“I'm
very perverse. If someone tells me I have to read a book, I'm instantly
disinclined to do so.” – Erik Larson
I first
encountered Larson’s page-turning works when I read The Devil in the White
City, winner of the Edgar Award for Best Fact Crime. Written about the 1893 Columbian Exposition
in Chicago and a series of murders there at that same time, the book is
gripping - one of many in that category by this gifted author.
Born on this date in 1954, Larson started
writing as a journalist after being inspired by the award-winning movie All
the President's Men, adapted from
the Pulitzer Prize-winning book about Watergate. And while he’s been a feature writer for
major publications like The Wall Street Journal (where he was
nominated for a Pulitzer for his own investigative reporting) and Time, he started far more humbly.
His first newspaper job was with The
Bucks County Courier Times in Levittown, PA, where he wrote about murder,
witches, environmental poisons, and other "equally pleasant"
things. But like his books, his stories
were hard to ignore and attracted larger publications and audiences. His works have regularly appeared in The
New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, Harper's and Time.
As for
his books, he’s had winner after winner.
In the Garden of Beasts (based
on the diaries of the mid-1930s U.S. Ambassador to Nazi Germany), and
Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania are “must reads” for all who
enjoy what I like to call “very tasty history.”
“I don't
listen to music when I write, but I do turn on appropriate music when I read
portions of my manuscripts back to myself - kind of like adding a soundtrack to
help shape mood.”
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