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Summary
Summary
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * From the bestselling author and master of narrative nonfiction comes the enthralling story of the sinking of the Lusitania
"Both terrifying and enthralling."-- Entertainment Weekly
"Thrilling, dramatic and powerful."--NPR
"Thoroughly engrossing."--George R.R. Martin
On May 1, 1915, with WWI entering its tenth month, a luxury ocean liner as richly appointed as an English country house sailed out of New York, bound for Liverpool, carrying a record number of children and infants. The passengers were surprisingly at ease, even though Germany had declared the seas around Britain to be a war zone. For months, German U-boats had brought terror to the North Atlantic. But the Lusitania was one of the era's great transatlantic "Greyhounds"--the fastest liner then in service--and her captain, William Thomas Turner, placed tremendous faith in the gentlemanly strictures of warfare that for a century had kept civilian ships safe from attack.
Germany, however, was determined to change the rules of the game, and Walther Schwieger, the captain of Unterseeboot -20, was happy to oblige. Meanwhile, an ultra-secret British intelligence unit tracked Schwieger's U-boat, but told no one. As U-20 and the Lusitania made their way toward Liverpool, an array of forces both grand and achingly small--hubris, a chance fog, a closely guarded secret, and more--all converged to produce one of the great disasters of history.
It is a story that many of us think we know but don't, and Erik Larson tells it thrillingly, switching between hunter and hunted while painting a larger portrait of America at the height of the Progressive Era. Full of glamour and suspense, Dead Wake brings to life a cast of evocative characters, from famed Boston bookseller Charles Lauriat to pioneering female architect Theodate Pope to President Woodrow Wilson, a man lost to grief, dreading the widening war but also captivated by the prospect of new love.
Gripping and important, Dead Wake captures the sheer drama and emotional power of a disaster whose intimate details and true meaning have long been obscured by history.
Finalist for the Washington State Book Award * One of the Best Books of the Year: The Washington Post, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Miami Herald, Library Journal, Kirkus Reviews, LibraryReads, Indigo
Author Notes
Erik Larson was born in Brooklyn on January 3, 1954. He graduated Summa Cum Laude from the University of Pennsylvania and went to graduate school at Columbia University. Larson worked for the Wall Street Journal and then began writing non-fiction books. He is the bestselling author of the National Book Award finalist and Edgar Award-winning, The Devil in the White City, which has been optioned for a feature film by Leonardo DiCaprio. He also wrote In the Garden of the Beasts, Issac's Storm, Thunderstruck and The Naked Consumer.
Larson has taught non-fiction writing at San Francisco State University, the Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars, and the University of Oregon.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (2)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Reader Brick's measured, natural voice is a soothing counterweight to Larson's tragic recounting of the 1915 sinking of the British passenger ship Lusitania by a German U-boat-one of the catalysts for the United States' eventual entry into World War I on the side of the Allied Powers. Brick maintains a steady hand when describing scenes of heightened emotion, such as the critical 18 minutes it took the ship to sink. He does not engage in showy voice characterizations or individual accents for the story's international cast of characters, which includes English officers, American passengers, and the captain of the German U-boat (though Brick's pronunciation of the book's German words and names is excellent). Brick's understated approach is fitting for this work of history, bringing poignant humanity to those who survived and those who lost their lives on the Lusitania. A Crown hardcover. (Mar.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Library Journal Review
The Lusitania was justly famous in her day as one of the largest and fastest ocean liners plying the waters between America and England. Like the Titanic before her, she was believed by many to be unsinkable. The German navy thought otherwise. The year is 1915, and England and Germany are at war. This European conflict provides the background for one of the most dramatic stories of life and death on the high seas. With perspectives taken from the crew and passengers as well as the German submarine commander, the drama unfolds through many twists and turns culminating in a fateful encounter on the Atlantic Ocean. Larson's (The Devil in the White City) work is full of tense, heartbreaking, and unforgettable moments. Scott Brick's narration is wonderful, occasionally taking on prophetic tones when highlighting the interesting quirks of history that led to the disaster. VERDICT Recommended not only for those with an interest in World War I but for anyone desiring a thrilling story. ["This suspenseful account will entice readers of military and maritime history along with lovers of popular history": LJ 2/1/15 starred review of the Crown hc.]-Denis Frias, -Mississauga Lib. Syst., Ont. © Copyright 2015. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Excerpts
