Jaksen
asked
Erik Larson:
Question about how you do research - the importance of primary sources? That is, do you make a concerted effort to talk to those with first-hand knowledge, and lacking that, look for immediate descendants, etc.? (A lot of us do 'know stuff', handed down by grandparents who might be long deceased, who heard stories from their grandparents, and so on.)
Erik Larson
I'm wary of third- and fourth-hand accounts. Memory distorts history. I much favor personal accounts written at or near the time of whatever event I'm writing about.
More Answered Questions
Kate Deeks
asked
Erik Larson:
Just read your vibrant PowellsBooks.com interview with book buyer Rhianna Walton. I loved "Devil in the White City", and can't wait to read "Dead Wake". As a youngish female, I don't have many friends who have discovered your awesome writing. How do you generally relate to your readers like me, and can we expect a can't-miss book topic from you in the future? Not that WWI is unrelatable...
Chris
asked
Erik Larson:
I recieved an advance copy of Dead Wake through Read It Forward and have been preparing a review, when for a different reason I picked up Edgar Rice Burroughs' The Land That Time Forgot. I was struck by the similarities between the U-33 sinking the ship and the U-20 sinking the Lusitania, and wondered if you have ever read this particular Burroughs novel, which was published in 1918?
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