While reading it’s easy to feel like the fair was ten years ago rather than over one hundred. Events and opinions are always reinforced with quotes from letters, journals and news articles to the point where it feels like Larson interviewed the characters directly. The characters feel so alive with ego and ambition and detail that it’s surprising when Larson announces their deaths, one by one, from pneumonia, fever, age, etc.
At a wider scale, Chicago’s insecurities and external pressure from the country are anxieties that keep the fair’s logistics from ever turning stale. You root for Ferris to get his wheel approved by the planning committee. You root for Olmstead to plant his damn sod. Attendees per day becomes a point system at the books end — will they exceed 100,000 per day or will they fail to pay back their creditors?
Surprising and unfortunately, Holmes, the serial killer and “The Devil,” feels lifeless. I was seriously disappointed every time I ran into a chapter about Holmes. There must be a dozen places where Larson reminds us that Holmes was a blue-eyed, social chameleon who wooed his audiences and touched women on the arms inappropriately. I was bored after the first time.
While I appreciate Larson’s strict adherence to history, I don’t think he had enough material on Holmes. I would’ve preferred either less of him, with a level of detail only matching that of the insane assassin that kills Harrison, or a deeper dive into the life of an inept Chicago detective. I have to imagine that the police force’s inability to connect the clues around Holmes would have been more interesting than Holmes himself.
Finally, I strongly disliked Larson’s fixation with trivia. You know the copy-paste meme where an absurd anecdote is followed by “and that man’s name... Albert Einstein”? Larson does this repeatedly. I honestly wonder whether this book was the inspiration for the meme. “And that junior architects name... Frank Lloyd Wright.” “And that painters last name... Disney. And Disney’s son... Walt Disney.” I’m certain the intent was to stress the importance of the fair. It MATTERED, and it’s impact resonates TO THIS DAY. But the trivia is thrown between sections to which it’s otherwise irrelevant. It’s like Larson had sticky notes covered in factoids he couldn’t wait to share. But they should’ve been footnotes or consolidated to the suffix. Instead, each modern-day tie-in is as distracting as a commercial in the middle of a feature film.
I was impressed by Larson’s ability to breath life into a group of long dead architects, artists, engineers and politicians. I just wish he hadn’t tried to do the same with Holmes or his trivia.