The Woman Who Shot Mussolini: A Biography - Softcover

"Saunders masterfully sketches the European aesthetic and intellectual ferment that followed World War I....She recounts all this with a dry wit, even a jauntiness, that contributes mightily to the book's pleasures." --The Cleveland Plain Dealer

"A tour de force informed by the author's keen understanding of the social and political issues that galvanized the times. Moreover, Saunders's knowledge---and use---of English literature to animate Gibson's story gives it an elegance, depth, and sensibility that would have eluded less competent biographers." --Minneapolis Star Tribune

"Superb...poignant...Its wit and modesty make the book a beguiling detective story and, as such, a meditation on the limits of biography....Saunders writes with a clarity of purpose, an eloquence, and a satiric edge that refresh and astonish." --The Nation

"Absorbing...Saunders tells Violet's story with sympathy and insight. Her research unearths several gems." --Financial Times (UK)

At 11:00 a.m. on Wednesday, April 7, 1926, a woman stepped out of the crowd on Rome's Campidoglio Square and shot Mussolini at point-blank range. He escaped virtually unscathed. Violet Gibson, who expected to be thanked for her action, was arrested, labeled a "crazy Irish spinster" and a "half-mad mystic"---and promptly forgotten. Now, in an elegant work of reconstruction, Frances Stonor Saunders retrieves this remarkable figure from the lost historical record. In a grand tragic narrative, full of suspense and mystery, conspiracy and back-room diplomacy, she vividly resurrects the life and times of a woman who sought to forestall catastrophe, whatever the cost.