Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania

 Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania (2015) by Erik Larson

[I started with my audio edition, but had to switch to a hard copy from the library to finish.]

Synopsis (from the book cover): On May 1, 1915, with WWI entering its tenth month, a luxury ocean liner as richly appointed as an English country house sailed out of New York, bound for Liverpool, carrying a record number of children and infants. The passengers were surprisingly at ease, even though Germany had declared the seas around Britain to be a war zone. For months, German U-boats had brought terror to the North Atlantic. But the Lusitania was one of the era’s great transatlantic “Greyhounds”—the fastest liner then in service—and her captain, William Thomas Turner, placed tremendous faith in the gentlemanly strictures of warfare that for a century had kept civilian ships safe from attack. 

Germany, however, was determined to change the rules of the game, and Walther Schwieger, the captain of Unterseeboot-20, was happy to oblige. Meanwhile, an ultra-secret British intelligence unit tracked Schwieger’s U-boat, but told no one. As U-20 and the Lusitania made their way toward Liverpool, an array of forces both grand and achingly small—hubris, a chance fog, a closely guarded secret, and more—all converged to produce one of the great disasters of history.

It is a story that many of us think we know but don’t, and Erik Larson tells it thrillingly, switching between hunter and hunted while painting a larger portrait of America at the height of the Progressive Era. Full of glamour and suspense, Dead Wake brings to life a cast of evocative characters, from famed Boston bookseller Charles Lauriat to pioneering female architect Theodate Pope to President Woodrow Wilson, a man lost to grief, dreading the widening war but also captivated by the prospect of new love. 

Gripping and important, Dead Wake captures the sheer drama and emotional power of a disaster whose intimate details and true meaning have long been obscured by history.

My take: I'm swimming against the current on this one. The bulk of the reviews on Goodreads are 4 or 5 stars. But I just didn't find this either thrilling or gripping. It read more like straight history than a thrilling retelling of a history "full of glamour and suspense." It was certainly far less gripping than The Devil in the White City (which I highly recommend). I realize that this is nonfiction, but I hoped it would be less dry and matter-of-fact than it was. I wish I could remember the name of a fictionalized recounting of the Lusitania's tragedy that I ready a number of years ago (before my blogging days when my reviews were limited to star counts). I'd like to revisit it and see how much it got right factually. I definitely remember it as a far more absorbing story than what I've just read. The book is obviously well-researched and fully supported through notes and referenced sources. It just didn't fascinate me the way I thought it would. ★★★★ for the work and research, but ★★ for how much I enjoyed it--giving an average of ★★★.

First line: On the night of May 6, 1915, as his ship approached the coast of Ireland, Capt. William Thomas Turner left the bridge and made his way to the first-class lounge, where passengers were taking part in a concert and talent show, a customary feature of Cunard crossings.

Last line: Her companion, Edwin Friend, had indeed been lost but was reported by members of the reconstituted American Society for Psychical Research to have paid the group several visits.