Historical Nonfiction Icon Erik Larson on the Joys of Digging Through Archives
"I love going through boxes filled with files that are full of stuff. You never know what you’re going to find in the next folder."
This piece is part of a series called Creative Nonfiction Encounters, a special collaboration from Narratively and our partners at Creative Nonfiction in which we’re republishing author interviews from the Creative Nonfiction archive. This piece was originally published in CNF’s 75th issue.
What sort of writer devotes himself to scrupulously portraying the vilest of criminals in works of intensely researched creative nonfiction? You might expect a brooding sort, with an aura of menace and obsession. How about instead a tall, fit, impeccably attired, articulate and bemused man as quick to spar as he is to joke? Enter Erik Larson. A journalist turned narrative historian influenced by the brilliant crime novelist P.D. James and Truman Capote’s true-crime masterpiece, In Cold Blood, Larson has specialized in paradoxical true-life tales in which great leaps of technological innovation intersect with murder most gruesome.
In his first big hit, Isaac’s S…