Details, details

METICULOUSLY RESEARCHED and vividly written non-fiction narratives are Eric Larson’s calling card. Larson is the superstar author of six best sellers, including The Devil and the White City and In the Garden of the Beasts, and is hailed as “one of America’s greatest storytellers” by NPR. He will be the guest for our new In Conversation series on March 6.

His latest is The Splendid and the Vile: A

Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance

During the Blitz, recounting Winston Churchill’s first year as British prime minister in 1940 during the start of World War II and the German bombing blitz on London. The story includes ordinary people who endured the bombing while going about their daily lives, Churchill’s 17-year-old daughter visiting nightclubs during the blackout, and how the German leadership viewed its aerial campaign that was meant to bring Britain to its knees.

“It’s just a damn good story,” says Rolling Stone. “There are narrative arcs, heroes, villains, and suspense aplenty to craft the kind of rich, immersive histories that have become Larson’s trademark.”

Larson’s thorough and wide-ranging research was honed during an earlier career as a journalist. That means he doesn’t just focus on the main story but pulls the reader into the details of ordinary people within the story. “I don’t think of myself as a historian. I think of myself as a writer who writes history,” he told Rolling Stone. “My mission is to create as rich a historical experience as I can for the reader, so when they’re done with the book, they come out of it feeling like maybe they’ve lived briefly in a past time.”

“In a style that is suspenseful as well as entertaining, Larson shows us how both our highest aspirations and our most loathsome urges figured in the creation of the modern world,” says People magazine.

The Devil and the White City, his breakout hit in 2003, intertwines the story of the creation of the Chicago 1893 World’s Fair with that of one of America’s worst serial killers. Dead Wake is about the sinking of the Lusitania with hundreds of civilians on board by the Germans in 1915. In the Garden of the Beasts follows the first American Ambassador to Nazi Germany and his family as he tries to warn the American government about the impending danger of Hitler’s growing power and influence.

It looks like Larson goes looking for murder and mayhem, but “I don’t necessarily hunt for dark subjects,” he told creativenonfiction.org. “It just happens that the darker events of history are often the most compelling.”

Larson will regale you with the captivating events behind his subjects, how he creates such immersive histories, and what strange and inspiring details show up in the random archive boxes he searches through for a good story.

RENÉE AND HENRY SEGERSTROM CONCERT HALL March 6 | Tickets start at $29