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Author Erik Larson imbues the incredible events surrounding the 1893 Chicago World's Fair with such drama that readers may find themselves checking the book's categorization to be sure that The Devil in the White City is not, in fact, a highly imaginative novel. Larson tells the stories of two men: Daniel H. Burnham, the architect responsible for the fair's construction, and H.H. Holmes, a serial killer masquerading as a charming doctor. Burnham's challenge was immense. In a short period of time, he was forced to overcome the death of his partner and numerous other obstacles to construct the famous "White City" around which the fair was built. His efforts to complete the project, and the fair's incredible success, are skillfully related along with entertaining appearances by such notables as Buffalo Bill Cody, Susan B. Anthony, and Thomas Edison. The activities of the sinister Dr. Holmes, who is believed to be responsible for scores of murders around the time of the fair, are equally remarkable. He devised and erected the World's Fair Hotel, complete with crematorium and gas chamber, near the fairgrounds and used the event as well as his own charismatic personality to lure victims. Combining the stories of an architect and a killer in one book, mostly in alternating chapters, seems like an odd choice but it works. The magical appeal and horrifying dark side of 19th-century Chicago are both revealed through Larson's skillful writing. --John Moe
Book Description
Bringing Chicago circa 1893 to vivid life, Erik Larson's spellbinding bestseller intertwines the true tale of two men--the brilliant architect behind the legendary 1893 World's Fair, striving to secure America’s place in the world; and the cunning serial killer who used the fair to lure his victims to their death. Combining meticulous research with nail-biting storytelling, Erik Larson has crafted a narrative with all the wonder of newly discovered history and the thrills of the best fiction.
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In The Devil in the White City, Erik Larson, author of Isaac's Storm, tells the spellbinding true story of two men, an architect and a serial killer, whose fates were linked by the greatest fair in American history: the Chicago World's Fair of 1893, nicknamed "The White City."
Two men, each handsome and unusually adept at his chosen work, embodied an element of the great dynamic that characterized America's rush toward the twentieth century.
The architect was Daniel Hudson Burnham, the fair's brilliant director of works and the builder of many of the country's most important structures, including the Flatiron Building in New York and Union Station in Washington, D.C.
The murderer was Henry H. Holmes, a young doctor who, in a malign parody of the White City, built his "World's Fair Hotel" just west of the fairgrounds -- a torture palace complete with dissection table, gas chamber, and 3,000-degree crematorium.
Burnham overcame tremendous obstacles and tragedies as he organized the talents of Frederick Law Olmsted, Charles McKim, Louis Sullivan, and others to transform swampy Jackson Park into the White City, while Holmes used the attraction of the great fair and his own satanic charms to lure scores of young women to their deaths. What makes the story all the more chilling is that Holmes really lived, walking the grounds of that dream city by the lake.
The Devil in the White City draws the reader into a time of magic and majesty, made all the more appealing by a supporting cast of real-life characters, including Buffalo Bill, Theodore Dreiser, Susan B. Anthony, Thomas Edison, Archduke Francis Ferdinand, and others. In this book, the smoke, romance and mystery of the Gilded Age come alive as never before.
Erik Larson's gifts as a storyteller are magnificently displayed in this rich narrative of the master builder, the killer, and the great fair that obsessed them both.
"Engrossing... exceedingly well documented... utterly fascinating."
CHICAGO TRIBUNE
"A dynamic, enveloping book.... Relentlessly fuses history and entertainment to give this nonfiction book the dramtic effect of a novel.... It doesn't hurt that this truth is stranger than fiction."
THE NEW YORK TIMES
"So good, you find yourself asking how you could not know this already."
ESQUIRE
"Another successful exploration of American history.... Larson skillfully balances the grisly details with the far-reaching implications of the World's Fair."
USA TODAY
"As absorbing a piece of popular history as one will ever hope to find."
SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
"Paints a dazzling picture of the Gilded Age and prefigure the American century to come."
