Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania
by Erik Larson.
Adult nonfiction.
Since Erik Larson’s In the Garden of Beasts was one of
my neighborhood book group’s favorite
books, I was eager to read Dead Wake.
Larson writes nonfiction that pulls readers in and with so many details that
readers think they are there . He
teaches history without pain and fuss! Dead Wake builds like the drama it is.
Larson’s extensive research provides names and details about many of the ship’s
passengers. One chapter tells exactly what life in a submarine was like.
Readers see the grieving President Woodrow Wilson as he finds a new love and
woos Edith. While the United States learns of German attacks across the
Atlantic, it does not actually enter the war until two years after the attack
on the Lusitania. The sinking of the huge ship carrying so many American, so
many families and children, and, yes, so many munitions definitely changed the
course of the war and America’s role in it. Larson tells human interest details
as well as the details of troops, the British Admiralty, and German submarine
movements. Especially interesting are the final pages of extensive bibliography
references and citations. While he admits that he is a writer, not an expert on
World War I history, Larson’s focused expertise serves him well in this
suspenseful and dramatic account about which so many Americans know very
little.
