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A review by eiridium
Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania by Erik Larson
3.0
I didn't rate 'Dead Wake' too highly. That is not to say that you will not enjoy this novel.
If you have read any previous work by Erik Larson you will be familiar with the author's style and 'Dead Wake' stays to the course. My expectations were high in anticipation of a new Larson novel.
'Dead Wake' is well written and presents a relatively balanced coverage of a well known tale. The author delivers on bringing it up to date with the latest findings - bursting mythologies - and introducing a variety of previously disparate story strands. The tact taken - intertwining the shipboard experience with the submarine board experience - is effective and the depth of research evident. The quality of storytelling is consistently Larson. Readable, engaging and certainly well worth the read.
However, it falls down for me on two counts.
The first is the inclusion of the Wilson storyline. A good additional story, but really tangentially delivered to the central story. Larson always delivers a wonderful smorgasbord of additional facts and embellishments that make for a rich reading experience. Unfortunately to me in this case the Wilson storyline was merely distracting I didn't really see the overall contribution.
The second issue was merely a sense of less than satisfying depth or new revelations. The integration of the ships logs from U-20 alongside the rich collection of passenger recollections made for a very solid - but strangely predictable - novel. Yes, we all know that the torpedo will hit and that the Lusitania will sink very fast and with huge loss of life. This is the same story told well. My expectations may well have been simply raised too high, but in the end there seemed really not that much new, surprising or earth shattering. Maybe I was expecting too much. Having explored the lovely full colour books sharing the wealth of pictures coming from the underwater explorations a decade ago and enjoyed a number of well produced documentaries, I consider myself relatively well informed with Lusitania lore. I appreciate that the author presents a deliberately balanced attempt to rationally explore the available evidence - but it just seems flat. Captain Turner for me is probably one of the most satisfyingly complete characters, but others seem to come up flat.
'The Devil in the White City' set the bar very high for Larson. He is a talented raconteur and researcher. He makes his facts come alive and 'Dead Wake' maintains this consistency, but for me it just didn't quite sparkle as I might have hoped nor did it live up to my perhaps unreasonable expectations that it would take the story to a new dimension. I enjoyed Erik Larson's telling of the tale and as I admit particularly appreciated his depth of research, but I was simply not moved by 'Dead Wake'.
If you have read any previous work by Erik Larson you will be familiar with the author's style and 'Dead Wake' stays to the course. My expectations were high in anticipation of a new Larson novel.
'Dead Wake' is well written and presents a relatively balanced coverage of a well known tale. The author delivers on bringing it up to date with the latest findings - bursting mythologies - and introducing a variety of previously disparate story strands. The tact taken - intertwining the shipboard experience with the submarine board experience - is effective and the depth of research evident. The quality of storytelling is consistently Larson. Readable, engaging and certainly well worth the read.
However, it falls down for me on two counts.
The first is the inclusion of the Wilson storyline. A good additional story, but really tangentially delivered to the central story. Larson always delivers a wonderful smorgasbord of additional facts and embellishments that make for a rich reading experience. Unfortunately to me in this case the Wilson storyline was merely distracting I didn't really see the overall contribution.
The second issue was merely a sense of less than satisfying depth or new revelations. The integration of the ships logs from U-20 alongside the rich collection of passenger recollections made for a very solid - but strangely predictable - novel. Yes, we all know that the torpedo will hit and that the Lusitania will sink very fast and with huge loss of life. This is the same story told well. My expectations may well have been simply raised too high, but in the end there seemed really not that much new, surprising or earth shattering. Maybe I was expecting too much. Having explored the lovely full colour books sharing the wealth of pictures coming from the underwater explorations a decade ago and enjoyed a number of well produced documentaries, I consider myself relatively well informed with Lusitania lore. I appreciate that the author presents a deliberately balanced attempt to rationally explore the available evidence - but it just seems flat. Captain Turner for me is probably one of the most satisfyingly complete characters, but others seem to come up flat.
'The Devil in the White City' set the bar very high for Larson. He is a talented raconteur and researcher. He makes his facts come alive and 'Dead Wake' maintains this consistency, but for me it just didn't quite sparkle as I might have hoped nor did it live up to my perhaps unreasonable expectations that it would take the story to a new dimension. I enjoyed Erik Larson's telling of the tale and as I admit particularly appreciated his depth of research, but I was simply not moved by 'Dead Wake'.