As a lifelong Chicagoan, I was really looking forward to reading The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America by Erik Larson, but I have been less than enthralled.

I was hooked on Isaac's Storm, but for some reason I just cannot muster interest in Devil. It took me forever to make it through the first 100 pages (I normally read like a whirlwind), and it just seems that there are waaaaaay too many incidental people, and ramblings by the architects, and the buildup and pacing seems to drag.

Larson really creates strong visuals for the time period - the so-called Gilded Age- but the content just isn't holding my interest.

Anyone else experience this with Devil?

I just finished it about a month ago and loved it. Maybe it did start a little slow, i found the initial segments with the architects to drag a little. But for me it picked up and I very much enjoyed it. I can't remember when exactly it took off for me, but it did. Larson just takes the time to set everything and everyone up so you'll be involved and the payoffs will be effective.

I thought it was an excellent book. It dragged a little in some parts(mostly having to deal with the numerous architects who worked on the Fair), but overall a very interesting read. If you enjoyed Devil in the White City you may want to check out Erik Larson's other big seller Isaac's Storm. Now that is an amazing book. I read it in just about 2 days and couldn't put it down.

just finished this last night. it had its slow parts but in the end i loved it! the stuff with the architects didn't bother me but that's because it's part of my field. i got a little bogged down during the pages after the fair had been started a while.

as for all the names larson throws in, it's good to know them but you can still enjoy the book without paying too much attention to each one. as long as you know what's going on and who the MAIN people are that's fine. ex.: you really don't need to worry about keeping names of victims too straight, as long as you can remember the gist of what happened.

on a side note, i came here this morning to see if anyone could answer a question about the sory for me....i'll spoilerize it so it would bother anyone.

Yeah, that was a hard slog. I didn't have a choice though as I was away on holiday and I can't read Portugese... (Maybe that's the approach to take)

I'm finding the start of the book to be a little on the tedious side. There seems to be more on all the Architects than HH Holmes but I am sure that will change as the book goes along.

I don't mind slogging through it, it's a lot like some of the more descriptive parts of Sea Biscuit where you know great things are ahead.

I'm just finishing this one and found it to be a fascinating account of that time in history, with great details about the enormity of the world's fair project (the White City) and the construction obstacles and solutions.

The parallel story about Holmes (the Devil) wasn't as interesting for me, but it added some interesting perspective about how an intelligent and determined phsychopath could take advantage of a relatively disorganized police system at the time. Sort of a macabre version of "Catch me if you can" from the previous century.

What I really would have appreciated would have been a large section of archival photographs showing much more detail of the exposition itself.

i agree! i would've loved to have more photos. after i read the book i got online to try and find some and found it rather difficult. not many sites had up much.