Malaprop’s is pleased to partner with The Great Smokies Writing Program and Departments of History and English at UNC Asheville to bring #1 New York Times bestselling author Erik Larson back to Asheville!
The #1 New York Times bestselling author of Dead Wake and The Devil in the White City delivers a startlingly fresh portrait of Winston Churchill and London during the Blitz.
In THE SPLENDID AND THE VILE, Erik Larson shows, in cinematic detail, how Churchill taught the British people the art of being fearless. It is a story of political brinksmanship but also an intimate domestic drama, set against the backdrop of Churchills prime-ministerial country house, Chequers, and his wartime residence, Ditchley, where Churchill and his entourage go when the moon is brightest and the bombing threat is highest. Drawing on a wealth of untapped sources, including recently declassified files, intelligence reports, and personal diaries only now available, Larson provides a new lens on London’s darkest year through the day-to-day experience of Churchill and his family: his wife, Clementine; their daughters, Sarah, Diana, and the youngest, Mary, who chafes against her parents wartime protectiveness; their son, Randolph, and his beautiful, unhappy wife, Pamela; her illicit lover, a dashing American emissary; and the cadre of close advisors who comprised Churchills Secret Circle, including his dangerously observant private secretary, John Colville; newspaper baron Lord Beaverbrook; and the Rasputin-like Federick Lindemann.
THE SPLENDID AND THE VILE takes readers out of today’s political dysfunction and back to a time of true leadership when in the face of unrelenting horror Churchills eloquence, strategic brilliance, and perseverance bound a country, and a family, together.
ABOUT ERIK LARSON
Erik Larson is the author of seven books, five of which became New York Times bestsellers. His latest Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania, hit #1 on the list soon after launch. His saga of the Chicago Worlds Fair of 1893, The Devil in the White City, was a finalist for the National Book Award, and won an Edgar Award for fact-crime writing; it lingered on various Times bestseller lists for the better part of a decade. Hulu plans to adapt the book for a limited TV series, with Leonardo DiCaprio and Martin Scorsese as executive producers. Eriks In the Garden of Beasts, about how America’s first ambassador to Nazi Germany and his daughter experienced the rising terror of Hitler’s rule, has been optioned by Tom Hanks for development as a feature film. Learn more at https://eriklarsonbooks.com/