Courage Through History From storms to serial killers to shipwrecks, bestselling author Erik Larson has made his name writing about frightening moments in history. When a new one came 58 THE PENNSYLVANIA GAZETTE Jul ||Aug 2020 in the form of a global pandemic, readers found unlikely comfort in his latest book—a story of leadership, perseverance, and hope in the bleakest of times 80 years ago. By Dave Zeitlin Jul | AugILLUSTRATION 2020 THE PENNSYLVANIA BY DAVID HOLLENBACH GAZETTE 59 was dusk in London when Erik coincided with the German air campaign it. They’re fi nding it because there is this Larson C’76 gazed out of his meant to bring Great Britain to its knees. model of really terrifi c leadership. And I Egerton House Hotel window. Drawing on original archival docu- think people need to be reminded of what The sky was clear, the weather ments, untapped diaries, and recently leadership looks like.” Also, Larson notes, warm—the kind of evening released intelligence reports, Larson ap- the story does have a happy ending—even that would have been perfect proached Churchill from a diff erent if nearly 45,000 Britons lost their lives in ITfor hundreds of Luftwaff e aircraft to angle, painting a vivid portrait of what the air raids. “They got through it,” he suddenly appear on the horizon and life that year was like on a daily basis for says. “They went through the gates of hell pummel the city with bombs. the prime minister and his family, in- and came back out again.” How terrifying must that sight have cluding vivacious daughter Mary, and Has the story of “The Blitz” even helped been? How did ordinary British citizens an inner circle of advisors. A diary entry Larson, who’s known by his three adult mentally cope with relentless air raids for from one of those advisors, Churchill’s daughters as the “Prince of Anxiety” be- 12 straight months from 1940 to 1941? Or private secretary John Colville, turned cause he’ll text them “Dad Alerts” if it’s a with the more terrifying belief that Hitler out to be the inspiration for the book’s windy day or there’s ice on the ground? would soon unleash a full-on invasion title. During one of the raids, while Had he been alive in London in 1940, he with German paratroopers landing in the watching shells explode and fi res rage admits he probably would have been a heart of one of the world’s great cities? underneath a clear black sky from his “drooling mass of quivering anxiety” at Larson, a bestselling author known for bedroom window, Colville “was so struck fi rst. But eventually, he says, “I’d like to his gripping works of historical narrative by the sort of weird juxtaposition, as he think I would rise to the occasion. I think nonfi ction, tried to imagine those feel- put it, of natural splendor and human one becomes emboldened if one sees ings while in his hotel room that beauti- vileness,” Larson says. people around them being courageous.” ful night two years ago. He did the same That kind of juxtaposition animates Thinking some more about how during daytime walks through London’s Larson’s book. During the day, Londoners Churchill taught the British people what famed Hyde Park. “Suddenly you’re vi- still went to work, shopped in stores, ate Larson refers to as “the art of being fear- brating with a sense of the past,” he says. in restaurants, sunbathed in parks—but less”—and how important it is today to “And that’s what I try to convey to my they did so while holding onto gas masks come together again, during a global readers—that sense of immersion in an and “their identity discs, in case they got pandemic—he adds another thing: era, in a story, to the point where maybe blown to smithereens,” Larson says. “I feel courage is infectious.” they lose sight of the fact that they actu- Then, at nightfall, they darkened their ally know how it ends.” windows, went to their basements, bed- arson has found diff erent kinds of How World War II ends is, of course, rooms, or backyard “Anderson shelters,” courage throughout his life, making well known. The Nazis never invaded and hoped luck was on their side when decisions both impulsive and risky to Great Britain and instead got bogged the bombs dropped. “As time wore on,” L go from what he calls a “shiftless, hap- down in the Soviet Union, the United Larson says, “people just said, ‘Look, I hazard guy” to an author whose fi ve books States entered the war after the attack can’t predict whether I’m going to live or before Splendid have collectively sold on Pearl Harbor, and the Allies ultimate- die. There’s not much I can do about it, more than nine million copies worldwide. ly