Seattle author/historian to speak in Mukilteo

Published 7:19 pm Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Erik Larson used to work for The Wall Street Journal. When he got tired of writing about business, he switched to history — in a big way.

It was a smart change. Larson’s page-turning books have been a hit with readers, proving that what he calls historical narrative is anything but dry history.

Larson, who lives in Seattle, is the author of “The Devil in the White City.” Published in 2003, it blends accounts of the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair with the story of a serial killer whose deadly deeds occurred in the shadow of the fair’s great exhibit halls.

Actor Leonardo DiCaprio acquired the rights to make a movie of “The Devil in the White City,” a National Book Award finalist that won an Edgar Award for nonfiction crime writing.

Larson’s latest book, “In the Garden of Beasts,” also explores good and evil. It’s written in the compelling style of a spy novel. Again though, Larson has written about history.

The new book tells of William Dodd, the American ambassador to Germany, and his daughter, Martha Dodd Stern, who went to Berlin as the Nazis were coming to full power. It’s now on The New York Times best-seller list of hardcover nonfiction.

“You could call me a historian. That’s what I do,” Larson said by phone Tuesday.

Larson will be in Mukilteo on Friday to speak at a fund-raising breakfast for the Mukilteo Schools Foundation. A few tickets are still available for the event scheduled to begin at 7:30 a.m. Friday at the Kamiak High School Commons.

“The foundation has chosen literacy to be its core mission,” said Andy Muntz, spokesman for the Mukilteo School District. Muntz, also the foundation’s secretary, said that $26,000 was raised at a similar event last year. Proceeds this year will be used to buy sets of science books for first-grade and fifth-grade classrooms.

“The dream is to keep bringing well-known authors to Mukilteo,” Muntz said. Bob Drewel, former Snohomish County executive and now executive director of the Puget Sound Regional Council, will emcee Friday’s breakfast.

Larson, 57, isn’t a Seattle native. Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., and raised on Long Island, he went to the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia University School of Journalism. He worked for a newspaper in Philadelphia and for The Wall Street Journal before, he said, “I got tired of writing about business.”

He and his wife, a doctor, lived in Baltimore and San Francisco before moving to Seattle. Larson has lived in the Northwest since 1997.

The label “historian” may suggest the study of dry information, but Larson’s aim isn’t to rehash tired history.

“I try to find a true story that lends itself to being retold in the fashion you might refer to as novelistic,” he said. “Everything is real. It unfolds the way the event unfolded.”

As in a can’t-put-it-down mystery, Larson said he doesn’t give away his endings. Even with a history as well known as World War II, he said, readers seem to have “this willingness to suspend what they know.”

With “In the Garden of Beasts,” set in the Nazi Germany of 1933 and 1934, Larson said he found in his research a time and place far more complex that he had known. “The more I got into it, it was absolutely fascinating,” he said.

In this age of the Kindle and other e-readers, Larson doesn’t see the death of books coming anytime soon. “I see the printed word as absolutely alive and well,” he said. About half the sales of his new book have been for e-readers.

He is optimistic, too, about a new generation of readers. “Look at the success of Harry Potter, Stephenie Meyer’s books and “Hunger Games.” Kids are reading massive books with sophisticated concepts, Larson said.

“Now with the advent of the Nook and the Kindle, books are cheaper and more readily available. If you’re living in the middle of Montana, you don’t have to drive 200 miles to get a book. That’s a great thing,” he said.

“There’s a huge hunger for good things to read,” Larson said.

Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460, muhlstein@heraldnet.com.

Larson in Mukilteo

Erik Larson, author of the award-winning nonfiction books “The Devil in the White City” and “In the Garden of Beasts,” will speak at a fundraising breakfast for the Mukilteo Schools Foundation from 7:30 to 9 a.m. Friday at the Kamiak High School Commons, 10801 Harbour Pointe Blvd, Mukilteo. Tickets $35.