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY
"A wonderfully unexpected book... Larson is a historian... with a novelist's soul."
CHICAGO SUN-TIMES
Customer Reviews:
Intriguing but Very Poorly Written.......2007-10-15
I couldn't wait to read this book because it had been recommended by so many people. But until I started reading it myself and talking about it, I didn't realize how many people started it and couldn't finish it.
Yes, I was one of those who finished it - because I like murder mysteries and I wanted to know what happened, but the other parts were so bad that I ended up using the book as my nighttime reading to put me to sleep.
The subject matter is intriguing, not only for the geography of the story, especially since I live in Chicago, but also for the fact that someone so gruesome lived here and murdered untold numbers of people, mostly women and children.
But the writer jumps all over the place - he consistently doesn't finish thoughts before he moves on to the next thing, little "asides" are inserted without any context, and the timeline jumps around in many places.
And there are unanswered questions, not the least of which is whatever happened to Holmes' 2nd wife and his child?
I'm guess I need to go back to all of those people who recommmended it to me to find out if they really liked it as much as they said they did, or were they just interested in the murder mystery. And how many just skipped to those parts to find out what happened.
A method to his madness.......2007-10-12
The title of this review pertains not only to Dr. H.H. Holmes, the notorious serial murderer who is the focus of Eric Larsen's attention, but to the author himself. This is my second Larson book (after the wonderful "Thunderstruck") and it's not hard to see Larsen's M.O.. Take a historical event that by itself might not generate mass interest, and graft onto it a grisly story of murder -- plural murders if possible. Keep the tension constantly at the boiling point, and voila! A blockbuster.
Method writing aside, DWC was terrific to listen to. Larsen illuminates a little-known corner of American history, shining a light on fascinating people and different ways of looking at things. We experience Chicago, built on train traffic and malodorous slaughter yards. We learn about the architects, like Burnham and Root, who gave us the 1893 Columbian Exposition, also know as the Chicago World's Fair, and their dreams to outdo the Parisian fair of a few years earlier. We also meet Frederick Olmsted, in his early seventies, the designer of New York's Central Park, obsessed with and protective of his vision for the landscaped walks and peaceful lagoons that he imagined for the fair. We also learn of the desperation of the America architects and engineers associated with the fair to somehow outdo the French engineering achievement that was the Eiffel Tower. He learn about life in Chicago, loud, dangerous and exhilarating. What can you say about a town in which you can step off a sidewalk and get clobbered by a speeding train?
But there is a devil in the White City, as the fair was known. Dr H.H. Holmes, ever calm and with personality magnetic to young women, is also busy building. But his construction has an entirely different end than that of Burnham and Olmsted. For while the fair's designers want to bring pleasure to their customers and glory to their city and professions, Holmes wants pleasure and glory for himself. And no law or threatening angel will stop him from committing the most dastardly of crimes against the most innocent and unsuspecting of victims.
For those who know a little about American history, Larsen's constant cloaking of details might be maddening. I happen to know how the search for the engineering marvel came out. But for the rest of us, Larsen's unending teasers and cliffhangers propel us from chapter to chapter and disk to disk. Not to mention the promise of more lurid exposes in his Holmes sections. Larsen does a pretty good job of sticking to the facts, and he states that any material in quotes (not readily discernible in the audio book) is factual, and taken from extant sources. But he is not above a fair amount of creative license outside of the boundaries of the quotation marks. His description of the killer's thoughts and movements and of the death throes of his victims may owe more than a little to Larsen's imagination and informed speculation. But no matter. His suppositions are usually plausible and always gripping.
I don't know enough about the Chicago fair to know how close Larsen gets to its essence. He does tend to overemphasize conflicts, frustrations and setbacks. But one can't ignore the fact that the fair made some mad, some fabulously rich, some well-known and some prematurely dead. An age in which a forty-year-old can succumb to pneumonia -- a disease we now respect but hardly fear -- is one in which day-to-day stakes are high indeed. I have to confess to a bit of a thrill as I anticipated Larsen's recounting of tale after juicy tale of seduction, betrayal and destruction. And Larsen pleases from the first paragraph.
