Last year I wrote an article for a local paper about a lecture given by Larson at Monmouth University.  I’m sharing this with you in case your book club is looking for a good book.

“If you don’t know history, then you don’t know anything. You are a leaf that doesn’t know it is part of a tree. ” ― Michael Crichton

Well, Erik Larson knows history.  He is a mastermind at finding those historical exploits that people don’t know or have forgotten, then researches the hell out of them and turns them into New York Times bestselling novels. That sounds a lot easier than it is.

On Monday night, March 28, Larson spoke to a packed house at the Pollak Theatre at Monmouth University. The event was part of the Department of History and Anthropology’s Charles Mayes lecture series on World War I.

Larson’s latest book “Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania,” deals with the torpedoing of the ship by the Germans two years before the United States entered World War I.  

Just as he did in his previous books, Larson’s characters are presented in a narrative arch in a natural way. “…by finding the right bits and pieces to the story we can experience the event through their eyes when they don’t know the ending.” Larson told the assembly.

The lawsuits that were brought after the sinking created a lot of archival material.  Larson found that most writers had written about the diplomatic pressures of entering World War I after the sinking of the ship, but not about the people involved or the ship’s fateful voyage. (more…)