prevailed. But before all that, the only so I’m just going to live my life.’” Undecided about where to go to college, thing that stood in Hitler’s way was the Released in late February, shortly be- the Long Island native settled on Penn United Kingdom and its pugnacious fore cities around the world were fl ipped because that’s where his girlfriend was prime minister, Winston Churchill—a upside down due to the novel coronavi- going. They broke up soon after arriving man who, despite his faults, Larson says, rus outbreak, The Splendid and the Vile on campus, but he had a good time any- was a “terrifi c leader for this particular quickly found its audience. Larson says way. As a freshman, he was “transfi xed” period, because he was very good at he hears “all the time” from people who by a Russian history class taught by the helping people fi nd their courage.” tell him they’ve found comfort reading late Alexander Riasanovsky, a longtime Although, by Larson’s admission, the book while quarantined at home, University faculty member and, notes Churchill is “one of the most heavily writ- drawing hope from how people in Eng- Larson, “an exiled Russian prince.” One ten-about people in the history of the land 80 years ago strove for normalcy in night, Larson says, Riasanovsky came to planet,” his newest book, The Splendid and the midst of terror and uncertainty. “I’m a campus party to “teach us how to drink the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and slightly mystifi ed,” he says. “People are vodka the Russian way.” It was a diff erent Defi ance During the Blitz, delves into the turning to this book about mass death time, he laughs, adding, “I will tell you prime minister’s fi rst year in offi ce—which and chaos for solace, and they’re fi nding that I’ve never been drunker in my life.” 60 THE PENNSYLVANIA GAZETTE Jul | Aug 2020 Riasanovsky turned Larson on to ured Larson would move on to “great glory,” lisher found) was Larson’s 1999 break- Russian history and literature, which he but given what she knew about him, through book: Isaac’s Storm: A Man, A studied the rest of his time at Penn. He “thought he’d write funny stories or mys- Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in had other great history professors too—so tery novels.” Larson wasn’t sure about his History. “What was clear from the very much so that he wanted to become one career trajectory either when, in 1985, the beginning,” recalls Black, still Larson’s himself for a while. He also thought that Journal’s managing editor off ered him the agent today, “was that he had something he’d like to become a prosecutor, or may- Atlanta bureau chief’s job and Larson told really special that he was working on.” be a New York City cop. “I went in think- him that not only was he declining the pro- Finding the idea for the book wasn’t ex- ing I was going to do one thing with my motion, he’d be leaving the paper entirely. actly a straight line either. It can be traced life, left thinking I was going to do an- After Larson married a neonatologist back to 1994 when Larson read Caleb other, and did neither of those,” he says. named Christine Gleason, whom he had Carr’s The Alienist. Though it was a novel, Writing, he says, “was always sort of my met on a blind date in San Francisco, the Larson was fascinated by the real-life char- background thing.” When he was 13, he couple moved across the country to Bal- acters set in 1890s New York and the se- wrote a novella that mirrored the Nancy timore, where she started a new job at rial killer genre. So he thought maybe he’d Drew books he liked to read growing up. Johns Hopkins. There he did some free- like to try to write about a real-life murder. At Penn, he kept writing, but not much lance magazine writing, raised his three Very quickly in his research digging that was published—mostly short stories daughters with his wife, and in 1994 pub- through The Encyclopedia of Murder, he and “failed novels” in between school- lished his fi rst book: The Naked Consum- came across serial killer H. H. Holmes, work and vodka drinking lessons. er: How Our Private Lives Become Public who would go on to become one of the Another memorable Penn course taught Commodities. A collection of essays about two central characters in his next book, him to appreciate Ernest Hemingway, how companies were spying on individ- the monster hit The Devil in the White whose writing style—“in terms of clarity ual consumers, “I thought it was going to City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the and simplicity and the conservation of be a huge bestseller,” he says.