The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America - Erik L...

[red oracle]

From <t:1717286400:D> to <t:1722470400:D> | Leader(s): @burnt shoal

Book Link
Cover: https://cdn.thestorygraph.com/1qsbcz3wlgr0vya512l79khf2dn1

ID: 6653fea0474de8bc0c193ebd
Announcement: #buddy-reads message

[burnt shoal]

Oh wow!!! Yay!!

[crimson path]

I'm picking up so many BRs lately

[burnt shoal]

I didn't think it was going to pass! Now I have to find a copy LOL

[crimson path]

I got one just in case it was approved

[burnt shoal]

I put it on hold this morning, and it should be arriving from one of our other branches early next week. I'll be ok

[red oracle]

@burnt shoal,@silver flicker,@modern blade,@crimson path,@hard mason,@rigid robin,@tribal viper,@empty escarp,@shadow maple,@outer hamlet,@unkempt hound

Hello Investigators!! Welcome to the Buddy Read for The Devil in the White City! ! I’m very excited to be reading this with all of you this summer. I’ve never read anything by Erik Larson before, but he is widely known for his ability to write engaging narrative nonfiction, so I have high expectations.

Please remember to share your thoughts as you read and to use spoiler bars as needed.

1. Do you generally enjoy true-crime stories? Why?
2. Have you ever been to Chicago?
3. Do you enjoy going to showcase events like fairs? Either local county fairs or bigger?
4. What made you want to join this BR?

Happy Reading!

[crimson path]

1. I like true crime for the psychological aspect - why do people do what they do. I don't like the exploitative aspect and how people can sensationalise tragic events that have happened to people though.
2. I haven't! I wouldn't mind visiting though.
3. Fairs can be really fun and because of where I live and the annual fairs that we have they kind of have a small town feel to them.
4. Your br request made it sound really interesting so I wanted to pick it up

[outer hamlet]

1. I love reading true crime, as I find it interesting to read about the triggers, and psychology of crime. I love reading about Cults for the same reason.
2. I have not been to Chicago.
3. No, I get a bit scared of huge crowds - so I would avoid them.
4. I have heard a bit about HH Holmes and want to delve in depth.

[hard mason]

Starting the audiobook!!

[shadow maple]

1. Yes! I like true crime treated respectfully. I'm interested from a psychological and legal perspective.
2. No I've only been to the Southern US
3. Summer Fairs! We have them all the time in the UK, our schools also host fetes which were a staple of childhood.
4. Non-Fiction time bby.

I've got the book ready for me to take to work tomorrow

[burnt shoal]

1. I do too when they're told well and not completely sensationalized. I'm also mostly interested in the psychology but also the process of investigation and how connections get is part of it
2. Yes! for a few hours on a plane layover a friend drove me all around the city and we walked through a few famous areas
3. Sometimes? I like seeing the crafty parts, and the performances, but my kids always loved the animals and the rides. We went every year when they were young. For awhile, my library parked the bookmobile at the county fair, and we got to take turns staffing it and then spend time at the fair for free afterwards
4. I've been wanting to read this author for some time now, and my husband and I watched a documentary on HH Holmes, so I decided to go for this one since it made me curious. Thank you for joining me!!

[shadow maple]

General
||Whenever I read about H.H Holmes, I almost struggle to agree that he was a REAL person. He's almost fictionalised levels of evil.||

[shadow maple]

Chapter 15
Vexed
||I loved this chapter! It's so chaotic! Between everyone suggesting wild options to show up the Eifel Tower to hearing about how all the foundations of the event were put in place. That man fucken loved his boats.||

[shadow maple]

Chapter 16
Remains of the Day
|| THIS IS WHAT I MEAN. JESUS BROTHER WHAT WAS THAT ABOUT. ||

[rigid robin]

1. i enjoy true crime serial killer stories, always have been a huge interest of mine for just what goes through their minds and how are they able to do things they’ve done
2. never been to Chicago, but of if i wanted to visit where it’s said H H Holmes is buried i could go see it which is pretty cool
3. i always liked the idea of county fairs but have never been to one, i’ve gone to local high school fairs which i’ve always enjoyed
4. i tried reading this in the past but didn’t commit so i’d like to try again

[hard mason]

1. I do! Though I try and not get too detached or fandomy about it because this stuff involves real people
2. No!!! But the drag race quote “bitch I’m from Chicago” has been in my mind every time the audiobook narrator says Chicago
3. I’m not sure if I’ve ever been to a fair I wanna go though
4. This has been on my TBR for years and I had just finished my previous audiobook in time to join

I’m halfway through ch. 5 I’m enjoying ||the way the chapters go back and forth between Holmes and the fair stuff. Chicago in the 19th century sounds fricken miserable though. And it’s interesting how all serial killers are just so charming … it’s so eerie. They all have similar traits throughout human history. Makes me wonder if the cavemen serial killers were just as charming ||

[hard mason]

Ch. 23: introducing WHAT ||to the anus?!?! tf was that supposed to cure?!||

[shadow maple]

||https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tobacco_smoke_enema||

[burnt shoal]

hoping to start this soon!

