Heaven on earth or the devil’s garden?

From 1848 to 1881, a small utopian colony in upstate New York—the Oneida Community—was known for its shocking sexual practices, from open marriage and free love to the sexual training of young boys by older women. And in 1881, a one-time member of the Oneida Community—Charles Julius Guiteau—assassinated President James Garfield in a brutal crime that shook America to its core.

This deeply researched narrative—by bestselling author Susan Wels—tells the true, interlocking stories of the Oneida Community and its radical founder, John Humphrey Noyes; his idol, the eccentric newspaper publisher Horace Greeley; and the gloomy, indecisive President James Garfield—who was assassinated after his first six months in office.

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"Wels’s kaleidoscopic romp is an undeniable thrill. This is a book to be sidled up to like a buffet...An expert and well-paced dissection of post-Civil War politics." ―The New York Times Book Review

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