how grotesque or quirky, Carlson leads a field trip to the resting places of both distinguished and obscure presidents, and gives some interesting death factoids along the way, including that Zachary Taylor's rumored last meal was cherries and buttermilk, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson both died on July 4th 1826, Ulysses S. Grant died of cancer before finishing his memoir, and attending doctors mistakenly killed James Garfield by sticking their fingers in his gunshot wounds. Carlson visits Mt. Rushmore, Grant's Tomb, Arlington National Cemetary, the joke-telling L.B.J. robot at the Johnson Presidential Library in Austin, Tex., and Forest Lawn Cemetery in Buffalo, NY.âthe final resting place of Millard Fillmore as well as singer Rick James. Carlson's book entertains and enlightens, and reminds readers that presidents are also human beings. Photos.

November 1, 2015
What dead American presidents reveal "about ourselves, our history, and how we imagine our past and future." In his spirited debut book, Carlson, host of NPR's Weekend Edition for New Hampshire Public Radio, looks at the curious ways that presidents have been commemorated--by buildings and tombs, statues and libraries, and even bars and gift shops. Some presidents (George Washington and Calvin Coolidge, for example) resisted being celebrated. "It is a great advantage to a President," Coolidge wrote in his autobiography, "and a major source of safety to the country, for him to know he is not a great man." Not all were so modest. John Tyler was "the first presidential pariah...and the first president the House considered impeaching"; yet he longed to be remembered as a great man, appointing a literary executor to review and eventually publish his papers. Franklin Roosevelt was the first president to establish his own library, setting a model for every successor. Besides millions of documents, letters, and government papers, the library contains his stamp collection and a papier-mache Sphinx made to lampoon him when he refused to reveal if he would run for a third term. In the Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library and Museum, a life-size robotic version of Johnson "stands behind a podium...and cracks jokes." Along his exuberant journey, Carlson found whole cities devoted to presidential celebration: in Buffalo, which claims connections to Grover Cleveland, William McKinley, and Teddy Roosevelt, a downtown pub is called Founding Fathers, where patrons can order a "Hail to the Chef!" sandwich. Rapid City, South Dakota, near Mount Rushmore, calling itself "the most patriotic city in America," features a complete set of life-size presidential statues. Mount Rushmore itself, the enthusiastic author learned, "was designed not to be an icon of American identity but...a tourist trap" meant to draw visitors to the Black Hills. A brisk, lighthearted travelogue with an exuberant guide.

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November 15, 2015

Carlson, who never forgot a childhood visit to Abraham Lincoln's sarcophagus in Springfield, IL, has since traveled across the United States to visit every presidential gravesite and many presidential memorials. In this travelog, Carlson, a New Hampshire public radio reporter, focuses on these resting places, each a centerpiece for his accounts of presidential deaths, burials, and afterlives. The writing style is light, humorous, and sometimes glib, as Carlson reflects on events as solemn as the slain Lincoln's procession back to Illinois in 1865; as comical as the 1991 exhumation of Zachary Taylor, who died in 1850; or as obscure as the cheesemaking operation in Plymouth Notch, VT, that helps to memorialize Calvin Coolidge. Each of the 11 chapters offers loosely themed essays often covering several presidents, although perhaps the best chapter is devoted entirely to John F. Kennedy, describing the long effort by the city of Dallas to escape the legacy of his assassination. VERDICT Readers who enjoyed Sarah Vowell's Assassination Vacation will enjoy Carlson's similar book.--Robert Nardini, Niagara Falls, NY

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

December 15, 2015
When it comes to final wishes, even presidents don't always get their way. Take George Washington, who wanted a private funeral held at Mount Vernon, but cities across the country also held mock funerals of their own. The first president was not alone in having his wishes ignored, as NPR reporter Carlson notes in this thoroughly enjoyable account of presidential gravesites and memorials. From unusual deaths to unique monuments to lingering questions about causes of death (Did William Henry Harrison really die of a cold?), our nation's presidents made some of their most peculiar contributions to history after their terms on earth expired. With both the reverence of a pilgrim and the impudence of a comedian, Carlson tours the presidents' homes and graves, demonstrating in the process how the manner in which we remember these men reveals as much about us as it does about themfor however much they accomplished in life, the presidents are also remarkable for the legacy they pass on after passing away.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)