[hard mason]

I finished this today! Phew, what a ride.

In regards to the fair, I had such a hard time believing something like that actually existed! ||The descriptions of the buildings, how enormous it was … my brain just can’t comprehend it. The rivalries between cities and countries was interesting. The history of the Ferris wheel was particularly neat. All the government bureaucracy was very familiar as a government worker It was sad that a lot of the men who pioneered the major aspects of the fair died soon after or in misery and loneliness. Opening and closing the story with the titanic vignette really helped situate the fair in the historical timeline for me.||

About Holmes, ||I found his parts of the story didn’t add much to the larger book. There was a 75/25 feel to it with the majority of the book covering the fair and then the random bit about the Irish guy shooting the mayor. I think I would have preferred the book to focus only on the fair and go into more detail in certain areas, like more about what happened to the fair after it closed. Like is it still there?? I have no idea if it was demolished or what!||

||The two storylines are so large on their own that combining the two diminished them and lead to a this-is-a-brief-overview feeling instead of a detailed account.||

||I think I’m so used to David Grann going overboard with details and sources and quotes and documents and condensing a story down to the most important core of it.||

[burnt shoal]

Prologue || Ok, I’m enjoying the writing style quite a lot so far. And everything seems to be appropriately teased: the fair, the murderer, the supernatural, the trial. And connecting it to the tragedy of the Titanic feels auspicious for some reason too. Excited to learn more!||

Part 1 “Frozen Music” ch 1-5 || oof all of these names are getting a bit confusing to keep track of. I might need to start a chart if this continues.

All cities have an ambiance, and Chicago has such a seedy reputation; gangsters, slaughterhouses, sports scandals, and bootlegging. I think that’s due to it being founded much later than NYC, Boston and other east coast cities, but also founded completely due to its location as a massive hub of international water trade/shipping and a meeting place of many industries. The memory of the Chicago Fair has lasted though history tho for its significance; Idk if the US ever hosted another one as Chicago’s remains iconic.

It’s kind of amazing how during a time when there were no real IDs or discoverable paper trails, people could just reinvent themselves over and over. This Holmes dude was quite the sociopathic charmer tho. I’m surprised that he went to the effort of filing for divorce from his 1st wife. Holmes is like a character in a Stephen King novel, and I can’t believe the things that he’s successfully getting away with lol ||

[burnt shoal]

Part 1 “Frozen Music” ch 6-10 || It’s not too surprising that the established architects would be reluctant to sign on for a transitory project like this, even though the Eiffel Tower definitely stuck around afterwards. I like how this is alternating chapters right now between the fair preparation and Holmes, but ngl, I’m enjoying the Holmes chapters more at this point. He’s such a manipulative little weasel. Hmmm. I wonder what Ned and Julia will witness living so interconnected with Holmes. Oof, the calm praise of Chicago not wasting any aspect of their unidentified corpses is … grim. I wonder how Larson is going to ultimately tie all these pieces together: Burnham, Holmes & Prendergast.||

[burnt shoal]

Part 2 “An Awful Fight” ch 11-15 || The joint meeting of the architects feels both competitive and collaborative at the same time. I’m glad that they were feeling the importance of it all even then. The overall plans sound a lot like what we experience in a theme park like Disney Epcot or something. Oooh, they’re using a facade type material in order to speed up construction… metaphor for America if ever I saw one; and ofc there is Union busting going on too. This whole business of bringing groups of people from other cultures is rather abhorrent to me, but I guess I can understand the curiosity. It’s just so smarmy. Omg, they literally pushed the sole woman architect into mental illness. Wth. This whole thing reminds me of a city’s preparations for an Olympic Games. OMG! Disney’s FATHER was one of the builders!!! Since I already know the fair will be successful, the time constraints and budgeting are not as suspenseful as I think the author wants them to be. They don’t need a tower, they need Mr Ferris and his wheel.

Oh no! Poor Gertrude. Poor clueless Ned. ugh. Poor Pearl and Poor stupid Julia. What a list he’s developing. Turning her into a medical skeleton tho, is pretty genius||

[burnt shoal]

Totally! ||It’s so elaborately over the top||

[burnt shoal]

Part 2 “An Awful Fight” ch 16-20 || Another pretty young victim. Seems like women were less likely to be skeptical in those years than now? We take access to decent water for granted now. Huh, I had no idea that the Pledge of Allegiance was a product of the Chicago Fair. wild. This section on Prendergast is… a bit out of the blue, and I’m not sure how they even know the postcard was from him? Aha! Name reveal for Ferris finally lol Oooh the footprint thing is shivery creepy||

[burnt shoal]

