Mary Suratt is the first woman executed by the U.S. In 1865, she was convicted and hanged for conspiring with John Wilkes Booth in the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln.
Surratt was a widow, Confederate-sympathizer and operator of a small boardinghouse in Washington D.C. But was she partly responsible for one of the most famous deaths in American history?
The new novel Hanging Mary (Sourcebooks Landmark/2016) blends historical fact with fiction to tell the untold story of Surratt.
Guest host Phoebe Judge talks with author Susan Higginbotham about the novel. Higginbotham reads at McIntyre's Books in Pittsboro at 11:00 a.m. on Saturday, March 19 and Flyleaf Books at 7:00 p.m. in Chapel Hill on Wednesday, March 30.
