Dead Wake

After Devil in the White City, I wanted to read more of Erik Larson’s works. Dead Wake was repeatedly listed as his best work, so I picked this one up even though the subject matter (the sinking of the Lusitania) felt more limited to me than some of his other works. I know a lot of the reviews raved about his discussion about the lives of the people on board the Lusitania when it went down, but I found that this book did not quite meet my nonfiction needs.

Using the stories of those who survived the sinking of the ship, Larson runs through a variety of stories of those on board. He also talks about what is going on in the United States, Germany, and Great Britain in the larger context of the sinking. Personally, I was much more interested in the big picture stuff than the people on the ship. That’s not to say that there could not be a great story about the passengers, but Larson split his attention amongst so many people and was limited by what was actual said and written a hundred years ago. This led to a variety of short stories that did not really capture my attention.

The examination of Great Britain’s culpability in the sinking of the Lusitania is fascinating, and I wish there was a lot more exploration down that path.

I found another one of Larson’s books, In the Garden of Beasts, to do a much better job at mixing a variety of personal stories tied to the beginning of a World War. Overall, I don’t think I’d recommend Dead Wake, but it has a strong Goodreads score and other book lists discuss it favorably, so choose your own adventure.