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A review by homoconnor
The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic and Madness at the Fair that changed America by Erik Larson
dark
informative
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
3.75
Interested in a book about the history of the World’s Fair and surrounding events? This is definitely the read for you. It is extremely well researched and the author does manage to make you feel like you’ve been dropped in the middle of Chicago in the 1880s.
For me, where it fell short came in a couple places; one, this book drags in some places. I often found myself not caring about certain details of the fair because there were ones I wanted to hear about more (I found Olmstead and the creation of the Ferris Wheel to be my favorite parts to read about, while on the other hand I was never particularly sure why I was reading about Buffalo Bill or Sol Bloom). Two, the story of Holmes seemed to come from a place of the author wanting to tell the story of the fair but needing something more enticing to draw more readers in. The chapters focusing on him are short and give very little information about his actual crimes, then at the end it’s all very rushed to explain everything he didn’t explain earlier. I get that Holmes’ crimes weren’t discovered for a while, but things like that didn’t seem to matter with the fair chapters so I wish that wasn’t the case with Holmes’ chapters.
I think the conclusion here is to go into it knowing that the story isn’t really about Holmes, more about the fact that there was this force of evil existing at the same time as the fair. And honestly, I can appreciate a story that doesn’t get too deep into gruesome details or tries to explain Holmes’ unexplainable mind.
For me, where it fell short came in a couple places; one, this book drags in some places. I often found myself not caring about certain details of the fair because there were ones I wanted to hear about more (I found Olmstead and the creation of the Ferris Wheel to be my favorite parts to read about, while on the other hand I was never particularly sure why I was reading about Buffalo Bill or Sol Bloom). Two, the story of Holmes seemed to come from a place of the author wanting to tell the story of the fair but needing something more enticing to draw more readers in. The chapters focusing on him are short and give very little information about his actual crimes, then at the end it’s all very rushed to explain everything he didn’t explain earlier. I get that Holmes’ crimes weren’t discovered for a while, but things like that didn’t seem to matter with the fair chapters so I wish that wasn’t the case with Holmes’ chapters.
I think the conclusion here is to go into it knowing that the story isn’t really about Holmes, more about the fact that there was this force of evil existing at the same time as the fair. And honestly, I can appreciate a story that doesn’t get too deep into gruesome details or tries to explain Holmes’ unexplainable mind.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Murder
Minor: Suicide