Devil in the White City

The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America by Erik Larson, 390 pages

The Columbian Exposition of 1893 - the Chicago World's Fair - was a historical landmark, defining a nation and an era in the same manner as the 1851 London Great Exhibition and 1889 Paris Exposition Universalle.  Timed to commemorate the 400th anniversary of Columbus' discovery of the New World, the Fair looked towards the future as much as the past, its monumental neo-classical buildings painted stark white and illuminated at night by tens of thousands of electric lights, forming an ideal "White City", an attainable future of unimpeded progress.  As Erik Larson relates, however, the real contemporary city formed a contrasting "Black City" of stockyards, smokestacks, and slaughterhouses, shady figures and dark streets which swallowed people whole.  In the midst of this Chicago squatted the misshapen "castle" of Herman Mudgett, also known as HH Holmes or a galaxy of other aliases, a conman and serial murderer.

Larson divides his narrative largely between Holmes and Daniel Burnham, the architect who, more than anyone else, shaped the Fair.  Frederick Law Olmstead, who designed the landscaping, George Washington Ferris, who designed the famous Wheel, and Sol Bloom, who managed the Midway, all receive due attention as well, and Larson interweaves their threads skillfully to complement Burnham's story and fill in the broader tapestry of the Fair.  Less interesting are the chapters dedicated to Patrick Pendergast, a disappointed, delusional office seeker and assassin, who is either too prominent or not prominent enough, distracting from other narratives without yielding any real insight.  

The greatest difficulty Larson faces is Holmes.  An inveterate liar, conman, polygamist, and sociopath, much of Holmes' life remains mysterious, with even known facts colored by rumor and supposition.  A writer must be careful in separating reality from fantasy.  Disappointingly, Larson does not engender confidence in this regard, even reimagining a scene from Holmes' childhood to equip him with a Lecter-grade cold, intimidating stare.  Further undermining the reader's trust are some bald errors - Mary Kelly, last of the canonical victims of Jack the Ripper, was not pregnant at the time of her murder.  Thankfully, Larson regains some measure of skepticism before the end of the book, lest Holmes appear to be the only predator in 1893 Chicago.

There may be better books about the Columbian Exposition - Harold Schechter's Depraved is certainly a better book about Holmes.  What The Devil in the White City does so well is telling the stories in parallel, allowing similarities to emerge without ostentatiously drawing attention to them.  Burnham and Holmes were men of their time, like many others drawn to Chicago as a city on the move, where a man could be whoever he wanted to be.  Each struggled and strived to live that dream or nightmare.