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Title: The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America by Erik Larson ISBN: 0-375-72560-1 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 10 February, 2004 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.16 (202 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: A Haunting Journey of Heights & Depths
Comment: A good, fast read - especially for Gilded Age buffs like me, but certainly not limited to us. Larson weaves the fascinating story of the 1893 Chicago World's Columbian Exposition with the dastardly doings of a psychopathic fiend. Odd combination, but effective. We are transported in time to the excessive age of enormous wealth and grinding poverty - the "White City" of the Exposition and the dark, demonic "Castle" of Dr. H.H. Holmes. Surprisingly, it turns out the odyssey of Exposition head architect Daniel Burnham and the fascinating characters surrounding him are often more compelling than the blue-eyed, charming devil himself.
There are on the one hand, the leading architects of the East, hesitant about committing their sturdy reputations to the city of meatpackers - Olmstead, McKim, Hunt, St. Gaudens. And later the mystery engineer whose feat rivals the Paris Exposition's great Eiffel Tower. On the other hand, the 'Chicago' characters, sketched in sharp relief, even those appearing for brief moments at the Fair - sage architect Louis Sullivan and the budding Frank Lloyd Wright; immensely popular Mayor Harrison; white-clad, white-haired Buffalo Bill; the 'dancer' Little Egypt; pygmies and giants from Africa; President Cleveland, "immense in black...[he] touched the gold key" that set the massive fair in motion; Archduke Francis Ferdinand, whose taste ran to Chicago's high-class brothels, not the exhibitions; the eccentric Spanish Infanta Eulalia, munching on German sausages; haughty Mrs. Potter Palmer, always diamond-drenched and offended; the insane assassin Prendergast; a (temporarily) deathly ill Mark Twain -- even professor Woodrow Wilson makes an appearance, and the surprises continue.
But the star of the Chicago Fair was Burnham and his heroic/dictatorial reign over the incredible creations of the White City (Larson's description of the dimensions and details of the Fair are an absolute must-read). Holmes' story is appropriately secondary to the Fair's larger-than-life drama. But it is indispensable to the vast human drama of America/Chicago in 1893. The all-consuming drive of the national energy, technology, and most of all, money, accounted for both the soaring dreams of a future America embodied in the (short-lived) neo-classical enlightenment of the White City, and the evil soul of humanity laid bare by the dreams' very creation. A haunting book, with some flaws (a little less speculation & more photos needed), but well worth the journey from the heights to the depths.
Rating: 4
Summary: An Entertaining and Informative Read
Comment: Erik Larson does a bang-up job of conveying what life must have been like in the "Second City" as the 19th century drew to its fitful conclusion. Bristling at the constant reminder of New York City's superiority in so many areas, Chicago's city fathers rallied the troops and went all out in proving to New Yorkers, to the nation and to the world that Chicago was equal to the great challenge of mounting a World Exposition of truly monumental stature. Larson's descriptions of the Herculean effort put forth by numerous architects, builders, politicians, etc. lead the reader to a true appreciation of these "can do," spirited individuals.
Yet beneath the teeming activity and a short distance away from the gleaming white Pleasure Palaces of the Fair, there stood a building of a different sort entirely, inhabited by one of the most vicious, truly evil creatures the young nation ever produced. Larson does an adequate, but not great job of telling the darker story surrounding H H Holmes, the mesmeric Svengali whose brilliant blue eyes and engaging charm seduced at least a score (one estimate was up to 200, which the author disputes) unfortunate women. Unlike Jack the Ripper, to whom he was later likened, he didn't limit himself to female victims. Business partners who had outworn their usefulness and several children were amongst his prey, as well. He just had a penchant for murder.
The sections on the construction of the Columbia Exposition are filled with fascinating anecdotes, ranging from the origins of the sobriquet "windy city (derisively coined by Charles Anderson Dana, Editor of The New York Sun)" to the dramatic entrance of Annie Oakley, barreling in on horseback and blazing away with her two six-shooters in Buffalo Bill Cody's Western Show adjacent to the Fair Grounds. Larson also provides an interesting side story surrounding Patrick Predergast, a delusional political aspirant who turns assassin. He paints a compelling portrait of Fredrick Law Olmstead, American History's premier landscape architect who took up the almost impossible task of designing and overseeing the Exposition's parks and lagoons. The hero of the book, however, is Daniel Hudson Burnham, who was ultimately responsible for the lion's share of the planning, construction and smooth running of the entire enterprise. He had a little over two years from the time Congress selected Chicago from a list of candidate cities that included Saint Louis and New York, to the day of the Expo's official opening. That he got the job done within the alloted time is one of the great marvels in an age of marvels, especially given the myriad difficulties which he and his crew had to overcome.
The Holmes narractive appears a bit lackluster in comparison to the story of the Fair's construction. Larson acknowledges the difficulty he faced in recreating Holmes' vicious crimes via imaginary vignettes. He states in an afterword that he went back and read Capote's IN COLD BLOOD for the technique in which Capote so brilliantly engaged in his imaginative reconstruction of events. The only problem with this approach is that Capote had access to and the confidence of the two killers that are at the center of IN COLD BLOOD. Larson had only newspaper accounts from the period as well as a very unreliable journal that Holmes wrote after he was tried and sentenced to death (he was hanged several months after the trial). It would appear that Larson goes a bit too far out of his way to avoid the lurid and sensationalitic aspects of Holmes' killing spree. One has only to visit some of the numerous web sites devoted to Holmes to see that Larson is particularly reticent to discuss Holmes' sexual deviance. This is understandable, as Larson wants to be taken seriously as an historian, yet the facts are out there (most of them well documented) so it wouldn't have hurt to have included a bit more of the darker details. The book could also have used more illustrations. The Chicago Tribune, at the time the story first broke in 1894, included a detailed floor plan of the "Chamber of Horrors" Holmes built on the corner of Sixty-Third and Wallace in the Englewood section of Chicago. That illustration would have given the reader a better sense of the bizarre layout of the structure. More pictures of the Exposition would have also been helpful. Here again, there are several sites on the web devoted to the Columbia Exposition that have many pages of great photographs.
The books virtues far outweigh its shortcomings and I have no problem in recommending THE DEVIL IN THE WHITE CITY to anyone interested in US History, Chicago Architecture, or just a well told story.
BEK
Rating: 5
Summary: Cannot recommend this book enough
Comment: The vividness of the descriptions in this book coupled with a shifting historical narrative put it a realm of stranger-than-fiction a la "Professor and the Madman". Erik Larson's attention to the intricate details of late 19th century Chicago and the anticipation of the Colombian Exposition held there is riviting. The grandeur of the "White City by the Sea" contrasted with gritty Gilded Age details of power, wealth, and the wanting of a nation to surpass European ideals in spectacle is thorough and left me wanting more.
Reading about the eventual end of the fair left me as saddened as the men and women that saw it burn down after its last day. A truly powerful book and a must-read in our age where the ability to be awed by our fellow human beings through their accomplishments may be a little more hard to come by.
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