The Devil in the White City
Ratings384
Average rating4
i don't enjoy non-fiction very often, but when i do, it involves some pretty twisted stuff.
while it's easy to read about things like the 1893 world's fair on wikipedia to get the general idea of what all went down, it's much more interesting and a better way to spend your time reading something like this work, which delves into one of the darker aspects of the huge event. many people know about h.h. holmes, but the book also gives the perspective of one of the people who planned the world's fair, which puts holmes' deviousness and cruelty into context. like a true crime doc, it was almost impossible to tear myself away from this once i had picked it up, and i truly recommend it to anyone remotely interested in a very dark moment of america's history.
I like any book that has trivia about pabst! I enjoyed this book a great deal, it could only have been improved by including more social history.
I was excited to read this after always hearing good things and seeing recommendations for it everywhere, but I didn't really like it at all...
It should have been called The White City (Featuring a Devil) because like 90% of this book is just about the logistics of setting up the World's Fair in Chicago and how the buildings were built. I found most of it pretty tedious, though there are a few interesting segments, such as the one about the first Ferris Wheel, and the actual writing is quite good.
The “devil” sections were pretty interesting, but besides the last hour or so of the book (which I actually really enjoyed) they seemed few and far between. I found myself losing the plot on these parts thigh, partially because of the infrequency and partially because of waning interest in the Fair story that it was interspersed in.
I listened to this on Audible (via their “Send this Book” feature, thanks Katie!) and Scott Brick is an excellent narrator. I've listened to him do Moneyball and In Cold Blood as well, and he just had a great voice for this.
I recommend it. If you're interested in how the 1893 World's Colombian Exposition came to be, this is the book for you. If you're more interested in H.H. Holmes, there are a wealth of other books to choose from. I think if I'd read this cold I'd have enjoyed it much more, but as it happens, I heard about it from several unconnected people who raved, and thought I should give it a shot. It started out extremely well-written and riveting, but eventually the story became lost in the details, to the point where it felt like it was dragging on because the author couldn't kill his darlings. It also felt like the Holmes story was writtten completely separately, like the author knew his book about the world fair needed something to grab the reader and maintain their attention. It worked on me, but it was frustrating to have the majority of the nearly 400 pages spent on the minutiae of getting the World Fair up and running when there was such rich material to work with on the Holmes side of things. Then again it's a matter of setting expectations - I was ready for a lot more of the devil than what ended up in the book.
As I read the chapters about the World's Fair I felt great suspense: would they complete it on time? would it be spectacular enough to shut the mouths of those East Coast snobs? would the fair escape tragedy?
Reading the chapters about the serial killer H.H. Holmes was also suspenseful in a more immediate way: would he kill this person too? how would he be found out?
The alternation between the obvious and immediate suspense of the murderer and the subtle suspense of trying to overcome great odds made a nice contrast, and probably even heightened the suspense of both narratives. I had a hard time reading this book at night (due to the Holmes chapters), and found that 4pm to 7pm was the best time to read and not ruin my day or give me nightmares.
In all, a really terrific book.
Probably closer to a 2.5. It's overly long, repetitive (Holmes had piercing blue eyes and a daring touch; Olmstead whined, etc.), and the Holmes stuff feels tacked on to spice up the rest of the book. I wish Larson had written more about the lasting effects of the fair rather than just devoting a few pages to it in the epilogue.
Very compelling. Larson weaves together two main plots very well; the subplots, less so. Still, he creates the impression of Chicago 1893 as a time of turbulence, both positive and negative.
I'm so confused by this book. When I picked this one up I thought I was getting a story about H.H Holms and his murderous rampage... I also expected it to have information about the world's fair but only as it pertained to Holms' story. What I got instead was a book 70% about the conception, making, and opening of the Chicago World's Fair and 30% about a psychopath's twisted day to day life. And they intersected in the most minimal way. Honestly, I felt like I got way more action and suspense from the World's Fair than by any of the horror Holms committed. The only real connection between the two parts of the book is that it created an atmosphere where missing people were not looked into too carefully and gave Holms an influx in victim choices. But like... that's it.
The reason I'm torn is because I reeeeally like the parts about the fair! They were fascinating, intriguing, and suspenseful. But it's not what I thought I was signing up for. The parts about Holms were not very in-depth. In fact, I didn't find them all that interesting. And I guess it's because we don't know a whole lot of what really happened during that time.
I wish the two aspects had been turned into their own books. The World's fair portion gets a 5/5 from me. The H.H. Holms parts gets a 2/5.
Wow! So interesting and disturbing at the same time. This is the first Larson book I have read and I really enjoyed his style.
Another well written, intriguing, addictive book from Erik Larson. I don't know what it is about his writing style, but something about it seems to pull me in and never wants to let me go. It's almost like being hypnotized.
I mostly wanted to read this because of the recounting of the crimes by H.H. Holmes, since I enjoy reading and learning about serial killers, but I even found the descriptions of all the struggle and hard work of those creating the Chicago World's Fair to be fascinating. While I knew of the fair, and that the Ferris Wheel had been created to out do the Eiffel Tower, I had no idea so many products we know today first debuted at the fair. Learn something new every day!
At first I did think the two subjects of this books seemed very conflicting and I wasn't to sure how well it would work out, but I have to say, it allowed for some serious swings on the emotion spectrum. One second you are cheering on those working on the fair (or are saddened over their losses during the process) and the next you are cringing when a new woman is introduced into H.H. Holmes' life, because you know things just aren't going to turn out well.
