:INFO
The True Crime Book Where the Architecture Is the Hero
Erik Larson weaves two stories through The Devil in the White City: the building of the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago and the murders committed by H.H. Holmes inside a hotel he built adjacent to the fairgrounds. The Holmes sections are genuinely frightening. But the sections about the architects and engineers trying to build the impossible White City in an impossible timeline are the reason this book is better than a straightforward true crime account.


:NOTE
Larson runs the Burnham and Holmes narratives in parallel for a reason. Trust it.


:QUOTE [quotetype:plain, subtitle:Erik Larson]
All the Fair needed was a devil, and the devil had come.


:JOURNEY
Reading The Devil in the White City
5 As gripping as Holmes
4 Effective and dark
5 Grounds everything
5 Storylines meet

:NOW
Thinking about visiting Chicago and seeing what remains of the 1893 fair grounds and the neighborhoods that grew around the White City site.

:POLL
Did you find the architecture sections or the true crime sections more compelling?
The architecture and city-building sections by a wide margin
The Holmes sections, because that is what drew me to the book
Both equally, the weaving was the point
I have not read it yet