Excerpts
A WORD FROM THE CAPTAIN On the night of May 6, 1915, as his ship approached the coast of Ireland, Capt. William Thomas Turner left the bridge and made his way to the first-class lounge, where passengers were taking part in a concert and talent show, a customary feature of Cunard crossings. The room was large and warm, paneled in mahogany and carpeted in green and yellow, with two fourteen-foot-tall fireplaces in the front and rear walls. Ordinarily Turner avoided events of this kind aboard ship, because he disliked the social obligations of captaincy, but tonight was no ordinary night, and he had news to convey. There was already a good deal of tension in the room, despite the singing and piano playing and clumsy magic tricks, and this became more pronounced when Turner stepped forward at intermission. His presence had the perverse effect of affirming everything the passengers had been fearing since their departure from New York, in the way that a priest's arrival tends to undermine the cheery smile of a nurse. It was Turner's intention, however, to provide reassurance. His looks helped. With the physique of a bank safe, he was the embodiment of quiet strength. He had blue eyes and a kind and gentle smile, and his graying hair--he was fifty-eight years old---conveyed wisdom and experience, as did the mere fact of his being a Cunard captain. In accord with Cunard's practice of rotating -captains from ship to ship, this was his third stint as the Lusitania 's master, his first in wartime. Turner now told his audience that the next day, Friday, May 7, the ship would enter waters off the southern coast of Ireland that were part of a "zone of war" designated by Germany. This in itself was anything but news. On the morning of the ship's departure from New York, a notice had appeared on the shipping pages of New York's newspapers. Placed by the German Embassy in Washington, it reminded readers of the existence of the war zone and cautioned that "vessels flying the flag of Great Britain, or of any of her allies, are liable to destruction" and that travelers sailing on such ships "do so at their own risk." Though the warning did not name a particular vessel, it was widely interpreted as being aimed at Turner's ship, the Lusitania , and indeed in at least one prominent newspaper, the New York World, it was positioned adjacent to Cunard's own advertisement for the ship. Ever since, about all the passengers had been doing was "thinking, dreaming, sleeping, and eating submarines," according to Oliver Bernard, a theater-set designer traveling in first class. Turner now revealed to the audience that earlier in the evening the ship had received a warning by wireless of fresh submarine activity off the Irish coast. He assured the audience there was no need for alarm. Coming from another man, this might have sounded like a baseless palliative, but Turner believed it. He was skeptical of the threat posed by German submarines, especially when it came to his ship, one of the great transatlantic "greyhounds," so named for the speeds they could achieve. His superiors at Cunard shared his skepticism. The company's New York manager issued an official response to the German warning. "The truth is that the Lusitania is the safest boat on the sea. She is too fast for any submarine. No German war vessel can get her or near her." Turner's personal experience affirmed this: on two previous occasions, while captain of a different ship, he had encountered what he believed were submarines and had successfully eluded them by ordering full speed ahead. He said nothing about these incidents to his audience. Now he offered a different sort of reassurance: upon entering the war zone the next day, the ship would be securely in the care of the Royal Navy. He bade the audience good night and returned to the bridge. The talent show continued. A few passengers slept fully clothed in the dining room, for fear of being trapped below decks in their cabins if an attack were to occur. One especially anxious traveler, a Greek carpet merchant, put on a life jacket and climbed into a lifeboat to spend the night. Another passenger, a New York businessman named Isaac Lehmann, took a certain comfort from the revolver that he carried with him always and that would, all too soon, bring him a measure of fame, and infamy. With all but a few lights extinguished and all shades pulled and curtains drawn, the great liner slid forward through the sea, at times in fog, at times under a lacework of stars. But even in darkness, in moonlight and mist, the ship stood out. At one o'clock in the morning, Friday, May 7, the officers of a New York-bound vessel spotted the Lusitania and recognized it immediately as it passed some two miles off. "You could see the shape of the four funnels," said the captain, Thomas M. Taylor; "she was the only ship with four funnels." Unmistakable and invulnerable, a floating village in steel, the Lusitania glided by in the night as a giant black shadow cast upon the sea. Excerpted from Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania by Erik Larson All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.