Lurid but not particularly gory, "Devil in the White City" is perfect for readers like me who love their history basted with real-life mystery, spiced with drama and just a pinch of mayhem.
History and Mystery in a non-fiction page turner.......2007-10-11
Larsen deftly weaves an intriguing tale of the building of the Chicago World's Fair of 1893 with a story about a psychopath who commits several murders without detection during the same period. The book is chock full of information about prominent personages and inventions that changed the way we live today. It is a real page turner.
Fact and Speculation.......2007-10-10
The Devil In the White City raises troublesome questions about what is factual and what is pure authorial speculation. At times the Larson even privaledges his own imagination as being closer to the truth than statements provided by key players in the book. (See the first three paragraphs on page 39 for an example.) Stronger documentation and clear indications of when the text was meandering into the imaginative realm would have helped this book tremendously.
Great book, though leaves a bit to be desired...........2007-10-09
I am not a huge reader (too busy with college) but this book really caught my eye and, let me tell you, I made time for it once I realized how good it was. The book is incredibly informative and it is immediately apparent that the author did an ENORMOUS amount of research. As one of the reviewers says on a page at the front of the book, you will be left wondering how you DIDN'T know these stories already (for example, you learn about the first Ferris wheel.)
All of that said, I was hoping for much more information about the serial killer aspect... the author would devote maybe 4 pages worth of Holmes for every 10 pages worth of the Chicago Fair. I was mistakenly led to believe that the ratio was about equal and throughout the book, kept hoping that the Fair's historical accounts would become less frequent and instead would be replaced with more of the true crime aspect. At the end of the book, I came to find out that there simply wasn't enough information about the crimes to fill the book as most readers might have liked.
In short, this book is excellent and I highly recommend it. Just be forewarned, it is much more about the Chicago World Fair (and in more detail than most people probably prefer) and less about the serial killer and his
Product Description
True Crime, Chicago World's Fair
Book Description
This digital document is an article from Reviewer's Bookwatch, published by Thomson Gale on March 1, 2005. The length of the article is 987 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
Citation Details
Title: The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America.(Book Review)
Author: Craig McAndrew
Publication:
Reviewer's Bookwatch (Newsletter)
Date: March 1, 2005
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Page: NA
Article Type: Book Review
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Fair play.(Book Review) (book review): An article from: Washington Monthly
Brian Montopoli
Manufacturer: Washington Monthly Company
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ASIN: B0008DGATO
Release Date: 2005-07-31 |
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This digital document is an article from Washington Monthly, published by Washington Monthly Company on May 1, 2003. The length of the article is 770 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
Citation Details
Title: Fair play.(Book Review) (book review)
Author: Brian Montopoli
Publication:
Washington Monthly (Magazine/Journal)
Date: May 1, 2003
Publisher: Washington Monthly Company
Volume: 35
Issue: 5
Page: 55(1)
Article Type: Book Review
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2 Books - 1) - The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America / 2) - Return to Greatness: How America Lost Its Sense of Purpose and What It Needs to Do to Recover It, in either Hard or Softcover, (See Seller Condition Comments), Shipped in one package
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The Voice of Southern Labor: Radio, Music, and Textile Strikes, 1929-1934 (Social Movements, Protest, and Contention, V. 19)
Vincent J. Roscigno , and
William F. Danaher
Manufacturer: University of Minnesota Press
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ASIN: 0816640165 |
Book Description
The 1934 strike of southern textile workers, involving nearly 400,000 mill hands, remains perhaps the largest collective mobilization of workers in U.S. history. How these workers came together in the face of the powerful and coercive opposition of management and the state is the remarkable story at the center of this book.
