Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania
Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania by Erik Larson (2016, Crown Reprint edition, paperback, 480 pages, $10.55) is the true story of the sinking of the British steamship ocean liner, the RMS Lusitania. Torpedoed by a German U-Boat during World War I, this book is perfectly titled. Dead wake is “a maritime term that describes the fading disturbance that lingers on the surface of a body of water long after a vessel (or torpedo) has passed.” This book goes beyond a predictable tragedy or war story due to Larson’s skill in capturing vivid details of people’s personalities and their motivations in life that he gleaned through letters and other historical documents.
Historical people that figure prominently in this book include the ship’s captain, Englishman William Thomas Turner, President Woodrow Wilson and Charles Lauriat, a bookseller carrying Charles Dickens’s copy of A Christmas Carol. Larson found a natural villain in the German U-Boat commander, Walther Schwieger, a 32-year-old man obsessed with achieving his “sunk tonnage” goals. As with most tragedies, many unfortunate circumstances collided to create the cataclysmic event. Perhaps the most egregious was the pennywise and pound foolish shipping company that ordered that only three of the four smoke stacks would be run to cut costs, which prevented the Lusitania from outrunning its attackers. Although 123 Americans were killed with the sinking the Lusitania off Ireland’s west coast, this loss of life did not compel President Woodrow Wilson to commit to helping the British for another two years. The lovelorn Wilson’s preoccupation with wooing Edith Bolling Gait is a wonderful addition to this sad tale.
According to an interview done for the American Booksellers Association, Larson spent seven days a week for about two years doing research before he wrote the first official page of his book. His knack for folding fact-based research into a compelling dramatic story is what typically rockets his nonfiction books to bestseller status. If the book was meant an homage to the 600 passengers and crew that remain lost, then Larson has done them justice.
Acclaim for Dead Wake when it was first released in hard cover included #1 History & Biography Book in the 2015 Goodreads Choice Awards, Finalist for the Washington State Book Award — History/General Nonfiction, A LibraryReads Top Ten Book of 2015, a Library Journal Top Ten Book of 2015, a Kirkus Best Book of 2015 and
A Washington Post Notable Nonfiction Book of 2015. Erik Larson is the author of five New York Times bestsellers, including The Devil in the White City, which stayed on the Times‘ hardcover and paperback lists for over five years. Larson has been a staff writer for The Wall Street Journal, and a contributing writer for Time Magazine. Larson’s investigative skills are unsurpassed. I look forward to reading his next fact-based book on whatever topic he chooses.
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