The Devil in the White City, Erik Larson

Louis Sullivan, Transportation Building

(November 2) I stuck with this book through to the end because I love architectural history and am OK with serial-killer biographies, and I kept hoping there would be a good reason the author was trying to entwine these two threads.

There wasn't! On the thin premise that large undertakings like the 1893 Chicago Exposition draw madmen, the author shamelessly holds out the carrot of lurid murder sprees while plodding through the story of building the fair. If there had been anything in common, no matter how minuscule, between Daniel Burnham and Henry Holmes, or if the Chicago fair had actually affected Holmes' activities in one little way, you could forgive Larson. But there are no parallels whatsoever.

So one has to assume that the author is not convinced the Exposition history is interesting on its own... or he didn't have enough material on either topic to make a book.

It's a drag when an author doesn't think his own narrative is interesting.

Other tell-tale signs: too much false suspense. Every section seems to end with "a decision that would affect the whole future of the exposition" and then you don't find out what that decision is for many pages. Also, the falsely energetic writing: people are not just "talented," they're "intensely talented"; they're not just "wealthy," they're "profoundly wealthy," etc.

All in all, a lesson in applying carny showmanship to writing.