Part 2 “An Awful Fight” ch 21-25 || Wow, these buildings seem cursed, but it’s probably just working too fast and cutting corners that should have been better navigated. How the heck has Holmes been so successful with all of this business stuff while so preoccupied with his “hobbies” of deception and dissection? And now we have another one? Poor Minnie, we know how this is going to go… All of these fair chapters give such peeks with the almost vignette structure…. Which makes it move somewhat quickly, but it is sometimes difficult to remember who the main players are||

[red oracle]

@burnt shoal,@silver flicker,@modern blade,@crimson path,@hard mason,@rigid robin,@tribal viper,@empty escarp,@shadow maple,@outer hamlet,@unkempt hound,@thorn spoke,@abstract sluice,@gusty wedge

Hello Investigators!
We are at the ½ way point for this BR. How are we doing?
Here is what I have for progress:
Finished: jnix,
Started: lemondrop, Vaude

What satisfaction can be derived from a nonfiction book like The Devil in the White City that cannot be found in novels? In what ways is the book like a novel?

This book has a double narrative alternating structure. How did/is that affecting your reading experience?

Bonus! A slideshow of photographs from the fair! (I hope this links ok): https://youtu.be/tJROOVf85Fc

[burnt shoal]

Part 3 “In the White City”: Ch 26-30 || Oh my goodness, what a spectacle for the opening with the touch of the key; too bad about the wheel not being ready tho. Oh wow! I remember having a “Savings Passbook” as a kid, and bringing money to school to deposit each week. I wonder whatever happened to that money LOL Oh. the Sabbatarian Movement. I remember everything being closed on Sundays when I was a kid; I’m so glad that is no longer a thing.. But staff in our library district still get a special stipend for working on Sundays, so it’s still seen as a church day fr. Wild Bill is totally upstaging them, and I think it’s hilarious. I think nighttime is the best for these kinds of venues too… they become truly magical with the lights. I guess this lack of finish could bring more repeat visitors as the whole thing progresses, but that doesn’t seem to be the intent

Holmes is ready to go too. Oof. This book is not taking the stance that Holmes and Jack the Ripper were the same person. The documentary that I saw by Holmes’ descendent tries very hard to build that double identity

Still waiting to see how Prendergast is looped into the bigger narrative||

[burnt shoal]

Part 3 “In the White City”: Ch 31-35 || Ferris wheels seem so tame nowadays when compared to all of the thrill rides that have been invented since, but it must have been utterly thrilling to witness that first day. Americans have always been so compelled by European royalty which is ironic considering that whole Revolution thing we did. And then we always are so surprised when they don’t like us in return LOL Oof, the October visits are going to be overwhelming with crowds Wow! They were charging for cameras. Can you imagine? Uh oh, fire in densely populated areas is no joke fr. My ex-MIL was in the Hartford Circus fire of 1944 as a child, and was traumatized for life by the experience.

I like how we’re getting a more detailed assortment of the experiences one had through the POV of Minnie/Annie and Holmes. It makes it more immediate that we “know” these people more than an anonymous listing of sorts||

[burnt shoal]

Part 3 “In the White City: Ch 36-41 || I love all these anecdotes about celebrities and future celebrities. All of this praise for the glamor and wonder feels very American too; we definitely like our world stardusted and dreamlike, even then apparently. Our country always seems to be having economic crises tho. Seriously wth? Omg, there’s a tornado and a fire! Burnham can not catch a break. I can well imagine the romantic atmosphere of the fair and the wheel specifically; can you imagine the bragging rights you would have had if they’d let you get married in one of the cars!

Oh no. Poor Anne. She’s so not going to Paris.Hmmm. I really wonder how the author knew what Anna was thinking while in the vault, as those thoughts are very specific. When is this guy gonna mess up enough to get caught?||

[burnt shoal]

Part 3 “In the White City: Ch 42-47 || I think Millet’s ideas for special events sound super fun; I know what it’s like to be an event planner (within our library) so I know how much effort goes into brainstorming these kinds of things for the community. I’m sure he didn’t get the credit he deserved lol But ooooof the disrespect, intended or not, toward all the visiting cultures. Ngl, the disparity between the workers and the controlling owners of business has only gotten worse over the 130 years since this fair occurred. Huzzah! They banked out! OMG Imagine being the architect to fire Frank Lloyd Wright. It’s funny to me to think that in all this boasting about cities and the rivalry of NYC and Chicago at the time, that Boston is sitting smugly by. How nerve-wracking to consider burning it down tho… that sounds so dangerous and so mis-manageable especially by people traumatized by the Chicago Fire just 20 years prior. Aw the singing choir.

