Author Larson talks about books during speaker series

For a man who writes about dark subjects — among them, serial killers and natural disasters — best-selling author Erik Larson is surprisingly funny.
Larson delivered a lecture, peppered with humorous anecdotes about his writing career, April 29 at Mellon Middle School, where he was a featured speaker for the Mt. Lebanon Public Library Speaker Series.
Larson discussed his newest book, “Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania,” an account of the sinking of the British ocean liner en route from New York to Liverpool when it was torpedoed by a German U-Boat off the southern coast of Ireland May 7, 1915. About 1,200 of the 2,000 passengers aboard died.
Larson said the impetus for writing his books has always been a curiosity about the lives of people who find themselves in harrowing situations.
“What would it have been like to have been on the Lusitania?” he asked, noting events that took place aboard the ship, such as when one filled lifeboat fell on top of another filled boat.
Larson said his goal as a writer is to tell a story that impacts readers and make them feel as if the event is happening for the first time.
“I don’t think of myself as a historian. I prefer to think of myself as an animator of history,” said Larson, 65. “My goal is to create as real a historical experience as I can.”
Larson is the author of five New York Times bestsellers, including “In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler’s Berlin,” and “Isaac’s Storm,” about a hurricane that devastated Galveston, Tex. in 1900 and killed more than 6,000 people.
His critically acclaimed book “The Devil in the White City” stayed on the Times’ hardcover and paperback lists for a combined total of 5 years.
“Devil,” a page-turner about the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago and serial killer H.H. Holmes, won an Edgar Award for nonfiction crime writing and was a finalist for a National Book Award.
Larson announced at the lecture — to applause — that Leonardo DiCaprio and Martin Scorsese will serve as executive producers for a series based on the book being developed by Hulu.
Larson described his search for a topic to write about as “the dark country of no ideas.”
“You’ve to to have the right idea,” said Larson, who contemplated writing a book about the Lusitania for about five years before he started writing it.
Larson travels throughout the world to conduct research, visiting archives and libraries to gather as much information from as many sources as he can.
On a trip to the Lusitania archive at Stanford University, an archivist showed him a piece of wood from a lifeboat. It had washed up beside a body on the beach.
“It’s about finding the right bits and pieces of detail that will light the imagination of the reader, and then arranging those pieces in as compelling a manner as possible so the reader can experience the events as if they were living it,” Larson said.
At the start of the lecture, Larson, tall and thin, and dressed in blue jeans, a suit jacket and tie, thanked the audience — more than 1,000 people — for attending.
The self-effacing author recounted his first book signing, held at a book store in Lancaster, following the publication of his book, “The Naked Consumer.”
For the first half of the three-hour event, nobody ventured to his table, he recalled. He sat in a chair, a stack of books and plate of chocolate chip cookies on the table for patrons.
Finally, a woman approached, smiling.
“The woman came up to me and said, ‘How much are the cookies?'” Larson said.
Larson said he hopes his readers are transported by his books.
“There is a beautiful paradox here, and that is because of the magic of reading we may, in fact, know the ending of a story,” Larson said. “But if it’s properly told, people will suspend their knowledge and allow themselves to fall back in time.”
For information about the Mt. Lebanon Public Library Speaker Series, visit www.mtlebanonlibrary.org.