The Woman Who Shot Mussolini »

Frances Stonor Saunders is the author of The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters, which was short-listed for the Guardian First Book Award, received the Royal Historical Society’s Gladstone Memorial Prize, and was translated into ten languages. Her writing has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, as well as The Guardian and The Independent. She lives in London.

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.

Library Journal

Of the many people who tried to assassinate Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, only one was a woman—and a petite, well-to-do Irishwoman at that. Stonor Saunders (The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters) seeks to resurrect the lost story of Violet Gibson, who wounded Mussolini during an assassination attempt in 1926 but has been relegated to footnote status in history. Gibson's story is remarkable; unfortunately, the archival record of her life before the assassination attempt is thin. Stonor Saunders attempts to make up for this by tying Gibson to hemmed-in women of the time, such as Virginia Woolf and James Joyce's daughter, Lucia. The result is a book heavily padded with irrelevant digressions and musings. While the author clearly feels passionately about resurrecting not only the story but the public image of her subject, she fails to make the case that Gibson was anything other than mentally ill. VERDICT An interesting case plucked out of obscurity fails to provide enough fodder for a full-length book. An optional choice.—Elizabeth Goldman, Kingston Frontenac P.L., Ont.

Prologue: Now 1

Wednesday, 7 April 1926

PART ONE: REVELATION

I. Then 19

II. Open, O Ye Heavenly Gates 23

III. The Problem of Being 32

IV. The New Mystics 40

V. La Femme Qui Cherche 45

VI. L'Homme Qui Cherche 51

VII. Hoc Est Corpus Meum 54

VIII. Holy War 65

IX. Il Miglior Fabbro 73

X. Things Snap 79

PART TWO: ACTS

I. Theater of Madness 101

II. Martyrs 111

III. Gethsemane 121

IV. What God Wants 126

V. Providential Escape 132

VI. Questions 144

VII. Secrets 156

VIII. The New Augustus 166

IX. Hidden Hands 175

X. Lives of the Saints 180

XI. Mea Culpa 191

XII. Examination 198

XIII. Stigmata 208

XIV. Heretics 213

XV. Lockdown 223

XVI. Special Justice 231

XVII. Lucid Insanity 238

XVIII. Exodus 246

PART THREE: LAMENTATIONS

I. Mansion of Despair 255

II. The Absence of God 264

III. Buried Alive 271

IV. Cometh the Hour 282

V. By the Heels at Milano 297

VI. Casting Off 306

VII. Death in Exile 314

Epilogue 317

Notes 321

Acknowledgments 363

Picture Credits 365

Index 367