The Devil in the White City was one of those books that I noticed everywhere, but didn't really know much about. I saw it around in bookstores and on the internet, but as it was nonfiction, I didn't pay much attention. That all changed after I watched American Horror Story: Hotel. This season featured (among other characters) a hotel owner that killed his guests. It was good, creepy fun, but I never for a moment thought that the show was based on anything real. Imagine my surprise when I learned that not only was the hotel owner character actually based on a real serial killer, but that this Devil in the White City book I had been seeing everywhere was actually about that murderer. Intrigued, I picked up a copy so I could learn more. I didn't end up reading it right away, but now that I'm making a conscious effort to read more nonfiction with my True Books Challenge, I decided that now was the time to give it a try.
The novel centers around two very different men living in Chicago during the end of the 19th century. The first, Daniel Burnham, was a prominent architect in the city. The second, H.H. Holmes, was a hotel owner, a swindler, and a murderer. They never knew each other directly, but one major event tied them both together: the World's Columbian Exposition, or world's fair, of 1893. Burnham was the master builder who designed the fair and helped bring it to life. H.H. Holmes was a serial killer who made a pattern of luring young women coming to see the fair to his hotel, where he would kill them in unusual and gruesome ways. Both men's lives centered around the fair for the years of its construction and duration, and this novel tells both of their stories.
Larson alternates his chapters between the two men, giving readers small pieces of their lives with each new installment. The chapters about Burnham show him to be a highly ambitious and talented man. The Columbian Exposition was a massive undertaking, requiring the construction of several buildings, massive amounts of landscaping, the ability to manage huge expenses, and a lot of bureaucratic committee work. The United States was under intense pressure to live up to the glory of the Paris Exposition of a few years earlier, and anything less than perfection would be deemed an embarrassment. Burnham rose to the challenge, overcoming several difficulties along the way. His story isn't as flashy as his murderous companion's tale, but it is, nonetheless, an incredible one.
The chapters about Holmes show him to be a profoundly disturbed individual with an endless capacity for killing. Larson details how he was able to come into money and property through a series of cons, then how he used that money and property to capture and murder his victims. Intelligent, charismatic, and a doctor to boot, Holmes was easily able to convince young women traveling through Chicago to stay at his hotel, then lure them into rooms that he designed himself especially for killing. He used suffocation, chemicals, and other creative methods to dispatch these women, then disposed of their bodies in ingenious ways. For example, he sent some of their corpses to a professional "articulator" to have them turned into display skeletons for doctors, a rare and valuable medical necessity at the time. In this way, he was able to hide some of the bodies in plain sight. He also burned, buried, and dissolved his victims, according to his whims and access to resources. He was able to do all this with remarkable stealth and got away with several crimes before he was finally caught. No one know for sure how many people he killed. Estimates vary from nine people all the way up to 200.
I very much enjoyed reading this novel. It was engaging and entertaining throughout and truly read like fiction. The decision to tell the stories of both men concurrently using the fair as a way to tie them together was very smart, and added an interesting dimension to the novel. The juxtaposition of a builder with a destroyer was almost poetic - the two men lived and worked near each other for quite some time, but their lives were could not have been more different. Hopping back and forth between them was strange, but in a good way.
The Columbian Exposition itself was very interesting to read about as well. The story of Burham's life is largely the story of the fair, so I ended up learning a lot about it. It was such a massive undertaking and it was on such a grand scale that it's difficult to conceive of what it would have looked like in person. Larson does a good job describing the details of the buildings, landscaping, and exhibits-- so good, in fact, I found myself wishing that I could have attended it myself. It's a shame that this event has largely faded from public memory. It was a huge cultural moment for the United States, and it's rarely discussed now. Many inventions and innovations we enjoy today have their roots in it. The electrified third rail for trains, Ferris Wheels, moving walkways, Braille printers, and even souvenir squashed pennies were born out of it. This fair was the first time a lot of people experienced electricity and saw people from other cultures. It was truly a once-in-a-lifetime event and Larson's writing on it was very informational without drifting into dullness.
My only small issue with the novel was the imbalance of information about Burnham and Holmes. The Burnham chapters were much longer and more detailed that the Holmes ones. I frequently found myself wishing for more information on the disturbing serial killer, and for less on the honorable architect. I assume this was because there was way more information available about the Columbian Exposition than there was about the life of a criminal trying to avoid detection in the 1890s, but I was still a bit bothered by how short some of the Holmes chapters were. This novel was really more about the fair than anything else. However, at the end of the book, when Larson recounts Holmes' arrest and trial, we get a few nice long sections about him. This mostly made up for the lack of information in the earlier portions of the book.
The Devil in the White City is, simply put, excellent. It's nonfiction that is just as exciting and suspenseful as a literary novel, and the fact that it's all true makes it even more intriguing. Larson's work is a nice blend of informational and artistic writing that draws you right into the story and makes you feel like you're taking a trip back in time to 19th century Chicago. I'm glad that I ended up giving it a try. I learned a lot about a part of history that I knew nothing about, and enjoyed myself while learning it. I can't think of higher praise for an informational text than that.
Challenge Tally:
True Books 2018: 5/18 + 2 bonus books
Clear the Shelves 2018: 9 books donated
Total Books Read in 2018:15
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