I feel like Prendergast is becoming more of a loose cannon, and uh oh, now he’s got a faulty revolver? Yikes Annnnd… he shoots the mayor. No real shock there tbh

Seems like the Golden Luck of Holmes is starting to turn brass. I hope his new fiancee survives, tho I don’t suppose she will. I really want to know what happens with Holmes!||

[burnt shoal]

Part 4 “Cruelty Revealed” Ch 48-53 || Hey, the Pinkerton’s are on the case! I wonder if all of the details in these letters from the children are actually accurate, or if Holmes dictated them? Seems odd that he’d do that tho and then not mail them out. OMG, the mom learned about it in the newspaper??!! And the directives about the memoir seem… appropriately manipulative lol Someone set the murder hotel on fire? Yikes he still has accomplices out there. In Chicago’s defense, he truly does seem fictional, and unfathomable in the 19th century. However, this is post-London Whitechapel, so maybe they shouldn’t have been completely surprised||

[shadow maple]

I finished this today btw I need to write a little about it but it's a bit harder for me to do that when it's non-fic, I will return later with my thoughts.

[burnt shoal]

Epilogues: || I’m sure the impact on architecture is true, but I also think a big influence of the fair was the concept that there could be a place devoted entirely to enjoyment that was permanent. That education and fun could be intertwined in the eye of the public and that money should be spent on both. That such places are a center of economic growth, including all tourism and service type businesses. It paved the way for Orlando, Florida and Anaheim, California. It cultivated the idea that Americans should/could travel for fun not just relocation and possibly invented the “Great American Road Trip” for the middle classes.

As for all of the “what happened next” for all of the various players, nothing was very surprising||

Finished!

Final thoughts ||This was a rather bizarre mashup of storylines, and I’m not completely sure why they were. It seems like there could have been separate books, but I feel like the author/publisher wanted to capitalize on the sensationalistic aspects of Holmes to sell more books, and there just wasn’t enough material to do another whole book just on him. I did find parts of this really interesting, and at times I enjoyed the tone of the writing, but there were also sections that dragged for me. I feel like this would have benefitted from more photographs and more first person accounts of experiencing the fair itself. This has been on my TBR a long time, along with others of his books, and I’m not sure that I’m going to jump into another one any time soon||

[shadow maple]

||I really get the vibe that Erik Larson 100% wanted to exclusively talk about the Fair. There's such a different vibe between the Fair chapters and Holmes chapters. ||

[shadow maple]

||So the thing about writing about H. H. Holmes is that while it's horrific, there's only a finite amount of information about what he did - Holmes gave various contradictory accounts of his life, initially claiming innocence and later that he was possessed by Satan. His propensity for lying has made it difficult for researchers to ascertain the truth on the basis of his statements. For example, he claimed that Dr. Robert Leacock, a fellow medical school classmate, was one of his first murder victims, and that he killed him in 1886 for insurance money; however, Leacock died on October 5, 1889. Combine this with inaccuracies persisting due to an ineffective police investigation and hyperbolic yellow journalism of the period, which are often cited as historical record, the true extent of what this man did is murky at best.||

||This book is interesting if only because we have Erik Larson fighting for his life to talk about the movements of this almost cartoonish evil man- while detailing the finer details of the development of one of the greatest and chaotic fairs in the world. ||
||I didn't expect to be so enthralled by the World Fair chapters- you can really feel that he researched and had a lot of passion for these chapters. In the beginning I naturally gravitated more to the Holmes chapters but over time this shifted to me being fascinated to hear about the inception of the Ferris wheel .||

||I'd like to shoutout that he has quite the talent for being informative while also really immersing the reader in what Chicago was like during this time. I really rated how easy it was to picture the fair (and motivate me to look at pictures ). Plus I learnt a lot too! I never knew that Columbus Day originated from the fair- Shredded Wheat too! But I digress that I can totally see why people don't adore this book. It's long-winded and a little dry between the chapters detailing the petty squabbles that came from putting the fair together; not even getting started about how alienating it can be if you're not interested in architecture ||

||I didn't mind the ongoing third plotpoint about the assassination of the mayor of Chicago by a mad (?) man who believed that he was going to get a job. He shapes a lot of his informative text in a novelistic sense and much of the H. H. Holmes material is based on conjecture too, so I feel that's important to note but he seems to otherwise take his research very seriously. ||

I had a fun time! I'm glad I got to reading it! It's not without it's faults but I think it's worth a read if you can parse the first 50 pages or so.

[burnt shoal]

There really is! ||Had you read other accounts about Holmes before? Did this jive with those? ||

[burnt shoal]

What satisfaction can be derived from a nonfiction book like The Devil in the White City that cannot be found in novels? In what ways is the book like a novel?
||I feel like I might have enjoyed this more as a novel tbh; there were so many aspects that defied belief and also real emotional beats that could have hit harder in fiction. The benefit is that we can maybe learn more about a time or people than we knew before, which can help to make historical connections make more sense. I loved learning that Disney’s dad helped to build the Fair, considering how much I think DisneyWorld tries to embody the same experiences||
This book has a double narrative alternating structure. How did/is that affecting your reading experience?
||I found myself enjoying the Holmes sections quite a lot, simply because the events were so unbelievable. I did also like the parts about the Ferris Wheel and the descriptions of the attractions/exhibits at the fair. I wish there had been more interconnection between the 2 narratives, but I guess that would fall more inline with fiction again, since we would be conjecturing so much of Holmes’ Fair activities||

