A Conversation with Erik Larson
You often write about
fascinating events in history that most of us have never before heard of, but
much is already known about the Lusitania.
What made you decide to write about its last crossing?
The Lusitania, like the Titanic, is just such a compelling
story, and I felt I could do it in a way that no one else had. I was drawn by
the prospect of using the vast fund of archival materials available on the
subject to produce a real-life maritime thriller—things like code books,
intercepted telegrams, even some extremely passionate love letters between
Woodrow Wilson and the woman he fell in love with after his first wife had
died. It became for me an exploration of the potential for generating suspense
in a work of nonfiction. Plus, I knew the one hundredth anniversary of the
disaster—May 7, 2015—was just over the horizon. Further, I’d wager that just
about everything that people know or think they know about the Lusitania is just flat-out wrong.
Certainly that was the case with me. The sheer wrenching drama of the event
pretty much took my breath away.
You
provide a harrowing, moment-by-moment account of the Lusitania’s sinking. What helped you most in terms of your ability
to re-create that event in real time?
The
most valuable tools were depositions and other first-person accounts given soon
after the sinking. These provided a rich timeline of events: the peace and good
cheer aboard ship as the Irish coast appeared in the distance, the moment of
impact, and the truly macabre and disconcerting things that followed, as
parents made cruel choices and passengers confronted the decision of whether to
jump, get in a lifeboat, or stay aboard. These events, juxtaposed against
details about the U-boat’s voyage as revealed in the War Log of its captain,
Walther Schwieger, and in secretly intercepted telegrams, helped me create a
real-time sense of growing dread and danger.
What
was the most surprising or affecting thing you learned in the course of your
research?
Easily
the most moving moment was when I was granted special access by the University
of Liverpool to examine a collection of morgue photographs taken soon after the
disaster. I was not permitted to photograph or otherwise reproduce the images,
for obvious reasons. But the photographs really brought home to me something
that tends to get lost in the historiography of the event—that it was first and
foremost a deeply tragic event that subjected two thousand men, women, and
children to unimaginable horror.
You’ve
called DEAD WAKE a maritime Devil in the White City. Why?
Because
here was this luxurious vessel, a monument to the hubris and invention of the
age, making its way through the sea, as another vessel, a German U-boat
commanded by a prolific killer of ships and men, entered the same waters. It
seemed to touch some of the contrasting themes that arise in Devil—the juxtaposition of good and
evil, light and dark, invention and destruction.
Captain
William Thomas Turner ends up being blamed for the sinking of the Lusitania, by those who knew better.
Why?
To
me the answer seems pretty clear: The Admiralty had a very important secret to
protect. But I don’t want to spoil the fun, so I’ll leave that for readers to
discover on their own.
Keywords:
Author Bio, A Conversation with Erik Larson, Lusitania, DEAD WAKE, Devil in the White City, Captain William Thomas Turner, Walther Schwieger, Titanic
