It’s been a busy week so far–I gave a talk at the Liberty Fund in Indianapolis yesterday and learned from afar that the Plaza v. Plaza verdict had come down. I’ll have more to say about that on the next Vegas Gang podcast, which should be fun.
With all of my travel yesterday I got to do some serious reading, which means that you get a book review today. Enjoy.
Howard Blum. American Lightning: Terror, Mystery, the Birth of Hollywood, and the Crime of the Century. New York: Crown Publishers, 2008.
Nowadays, just about any crime of significance is labeled the crime of the century by someone. But back in 1910, when a gigantic bomb blast leveled the Los Angeles Times building, that designation really meant something. It was a seismic event–21 people died in what was assumed to be the latest event in the battle between Capital and Labor that was sweeping the country. And the trial, which pitted LA’s moneyed elite against two union brothers represented by Clarence Darrow, riveted the nation.
In American Lightning, Blum does more than retell the story of the LA Times bombing. He weaves a complex narrative that centers on three principals: Darrow, the McNamara brothers’ reluctant advocate, Billy Burns, the “American Sherlock Holmes” who spearheaded the investigation into the bombing, and D. W. Griffith, who was at the time a budding film-maker in the midst of inventing much of modern cinematography.
Though the three men only come together literally for a brief moment, Blum masterfully ties each together–each man was, in his own way, profoundly changed by the trial. Darrow nearly saw his career end in shame, Burns solved the case only to be denigrated as a lackey for LA money, and Griffith was inspired to “think big,” thus putting him on the path of filming Birth of a Nation.
The story of the bombing itself, while well known to historians, is likely to be new to the average reader, and Blum does a great job of telling the story, putting the reader next to Burns as he tries desperately to stop a rising wave of terror. It’s certainly a story that’s told differently in the post 9/11 world, and it is not without its relevance to us today.
American Lightning is a quick read–most of the 45 chapters are short, and the book breezes along. It doesn’t hurt that Blum is an engaging writer and that he’s unraveling one of the 20th century’s most infamous mysteries. It’s a rare author that can make a genuine page-turned out of Progressive-era labor politics, Los Angeles municipal scheming, and the details of silent movie production, but Blum does just that, and then some.
Blum knows that many of his themes–a war on terror, the budding of a new media in California, and land speculation and corruption–will have a special resonance for today’s readers, but he doesn’t overplay his hand and does an admirable job of letting the reader think for him (her)self. There’s certainly a great deal of food for thought here.
For those interested in a detailed dissection of the Times bombing trial, or Burns’ career, or Griffith’s film-making, something by a specialist might be a better choice. But if you just want to read a great story that has real relevance today, you can’t go wrong with American Lightning.