[shadow maple]

||So the thing about Holmes is that while there's a lot of information about what he did there's not a real timeline or anything that can be 100% garnered - they had evidence of the chamber alongside the victims they could absolutely narrow down alongside all the shadier aspects (i.e: the insurances/skeletal stripping). But he denied so much of what he did, not giving an actual list of victims- sensationally they say that he had over 200 victims but what little information that he did give is also mostly erroneous; there's even speculation that he may have been Jack The Ripper. It's a really mysterious, strange and horrific case with surprisingly little information about what occurred in the infamous spot. Depraved by Harold Schechter is pretty good it goes into his other crimes in greater detail - Insurance and real estate fraud, he was also a horse thief! ||

[burnt shoal]

such a sociopath lol ||yeah, I'd heard about the Ripper conjecture; that's what made me want to read this book tbh. Especially after reading The Five last spring. I need to find that documentary that his grandson made, so I can link it here||

[burnt shoal]

@everyone we have about 3 weeks left for this one. How are we doing on time?

[crimson path]

I still need to start but it's definitely on my July tbr

[red oracle]

@burnt shoal,@silver flicker,@modern blade,@crimson path,@hard mason,@rigid robin,@tribal viper,@empty escarp,@shadow maple,@outer hamlet,@unkempt hound,@thorn spoke,@abstract sluice,@gusty wedge,@turbid mulch

Hello Investigators!

We have about 2 weeks left on this one. Is anyone thinking they’ll want an extension yet?
Here is what I have for progress:
Finished: jnix, lemondrop, Vaude
Started: abi?

What is the total picture of late nineteenth-century America that emerges from The Devil in the White City? How is that time both like and unlike contemporary America? What are the most significant differences? In what ways does that time mirror the present?

Was the entire Fair, in its extravagant size and cost, an exhibition of arrogance? Do such creative acts automatically engender a darker, destructive parallel? Can Holmes be seen as the natural darker side of the Fair's glory?

[burnt shoal]

Fwiw: this was the documentary I saw by Holmes’ descendant, which was pretty interesting

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7132032/

[unkempt hound]

Just started this!!

1. Yes! One of the best books I read in 2023 was Patrick Radden Keefe's Rogues, which is a collection of true crime articles he wrote for the New Yorker
2. Yes! A long time ago though, so my memory is vague
3. Yes! I recently went to a July 4th Fair and loved it!!
4. True Crime + Murderer... seems like my cup of tea. Also I've head great things about this book, so I'm excited!

[unkempt hound]

wow great questions!

1. I often believe that facts are stranger than fiction... and some strange stuff that just can't be made up. So far, the gruesome details of Jack the Ripper's crimes felt like a fictional novel to me, but even more gruesome given that they are true!

2. Honestly I'm enjoying the chapters on HH Holmes more... the ones about building the World Fair at Chicago is just so ... logistically driven and so many characters that I'm having a hard time to keep track of lol

also thanks for sharing the photos from the World Fair!

[burnt shoal]

||I also connected more to the Holmes chapters, especially in the beginning. The fair got more compelling for me once it opened ||

[burnt shoal]

Ofc! It was a good find

[hard mason]

I just watched that video of the pictures and holy smokes that puts a lot of the book into perspective! That place was enormous!

[burnt shoal]

It really was

[red oracle]

@burnt shoal,@modern blade,@crimson path,@hard mason,@rigid robin,@tribal viper,@empty escarp,@shadow maple,@outer hamlet,@unkempt hound,@thorn spoke,@abstract sluice,@gusty wedge,@turbid mulch

Hello Investigators!
We have about 1 week left on this one. Please let me know if you’ll be interested in an extension.

Here is what I have for progress:
Finished: jnix, lemondrop, Vaude
Started: abi?, jpuzzle

What motives, in addition to "civic honor," drove Chicago to build the Fair? In what ways might the desire to "out-Eiffel Eiffel" and to show New York that Chicago was more than a meat-packing backwater be seen as problematic?

How was Holmes able to exert such power over his victims? What weaknesses did he prey upon? Why wasn't he caught earlier? Do you think the general public is as vulnerable to this kind of predator today?

[unkempt hound]

Somewhere in Part II ||I swear… if I read about another sentence about “becoming” boats as defined by Olmsted imma throw this book across the room ||

Part II Remains of the Day ||omg chloroform for an abortion?? No Julia noooo||

[unkempt hound]

part II remains of the day ||where’s pearl??? Also this devil of a doctor actually made money off killing this poor pregnant woman?!?!? I’m shook||

[burnt shoal]

@everyone just a reminder that this BR ends in about 5 days. Please lmk if you want more time

[unkempt hound]

i'm on track to finish!! right now about 60% way through

[crimson path]

Part 1 Chapter 1 - The Black City: Omg this is a really good opening and I'm already intrigued.