The Voice of Southern Labor chronicles the lives and experiences of southern textile workers and provides a unique perspective on the social, cultural, and historical forces that came into play when the group struck, first in 1929, and then on a massive scale in 1934. The workers' grievances, solidarity, and native radicalism of the time were often reflected in the music they listened to and sang, and Vincent J. Roscigno and William F. Danaher offer an in-depth context for understanding this intersection of labor, politics, and culture.
The authors show how the message of the southern mill hands spread throughout the region with the advent of radio and the rise of ex-mill worker musicians, and how their sense of opportunity was further bolstered by Franklin D. Roosevelt's radio speeches and policies.
Book Description
This digital document is an article from Labour/Le Travail, published by Thomson Gale on September 22, 2005. The length of the article is 1021 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
Citation Details
Title: Vincent J. Roscigno and William F. Danaher, The Voice of Southern Labor: Radio, Music, and Textile Strikes, 1929-1934, Vol. 19 of Social Movements, Protest and Contention.(Book Review)
Author: Robert H. Zieger
Publication:
Labour/Le Travail (Magazine/Journal)
Date: September 22, 2005
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Issue: 56
Page: 332(3)
Article Type: Book Review
Distributed by Thomson Gale
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This digital document is an article from Journal of Southern History, published by Thomson Gale on November 1, 2005. The length of the article is 603 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
Citation Details
Title: The Voice of Southern Labor: Radio, Music, and Textile Strikes, 1929-1934.(Book Review)
Author: Douglas Craig
Publication:
Journal of Southern History (Magazine/Journal)
Date: November 1, 2005
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 71
Issue: 4
Page: 939(2)
Article Type: Book Review
Distributed by Thomson Gale
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Creating Island Resorts (Routledge Advances in Tourism, 2)
Brian King
Manufacturer: Routledge
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Book Description
b /b b i Creating Island Resorts /i /b uses two comparative case studies to highlight the differences and challenges facing tourism today in the developing and developed worlds. Going beyond the more commonly enountered marketing analyses of resort destinations, King examines social, cultural, environmental, organizational and political dimensions of tourism. While describing the uniqueness of tropical island resorts such as Fiji, the areas they occupy, the people who live and work there, and the tourists who visit them, King integrates discussion of the social, cultural, mythical, environmental, and political dimensions as well. br br b /b b i Creating Island Resorts /i /b is the second title in the i Routledge Advances in Tourism /i series.
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This digital document is an article from Pacific Affairs, published by University of British Columbia on June 22, 1998. The length of the article is 624 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
Citation Details
Title: Creating Island Resorts.
Author: Nick Kontogeorgopoulos
Publication:
Pacific Affairs (Refereed)
Date: June 22, 1998
Publisher: University of British Columbia
Volume: v71
Issue: n2
Page: p290(2)
Article Type: Book Review
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Customer Reviews:
Dumb, Dumber, Dumbest.......2003-05-28
This is a really funny book. It has many random entries such as a guy shooting himself in the mouth because he had a bad toothache, and another 80 year old guy who tried to threaten to blow up a bank with his nitroglycerin pills. Must Read.
This book is as funny as any I have ever read........1999-06-17
When I bought this book my intention was to casually read some of it on the subway ride home. I could not put it down."Dumb, Dumber and Dumbest" is a "laugh out loud", drop dead funny book that left me in tears. What is most amazing is the breadth of material which the authors draw upon going to every corner of the globe to find truly exotic stupidity that no one could make up. It only gets 4 stars because it wasn't long enough.
Books:
- The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America
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- The Eternity Code (Artemis Fowl, Book 3)
- The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality
- The Gloom Looms: A Box of Unfortunate Events, Books 10-12 (The Slippery Slope; The Grim Grotto; The Penultimate Peril)
- The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague In History
- The Immortal Cell: One Scientist's Quest to Solve the Mystery of Human Aging
- The Island at the Center of the World: The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony That Shaped America
- The Island of Mending Hearts
- The New Yorker 75th Anniversary Cartoon Collection
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