In the Garden of Beasts

Our Exclusive interview with The Devil in the White City author Erik Larson:

BOMC: You have a knack for uncovering dramatic and enlightening stories from the forgotten past of American history. How do you find your material?
Erik Larson: The central idea generally arrives by luck, though I like to think, or to delude myself into thinking, that I can put myself in the way of luck by reading widely and promiscuously. I'll go to my favorite library and literally pull books at random from shelves just to spark some new line of thinking, or I'll pull out a few rolls of microfilm for old newspapers and scroll through random dates, or I'll read obscure magazines about obscure scientific subjects, the more obscure the better. This random search rarely leads directly to a new book idea, but it enriches and warms the brain and, I think, leaves me open to being blindsided by something new—although it could be that this random searching is completely pointless and is merely a way for me to feel busy and productive until lightning eventually strikes.

BOMC: How did you research the life of a serial killer who was so ingenious at assuming multiple identities and covering his tracks?
Larson: This was indeed a difficult process—made harder by the fact that the judge in Dr. H. H. Holmes' eventual trial made a ruling that barred the prosecution from bringing forth a lot of good, detailed testimony. Even so, there is a fairly rich, if spotty, historical record on Holmes and his killings. The newspapers of the era gave the story exhaustive coverage, and their long and detailed stories, once stripped of hyperbole and fabrications, do yield a good foundation of facts. Holmes himself left a memoir and several confessions, all of which were a mixture of truths and lies, but even the lies told me something important about the man. Certain sources proved especially valuable. A full transcript of Holmes' trial was published in book form. And the detective whose work eventually condemned Holmes to death left a very good, very accurate account of his own journey in search of several of Holmes' victims. I used these seams of evidence as a prosecutor might, in making his case to a jury.

BOMC: Your book seems to be about two poles of human nature, one creative and idealistic, the other malign and destructive, and in that character contrast it almost seems like a novel. Did you consider writing it as fiction?
Larson: Never. Frankly you couldn't tell this story as fiction. What drew me to it was precisely the fact that both these men were indeed opposites, that both lived at the same time in the same city, that both embodied traits that made the Gilded Age so spectacularly rich in achievement and color, and that both men's fates were tied directly to the great fair of 1893. The characters and events are so over the top, the circumstances so strange and macabre, that they simply would not succeed in a novel. It is the fact that all these things really happened that makes the two stories so compelling. I feel too that neither the Holmes story, nor the contrapuntal story of Daniel Burnham's heroic campaign to build the fair, would have worked as a book by itself. The stories needed each other. It is their juxtaposition that gives them power. Together the traits of the two men created a kind of whole, yin and yang, id and ego, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

BOMC: There are so many harrowing stories of brutal crime nowadays that it almost seems like an epidemic of our time. Do you have reason to believe serial killers were as common in the 1890s, but less likely to be discovered?
Larson: I do not think serial killings occurred as commonly back then as now. For one thing, societal structures—strong nuclear families, close-knit towns, a pervasive sense of community—tended to inhibit such extreme behaviors. With the rise of cities and of industry, those structures began to erode. In the Gilded Age, for example, women could at last travel and live on their own, a phenomenon Dr. Holmes recognized and exploited. I have no doubt, however, that in the wild flux of the age, many murders occurred that escaped notice. Holmes, for example, managed to escape the scrutiny of Chicago police until a chance insurance investigation at last led detectives to his hotel. What makes Holmes particularly interesting is how, by taking full advantage of the rise of industry and urban life to conduct and mask his crimes, he foreshadowed the emergence of the modern urban serial killer.

BOMC: How effective were the police detection methods of the time, when it came to identifying and tracking down a murderer?
Larson: When the police were motivated to conduct an investigation, they did quite well. Chicago police, for example, managed to resolve a lot of high-profile crimes during the period when Holmes was at work. They did this through simple, mind-numbing investigation—talking and walking—and knowing the neighborhoods where they walked their beats. But the police paid far less attention to routine murders, especially of immigrants and blacks. The department was also seriously understaffed, and many of its officers were appointed simply as an act of patronage. Two powerful investigative tools did exist, however: the telegraph, which at last let detectives communicate with their peers in distant cities; and the telephone, which allowed much better coordination within and between precincts. Fingerprinting as an investigative weapon had yet to emerge.

BOMC: Planning the Chicago World's Fair seemed to attract some of the brightest and most creative minds of the time. Why was it so important?
Larson: It's funny—when a friend of mine read an early draft of the book, she asked a similar question, why did Chicago want the fair so badly? To me, having steeped myself in the character of the age, the answer was obvious: Chicago wanted the fair as a matter of civic honor and national pride. But I suddenly realized, also, how alien such civic goodwill must seem to a modern audience, and how much we'd all lost over the last century with the erosion of our sense of community.

BOMC: Are there traces of the White City to be found in present-day Chicago?
Larson: Very few direct traces remain. The most obvious is the wonderful Museum of Science and Industry in Jackson Park. During the fair it was the Palace of Fine Arts. Afterward, in honor of that glorious time, civic leaders raised money to transform the building from a temporary structure coated in plaster-like "staff" to a permanent building. It's a huge structure that today dominates the landscape, yet back in 1893 it was just one of many gigantic structures in the park, and was dwarfed by its near neighbor, the Manufactures and Liberal Arts Building. Nothing remains of the Ferris Wheel.

BOMC: Since you've spent so much time studying an architectural project that was a monument and symbol of its time, I wonder if you have any thoughts about what should be built on the site of the World Trade Center?
Larson: One thing I learned in my research is that sometimes a city just has to put aside the rational and prudent and strive instead for beauty and meaning, no matter how loudly the accountants scream. New York needs to think ahead to the ideal city it would like to be twenty-five years down the road, and then to envision what kind of structure or memorial should be built now to help achieve that dream. Frankly, if it were left to me, I'd build nothing. I'd find a modern-day Olmsted and turn that ground into a lovely haven of trees, flowers, and stone, with pastoral niches where people forever would be able to retreat to think about the things in their lives that really matter. Scattered throughout would be boulders engraved with the names of all the 9/11 dead, and beside them, three thousand small electric lanterns clustered in random fashion, like a congress of fireflies.

BOMC: What writers are your models for the kind of books you write?
Larson: I don't rely on any existing models, though several books informed my thinking about Devil in the White City. One was The Alienist, by Caleb Carr, which I adored for its evocation of old New York. The second was Martin Dressler, by Steven Millhauser, which conjured the anything-can-happen spirit of the end of the 19th century. I also re-read Truman Capote's In Cold Blood, and found its power just as intense as it was back when first published. I just wish he had left source notes, so I could better see how he did it.

BOMC: Who are some of your favorite historians?
Larson: First, one thing: I don't consider myself a "historian." I happen to be a writer who tells stories culled from history, the sagas that professional historians typically leave in the footnotes. It is my goal to animate history. As to the historians I favor, first and foremost there is David McCullough. I especially admire his Mornings on Horseback, about the boyhood and youth of Theodore Roosevelt, and his Path Between the Seas, on the building of the Panama Canal.