[crimson path]

Chapter 2 - The Trouble Is Just Begun: ||The whole him marrying someone and his wife's sister being in love with him lowkey reminds me of Hamilton.||

||Tbh I have a lot of respect for architects because they can design some beautiful structures and it's not easy to do at all.||

[crimson path]

Chapter 5 - Don't Be Afraid: ||Not this dude trying to charge his wife with infidelity when he's the one who's cheating.||

||Reports on ground conditions and shoring excavations just reminds me of work 😭||

||He's getting aroused at the thought of women being in buildings he's designed/built? Weirdo.||

[modern blade]

Oh shi... I knew I forgot a br

[crimson path]

Finished Part 1. ||It feels like we've been introduced to lots of different people in the first part and it's a little difficult to keep up with who everyone is and how they relate to the main theme of the story. It is reading like a work of fiction so far but I am losing interest a little bit.||

[burnt shoal]

||for me it picked up again, but yeah there are a lot of names tossed around||

[burnt shoal]

Do you want an extension?

[crimson path]

||Yeah, I'm expecting it to pick up and excited to see where it goes||

[modern blade]

I would love that

[burnt shoal]

Mid August? More?

[modern blade]

2 weeks would be perfect

[burnt shoal]

On it!

[red oracle]

Ongoing BuddyRead

The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America - Erik L...

Description

I have never read this author, and I’d like to try this narrative nonfiction. Join me?

Start Date

<t:1717286400:D>

End Date

<t:1723766400:D>

Thread(s)

#1246386376421937234

Requested By

@burnt shoal

Leader(s)

@burnt shoal(0)

Interested (14)

@burnt shoal,@modern blade,@crimson path,@hard mason,@rigid robin,@tribal viper,@empty escarp,@shadow maple,@outer hamlet,@unkempt hound,@thorn spoke,@abstract sluice,@gusty wedge,@turbid mulch

Event ID: 6653fea0474de8bc0c193ebd

[runic laurel]

Extended to <t:1723766400:D>

[unkempt hound]

[unkempt hound]

Ohh there’s a documentary on HH Holmes?? Did you like it? I feel it’d be a thrilling one

[burnt shoal]

I think there are several. The one I watched was his descendant (great grandson?) trying to prove that Holmes and Jack the Ripper were the same person, which was interesting. Lots of details about his activities in Chicago tho

[unkempt hound]

i finished!! will answer questions now, and add some thoughts

[unkempt hound]

it's so interesting that Chicago was in major competition to "prove itself" from New York and Paris. I've always thought of Chicago as a big city, but probably back then it had a lot of pressure to show the world that it's a refined place

that's a very interesting thought!!! i actually thought of Burnham as a 19th century Elon Musk lol, with his grand ambitions and (maybe indirectly) how the workers were horribly treated. The book did mention that the ||fair attracted crimes (and people expected to be so), but I think Holmes would've done those horrid things anyways... the fair just gave him a stage and income of people to do his evil things to||

[unkempt hound]

while the fair was majestic and grandeur, i think workers who built it really suffered... all to show the world that Chicago "could do it". The miracle of the Ferris Wheel was ... perhaps worth it?

It seems like ||Holmes just has a lot of "charm", with all the sweet talking and lot sof touching (ew). I'm guessing back then, people are more conservative, so maybe the majority of dudes just don't attend to their women as much (?) so Holmes kinda explored that vulnerability in some women in their desire to be noticed and loved. ugh as I'm writing this, I feel disgusted by Holmes' behaviors and feel so sad for the women that fell for his tricks. I think Holmes probably would've been caught sooner nowadays, but not sure if people won't fall for the same tricks. Maybe not the part where he's ostensibly building gas rooms and furnaces to burn bodies... lol... i hope?? ||

[unkempt hound]

ya i feel the same way... ||like there are multiple threads going on at the same time. The fair was probably the only thing tying them together, and I could see from a mile away that Prendergast was gonna do something to the mayor or maybe burn down a building lol||

[unkempt hound]

love your reactions!! it's like watching a reaction video to this book lol. Reading this book also reminded me of the olympics! maybe it's the opening ceremony, where people showcase their cultures. I guess back then people don't get to travel abroad as much, ||so shipping people from overseas seemed like a good idea lol||

[lapis canyon]

Gonna start this next week methinks

[burnt shoal]

Great!! It’s set to end on the 15th

[crimson path]

Chapter 11: ||I think there are a lot of people out there who were opium addicts but considered geniuses.||

Chapter 12: The chapter name

[crimson path]

||Hiding debts like that is not a sensible move at all. This guy seems way too understanding as it stands.||

[crimson path]

Chapter 13: ||I hate when people try to cover up shady things like deaths/H&S violations.||

Chapter 14 - Remains of the Day: ||Sorry but I would absolutely NOT be trusting this man to perform an abortion. Also if he's only marrying her because she's pregnant then what's to stop him calling off the engagement when she has the abortion and/or him botching it.||

||This Holmes guy sounds despicable||

||Bro, what the hell is going on with this men? One getting aroused from killing his gf and the other being proficient in stripping flesh??||

Chapter 16: ||What in the world are they injecting into people?||

||This Holmes dude is one of the biggest liars going||

[crimson path]

Chapter 23 - Dreadful Things Done By Girls (I think): ||I'm sorry but some of the 'medical' tips from way back when are absolutely wild. Who's putting tobacco up their ass to induce vomiting?||

Surely there are easier ways to get to your end goal than that??

