A review by phoebemurtagh
American Lightning: Terror, Mystery, the Birth of Hollywood & the Crime of the Century by Howard Blum

I had long been looking forward to reading this book, so I jumped at the chance to listen to it as my walking-book. The case itself is fascinating, with a mystery that did not disappoint. The legal battle which followed also engaging, as one would expect a case involving Clarence Darrow to be. The addition of D. W. Griffith's career to the narrative is a somewhat strange choice, however, considering that his involvement with the "crime of the century" was scarcely more than any other influential citizen. While there are parallels between himself and the other two protagonists, his coincidental connections to the case are interesting, but his import (or rather, lack there of) to the story makes his elevation to third main character strange. What bothered me, though, was its praise of Griffiths as a visionary director without an appropriate grappling with the fact that his breakthrough in modern film was the highly racist rewriting of US history, "The Birth of a Nation," nor an acknowledgement of the harm the film caused in reinforcing an anti-Black, pro-white nationalist retelling of the Civil War (while at the same time hinting that Griffiths may have been a pedophile - an odd, unreconciled portrait). A good listen, but one that left a sour note.