A conversation with ‘Devil in the White City’ author Erik Larson about his strangely comforting new book, ‘The Splendid and the Vile,’ a story of survival and leadership in wartime England
talked with Larson about why he doesn’t consider himself an historian, the importance of having a good narrative arc, and what Churchill would have done about the coronavirus. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.for the past few weeks, and I actually found it to be a strangely comforting read as I’ve been holed up.
Certainly his wartime leadership is more revered than his leadership at other times or his colonial record. Have you thought at all about if Churchill was around to see this particular crisis, what he would have said or what he would have done? One of the things that comes across is the sensory experience of being in London at the time, the dust covering everything and the smell of burning timber and the blacked-out night. What were some of the sensory details that popped for you that brought this period to life?
One of the sources you use for the book that I was most intrigued by was the Mass Observation program, which recruited ordinary British people, hundreds of them, to record everyday life in diaries. What did you learn about the Blitz from their perspective?
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