As an ex-horror hound and splatter-punk fan, the fact that I was disturbed was just more proof that non-fiction cannot be enjoyed for the very fact that it is real. Isaac’s Storm, my first Larson experience, was not his best work since his historical subject was unhelpfully elusive and I found the aftermath of the hurricane to be too gory and disturbing for words. I didn’t want any dead, unarguable facts cluttering up the mystery and majesty of a story. I first encountered him in graduate school, when the head of our program (an ex-journalist) combined the fiction and non-fiction writers’ class. But hey, for this, I’ll have to tell you my own story.Įrik Larson has been on the bestselling list for years and his novel-like style of writing has captured both joy readers (my term) and history enthusiasts. It’s a great surprise then that when my book club announced this as our March selection, my fiction addicted self was less than enthralled. No small wonder that Dead Wake has a cover photo of eerie darkness then, the very title itself, harvested from a maritime term, functioning as a double meaning for what I prefer to call “the lost Titanic of history.” When we think of Dead Wake we see a ghost story, underwater tombs, and the examination of a mystery over 100 years old.

You can almost imagine him sitting by a campfire, in the dark of some forest night, bringing long forgotten people and old tragedies alive again in a blisteringly real way that only the darkness and the imagination can evoke.

Rating: A Real Narrative of the Lost Titanic of HistoryĮrik Larson is somewhere between a historian and an old school story teller.

Erik larson dead wake review