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The astonishing untold story of a woman who tried to stop the rise of Fascism and change the course of history.
At 11 a.m. on Wednesday, April 7, 1926, a woman stepped out of the crowd on Rome's Campidoglio Square. Less than a foot in front of her stood Benito Mussolini. As he raised his arm to give the Fascist salute, the woman raised hers and shot him at point-blank range. Mussolini escaped virtually unscathed, cheered on by practically the whole world. 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. She examines Gibson's aristocratic childhood in the Dublin elite, with its debutante balls and presentations at court; her engagement with the critical ideas of the era-pacifism, mysticism, and socialism; her completely overlooked role in the unfolding drama of Fascism and the cult of Mussolini; and her response to a new and dangerous age when anything seemed possible but everything was at stake.
In a grand tragic narrative, full of suspense and mystery, conspiracy and backroom diplomacy, Stonor Saunders vividly resurrects the life and times of a woman who sought to forestall catastrophe, whatever the cost.
At 11 a.m. on Wednesday, April 7, 1926, a woman stepped out of the crowd on Rome's Campidoglio Square. Less than a foot in front of her stood Benito Mussolini. As he raised his arm to give the Fascist salute, the woman raised hers and shot him at point-blank range. Mussolini escaped virtually unscathed, cheered on by practically the whole world. 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. She examines Gibson's aristocratic childhood in the Dublin elite, with its debutante balls and presentations at court; her engagement with the critical ideas of the era-pacifism, mysticism, and socialism; her completely overlooked role in the unfolding drama of Fascism and the cult of Mussolini; and her response to a new and dangerous age when anything seemed possible but everything was at stake.
In a grand tragic narrative, full of suspense and mystery, conspiracy and backroom diplomacy, Stonor Saunders vividly resurrects the life and times of a woman who sought to forestall catastrophe, whatever the cost.
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Reviews
"A tour de force informed by the author's keen understanding of the social and political issues that galvanized the times. . . . Saunders gives [Gibson's story] an elegance, depth and sensibility that would have eluded less competent biographers."
The Minneapolis Star Tribune
"Saunders masterfully sketches the European aesthetic and intellectual ferment that followed World War I. . . Saunders has given us a woman to reckon with."
The Cleveland Plain Dealer
"Superb. . . poignant. . . There is nothing tendentious about The Woman Who Shot Mussolini; rather, its wit and modesty, especially on the question of why Gibson did what she did, 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 refreshes and astonishes."
The Nation