Scary Night

Non-fiction books have never really been my favorite things to read unless they were about sports, so I came into this assignment expecting to get a biography from an athlete. I ended up choosing The Devil in the White City by Erick Larson, a very accredited author. I ended up choosing this based off of the short preview we got in the library, and through the first chapter or so I am beginning to get impatient. However, I am determined to continue reading because it combines two separate stories of a serial killer, and an architect.

It starts off by explaining the way of life in Chicago during the late 1800’s, as Chicago is one of the main cities in the United States at the time. France had just finished building Eiffel Tower, which America took as a challenge, for they had not begun any extravagant architecture themselves. American minds planned on how to rival Frances new wonder of the world, and Daniel Burnman eventually came up with the idea of a World Fair. Burnman was also known for designing the Montauk, or the first building to be known as a skyscraper. The other part of the story surrounds Doctor Holmes. He tricked the new incoming women to staying at his apartment complex and eventually killed them. This White City that Burman had come to create was now showing some problems and headaches for the architect. He was the man to create electricity and lighting that is common in our households today. Both of the men that the book follows are very ingenious ones in their own respect. Burnman went on to make a great and successful World Fair, where Holmes would go to make a World Fair Hotel with gas chamber and crematorium.  When I first heard about the book, it sounded like a fiction novel because of the storyline, but Erick Larson was able to pull out a story from the world fair in Chicago.

The book does start off a little slow when one hears about the mass murder of women and a huge World Fair, but does an excellent job setting up the story. Chicago, who had recently suffered from the great fire of 1871, was finished rebuilding and wanted to show it off to the world. Larson writes of Burnman, whom starts to relive the beginning of the World Fair. Even though the story started of slow, it is interesting, and I am looking forward to the rest of the story.