[crimson path]

Got up to Part 3

[crimson path]

Chapter 30 - Modus Operandi: ||Yeah, all these people going missing who know Holmes isn’t suspicious at all ||

Chapter 32: if my name was Anna I would NOT be using Nannie as a nickname

||I was gonna say this dude is seeming overly familiar but it doesn’t look like Anna or Minnie are that bothered.||

||Taking them on a tour of a slaughterhouse is strange behaviour||

Chapter 35 - At Last: ||The fact that the ferris wheel looks unsafe to members of the public and they’re doing nothing to fix it. Come on guys. You know this is gonna end in disaster.||

Chapter 38 - Worry: ||This fair sounds like a scam and not financially sound at all. The investors were sold a pipe dream.||

Chapter 39 - Claustrophobia: ||is he trying to kill her by locking her in a vault? Can this guy just be arrested already?||

[crimson path]

Chapter 40: ||These morbid people flocking to see people die or visiting the next day to see the effects of the fire.||

[crimson path]

Chapter 45 - Toward Triumph: ||They are doing way too much to try and make this fair a success||

Part 4

Chapter 50: ||This dude is in prison complaining that he's humilated by being a prisoner and it's unjust man is just delulu||

||Of course he's getting privileges as a prisoner when he should be getting the exact opposite after what he's done.||

Chapter 51: ||I can't believe how close he was to getting away with everything.||

Chapter 54 - Malice Afterthought: ||Hang on. He's only being charged with one murder? When he's committed countless others. That doesn't seem like justice.||

Epilogue

Chapter 55 - The Fair:||Walt Disney's dad helped build it? So it literally could've been a blueprint for Disneyland/Disneyworld? That's wild.||

Chapter 56 - Recessional: ||Beating a horse because he's losing his memory. Nah, I hope he doesn't have a good end either.||

All of these men just absolutely suck

Finished. ||This was a really interesting topic and the book itself was incredibly well researched but unfortunately it seemed to be an absolute slog to get through at times. I thought I'd be more engaged whilst reading it but somehow it just didn't entirely click for me. I thought everyone in this was absolutely despicable and it's shocking how far some of them went in order to protect themselves or make money. I'm glad that what they were doing was finally uncovered and most of them seemed to have justice/karma in one way or another.|| I enjoyed parts of this though so I think I'm settling on 3.25 ⭐

Sorry it's taken me a while to finish this one!

[burnt shoal]

No worries, it’s pretty dense and slow in parts

[burnt shoal]

||This was largely my experience too. I really wanted the writing to be more captivating. And sometimes it was, so it was more inconsistent than anything. I think he was really stretching at times too to make it all connect ||

[red oracle]

@burnt shoal,@modern blade,@crimson path,@hard mason,@rigid robin,@tribal viper,@empty escarp,@shadow maple,@outer hamlet,@unkempt hound,@thorn spoke,@abstract sluice,@gusty wedge,@turbid mulch,@lapis canyon

Hello Investigators!

We have 1 week left on this one. It wasn’t exactly a quick read for me, but you probably still have time to get through it. Please feel free to respond to the pinned prompts if you want inspiration for sharing any thoughts.

Here is what I have for progress:
Finished: abi, jnix, jpuzzle, lemondrop, Vaude
Started: Amadeus? Amanda?

[modern blade]

im gonna start it today when i finish #1255063089599086642

[crimson path]

I totally agree with everything you said for this. ||Some chapters really got me engaged again and wanting to turn the next page whereas some didn’t really work for me.||

This was definitely a slow paced one for me too

[modern blade]

forword ||im pretty sure blue eyes dont become bluer at sea||

[red oracle]

@burnt shoal,@modern blade,@crimson path,@hard mason,@rigid robin,@tribal viper,@empty escarp,@shadow maple,@outer hamlet,@unkempt hound,@thorn spoke,@abstract sluice,@gusty wedge,@turbid mulch,@lapis canyon

Hello Everyone!

Just a little reminder that this is set to end in 3 days. If we have 2 or more still trying to read it for points we can get an extension, so please lmk.

Happy Reading!

[lapis canyon]

I wouldn't say no to an extension but i can get by without one

[modern blade]

same

[lapis canyon]

So we both want an extension

[modern blade]

if lemondrop is okay with it

[burnt shoal]

@modern blade @lapis canyon Doesn’t matter to me, just trying to follow the new rule.

How much longer do you think you’ll need? This isn’t exactly a quick read imo

[lapis canyon]

3-4 days would be pretty cool

[modern blade]

a week?