My one complaint is that Holmes' story seemed to be overshadowed at times by the fair, but there are other books on Holmes so I suppose that if you really want an in depth look at his life, there are other sources out there.
Though this book has caught my eye in bookstores, I went into it somewhat blindly. I knew it involved H.H. Holmes, but I didn't anticipate everything else it included. Rich with Chicago history, this book discusses the lives of H.H. Holmes and Daniel H. Burnham with a large focus on the World's Fair. Honestly... this was a weird mix with only a slight element connecting the two along with the overall setting of Chicago. While, yes, I did find the book interesting, I was also overwhelmed with the amount of information coming at me. This was very much two separate books with one being more built on fact and the other built on a lot of speculation.
Book Cover: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
DNF: Page 64
The title and marketing of this book should definitely be different. It is very misleading.
I wanted more H.H Holmes...
....and less Chicago World's Fair architectural development.
So, sue me, I'm morbid.
This book was like a slap to the face every time new lore was dropped — like STFU NO WAYYY
The Helen Keller part took me out lol
Erik Larson is a detective and researcher who went through his own grandiose journey to story tell the lengths men will go to, to achieve greatness, power, and riches in the gilded age. Holy cow is this a compelling read. 10/10 recommend
This book was good but I wanted a lot more of the devil, especially given the title. We get a lot of The White City and disproportionate amount of information concerning H. H. Holmes. I understand Larson's challenge in discovering accurate information is the origin of the lacking details.
In spite of this, I enjoyed the book. Considering the research and information Larson obtained, and its age, makes this work impressive. The organization of that information, and the resulting narrative, was interesting and informative in tandem.
It's clear this is incredibly well researched, and a lot of this was interesting, but it was SO detailed (about the fair and its construction) it became dry and tedious by the end.
There was far less about Holmes, which was the more interesting side of the book, but I imagine there is less known factually about him and his deeds.
I was a bit confused about why these 2 threads were even in the same book, there's no link between Holmes' killings and the World Fair apart from being in the same city at the same time.
From the amount of good things I've heard about this I expected more, but it was overly long and a bit dry for my liking.
Bailed halfway through. The serial killer story was fascinating, and the building of the fair was interesting, but so detailed, that it was too much for me.
I read this book in anticipation of discussion on the relatively new podcast - No Dumb Questions which has been awesome. They recently covered Ready Player One (in depth, and did a great job, making some fantastic points) and The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson is the next book they plan to cover. I listened to the unabridged Audible version and have to say I rather enjoyed it.
The book has 2 predominant storylines: The first deals with the 1893 World's Fair which was held in Chicago (at the time, The World's Columbian Exposition was considered the pre-eminent exposition in the world and was a huge deal, much more so than in the past 50 years). It was also a source of national and city pride where architecture and inventions took the main stage. There were many firsts at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair - the first Ferris Wheel, the first large-scale use of AC electricity, the first moving walkway, electric boats, the largest building in the world. The book covers much of the history of the fair and the intrigue involved in it.
The second storyline deals with America's first serial killer H.H. Holmes (born Herman Mudgett) who was trained as a physician, but operated a “pharmacy” and owned a rather large building near the World's Fair. The sensational murders of Jack the Ripper in London occurred just before the killing spree of Holmes and there is even some speculation (not in the book) that they are one in the same person. The in depth account of Holmes' history and various crimes, as well as his investigation is interspaced throughout the book and is interesting in it's own right as so many of the things he did were unheard of at the time.
While all of the events in the book occur simultaneously, the storylines don't really intertwine otherwise. No shared characters on both storylines. Probably because so many books/movies/shows have a similar setup, but then ultimately bring the characters together to integrate the storyline, it ended up feeling a bit disjointed when they didn't integrate. Also, though there were portions of the book which were “faster” in pace, there were also other sections where it plodded quite a bit. (Hence the 4 stars)
For all that, I still found the book worthwhile and quite interesting, mostly from a historical perspective. Definitely worth the read.
At first I thought it wouldn't be fair (ha) to rate this based on how good of a true crime book I thought it was, being that it is more heavily weighted toward a historical fictiony non-fiction account of the World's Fair. But then I remembered the title, The Devil in the White City, which suggests more time would be spent following H. H. Holmes than the architects of the World's Fair. The writing jumps back and forth between these two things, with a little extra here and there, and never brings them together. Larson is a fairly (ha again) skilled writer and would have done better to separate these into two books. Apart from that, I could've done without the heavy foreshading at the end of every chapter. I found the architect talk incredibly boring, but that was simply due to finding architecture boring and not Larson's writing about it.
Dear god, this book dragged on. Very well-written, well-researched...just overkill on all the machinations of the 1893 Chicago World Fair. I was expecting more about the serial killer than the Fair, and it was opposite. Though the first 3 parts the chapters (for the most part alternating between the Fair and the nefarious doings of Holmes) on the Fair were much longer than the others. Very informative (I had no idea of the beginnings of Farris wheels or Juicy Fruit), but if you're expecting true crime, this isn't quite it.
I loved this book!
I knew of H. H. Holmes already from documentaries and podcasts, but this couches that horror in a broader context of the Chicago World's Fair and the cultural climate at the time. Be warned that Holmes is not the main focus if that's the hook for you, but rather the Fair is the foundation of this book. Larson unfolds these events with fastidious detail, wry humor and subtle yet affecting expressiveness. I was left at the end with a sense of wonder and sadness which I think is quite the feat.