Author Erik Larson visited the University of Tulsa last Tuesday October 6th to take part in a Presidential Lecture Series and respond to questions from a panel of students about his achievements as a narrative non-fiction writer.
Larson explained to a panel of fourteen TU students how he got the idea for his book, “Devil in the White City”. His book juxtaposes good and evil by recounting the murders of H. H. Holmes during the building of the Chicago World’s Fair.
Larson was interested in writing a story about murder but he did not want to write “crime porn,” which is initially why he was cautious about tackling H.H. Homes’ story. The deciding factor for Larson was when he discovered that Juicy Fruit Gum, his undying “passion,” had been introduced to American Markets 100 years ago at the Chicago World’s Fair. For Larson, this was all the motivation he needed to write the story.
Bestselling author Erik Larson gave a talk at TU.
Larson is a critically acclaimed author with five books, all historical nonfiction, that reached the New York Times Bestseller list. His most well-known book is “Devil in The White City.”
When asked if Larson had ever written a fiction novel he answered, “I tried to write a fiction novel in highschool, and it had a sex scene in it—I didn’t know anything about sex.”
Larson claimed that he doesn’t think he would have the sensibility to write fiction novels. He couldn’t kill his characters; his fiction stories would “be very short and very happy.”
He has never had any of his four fiction novels published it and he prefers it that way. His niche is in finding small stories in history that he can illuminate the reader’s imagination with, stories that “get your soul going.”
Larson left the panel discussion with advice he wished he would’ve had in college.
He said “you know, don’t take yourself too seriously. The most important thing—you’ll think you have a path, you want to write a feature film or whatever, you have a plan. But life will throw you curve balls and they are usually good curveballs. You’re going to have a life full of zig zags, just go with it.”