[burnt shoal]

Ok

[timid flicker]

BR is extended!
<t:1717286400:D> - <t:1724457600:D>

[red oracle]

Ongoing BuddyRead

The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America - Erik L...

Description

I have never read this author, and I’d like to try this narrative nonfiction. Join me?

Start Date

<t:1717286400:D>

End Date

<t:1724457600:D>

Thread(s)

#1246386376421937234

Requested By

@burnt shoal

Leader(s)

@burnt shoal(0)

Interested (14)

@burnt shoal,@modern blade,@crimson path,@hard mason,@rigid robin,@tribal viper,@shadow maple,@outer hamlet,@unkempt hound,@thorn spoke,@abstract sluice,@gusty wedge,@turbid mulch,@lapis canyon

Event ID: 6653fea0474de8bc0c193ebd

[lapis canyon]

Started this ._.

Pretty good so far

[burnt shoal]

@lapis canyon @modern blade This is going to end on Friday- how’s it going?

[lapis canyon]

Pretty well, I've started it but i was super busy this weekend so i haven't read a whole lot, gonna do a couple hundred pages today and a couple hundred tomorrow

[modern blade]

I'm gonna try to read alot of it tonight

[lapis canyon]

Finished part 1, enjoying it so far

||sullivan feels like the kind of person who i would just get infuriated at so quickly||

I like how the author makes you feel like you're in the locations

But i also dislike how he says shit about people's feelings/intentions that he's clearly just presuming

[lapis canyon]

Finished!

[lapis canyon]

All of the characters in the fair plotline were at least a tiny smidge interesting, but i didn't really connect with most of them. ||some of the writing choices pissed me off, like the author refuses to say Ferris' name for half the book, stfu dude everybody knows it's a Ferris wheel. it was pretty ok i suppose, i didn't want to stop reading most times but i still kinda wanted to stop reading sometimes. some of it was interesting, some of it was boring.||

As for the murder man plotline, same thing really. The writing style settles uncomfortably between textbook and narrative throughout the whole book and there's not a single line of narrative dialogue anywhere; it really seems like it can't pick what kind of writing style it wants to have.

I DID enjoy the book but it kinda fell flat execution wise, and I'm not sure what the justification is for having both stories in the same book. It very much feels like the author wanted to write about the fair and somebody told him no one would buy a book about a fair. Like, all of this is happening in Chicage at the same time ||and the Holmes stuff mentions the fair but it isn't a super major plot driver. and the two stories aren't even thematically connected very well||

this ends up making it the case that both plotlines being in the same book makes both of them worse instead of creating a good cohesion between the two

2/5

[burnt shoal]

This seems to be the general consensus actually

[lapis canyon]

I enjoyed both stories seperately, like i tried to think about them seperately and they'd both be a 3/5 by themselves

But with the ping ponging i was usually like holy shit can we get back to what was going on in the other one already and it was so disconnected

[burnt shoal]

Totally agree

[modern blade]

Sorry Lemondrop im gonna drop out of this one
i just cant get into the danish version but i will defiently pick it up at some point again in english

[burnt shoal]

Ok no worries. I’m sorry that it didn’t snag you

[red oracle]

@burnt shoal,@crimson path,@hard mason,@rigid robin,@tribal viper,@shadow maple,@outer hamlet,@unkempt hound,@thorn spoke,@abstract sluice,@gusty wedge,@turbid mulch,@lapis canyon

Hello Readers!

This BR is set to end tomorrow. Please feel free to add any final thoughts. Thank you so much for joining me on this journey. I’m glad to finally have it off my tbr!

Here is what I have for progress:
Finished: abi, Amadeus, jnix, jpuzzle, lemondrop, Vaude

[crimson path]

thank you for hosting lemondrop

[lapis canyon]

Ouioui thank you

It was super fun even if I just snuck in at the end there

[shadow maple]

Thanks Lemondrop! It was a lot of fun!

[unkempt hound]

Thank you for hosting lemondrop!!!

[hard mason]

Thank you lemondrop!!!

[silver flicker]

Finally got my hold

[silver flicker]

Reading narrative nonfiction is so weird tho cause wdym his blue eyes sparkled at her, like where did you get that? I get that there’s sources at the end, but it’s just weird to kind of have to trust some of this stuff, if that makes sense

That was just a generic example of course

[burnt shoal]

I completely agree. There’s a fine line that shouldn’t be crossed, unless it’s in a letter or something documented

[summer galleon]

YES It kind of makes it seem less real when you really think about it
||And Larson keeps making his own assumptions of what Holmes' lies about in his memoirs like how he talks about the skeleton incident where the older boys forced Holmes to look at the skeleton and that's how he grew his fascination..?
And then how they assume that Holmes must've dissected animals alive simply because other people with similar lives tended to do so but never mentioned any proof/evidence
I think one crazy part (so far in what i've read) is how they mention his only friend died while they were playing in an abandoned house, implying that he must've had something to do with it...crazy stuff as a young age 😭||

[summer galleon]

guys im scared