Erik Larson’s “Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania”

This week I am reviewing a new book by Erik Larson: Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania. For those who may not recognize the name, the RMS Lusitania was a British ocean liner that was not dissimilar to the Titanic, in that it was once the largest passenger ship in the world and that it, too, met a terrible fate at sea. On May 7, 1915, the Lusitania was torpedoed by a German U-boat, and, since a suspected 128 Americans died in the sinking, became one of the primary reasons that Americans began to support involvement in WWI over the next two years. Dead Wake is a dramatized look at the sinking of the RMS Lusitania, focusing more on the personal experiences of the passengers, rather than the political angle that most books about WWI adopt. Unlike the Titanic  movie, however, Dead Wake is based off of actual survivor testimony, so calling this a work of historical fiction is a stretch. More accurately, Dead Wake is the realization of survivors’ stories, historical anecdotes, and fantastic writing.

While the tales of actual passengers are immensely interesting, this type of dramatic narrative can fall to pieces if the pacing is shoddy. In fact, pacing is one of the areas that authors of all genres have difficulty. Thankfully, Larson has done an excellent job in strategically laying out his narrative. The story is told in a “back and forth” fashion between the ship and the antagonists, and no characters come off as one dimensional. The villain, especially when looked at while keeping in mind the history surrounding this event, is actually somewhat sympathetic, which makes the looming end of the novel all the more tragic. All in all, Erik Larson’s Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania is one of the best dramas I have ever read. Sitting at a fairly brisk and intense 448 pages altogether (especially considering the amount of material that the Lusitania‘s sinking would entail), Dead Wake is a fascinating macabre plunge into one of the modern world’s worst naval tragedies that is underrepresented in literature and pop culture today. Fans of intense dramas, survivor stories, war stories (in a roundabout way, perhaps), or general nonfiction can find much to love in Dead Wake. If you are looking for an imagined tale of romance or action set against a historical backdrop, this may not be the book you want to check out. Erik Larson is a newcomer to my library, and I am normally not one to read much nonfiction in my free time. That being said, I am certainly going to have to check out more of Larson’s work.