Devil In The White City

“It was so easy to disappear, so easy to deny knowledge, so very easy in the smoke and din to mask that something dark had taken root. This was Chicago, on the eve of the greatest fair in history.” Erik Larson

This is the Chicago Erik Larson’s Devil In The White City hopes to paint for the reader. The two distantly related 19th century stories are combined into a dark narrative that is given shape and energy by the author’s dramatic inclinations. 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.

I picked up this book in hopes of reading this before Martin Scorsese’s movie rendition of it, starring Leonardo DiCaprio as Holmes, is released. As a budding student of architecture, I frequently tend to get lost in clever details of the World’s Fair Hotel’s construction. Designing everything from bait rooms to ventilated crematoriums, Holmes has been portrayed as anything but a textbook psychopath. It is hard to not be in awe of this style of writing that draws you in and paints a vivid Chicago for you that was prospering at edges but harboring murderers at the same time. “His weakness was his belief that evil had boundaries.”, Larson admitted.

Being a non fiction writer, inventing such a sinister character was not enough for him. He goes on to describe the perilous birth of the Ferris Wheel (although a rival plan to outdo the Eiffel Tower called for a huge tower with a log cabin on top); the arrival of novelties like zippers and Cracker Jack; and Chicago’s first glimpse of a belly dancer.

Put on a Boccherini’s vinyl, pour yourself a crisp scotch and dive into this book. I worship Scorsese but sorry, I can’t imagine the movie being better than the book.