American Lightning: Terror, Mystery, the Birth of Hollywood, and the Crime of the Century

When I was growing up and attending California public schools, the accepted California historical narrative was something like: Spanish missions, gold rush, statehood, citrus, motion picture business, Okies, World War II, aerospace industry, Disneyland.

Indigenous people, water politics, oil extraction, labor unrest, corporate misconduct, and political corruption were left out of the story.

American Lightning: Terror, Mystery, the Birth of Hollywood, and the Crime of the Century fills in some of the blank spots in that history and can be interesting reading for for those of us curious about the turn-of-the-century decade when events transpired and enterprises were undertaken which shaped Southern California for the next 50 years.

I found the book somewhat enlightening and learned some things about the times (and The Times) and the principal figures I didn't know before.

I have to agree, however, with other reviewers who don't think the book works well as an historical narration. I think I might have enjoyed the experience of the book more if were either a straight-up history with explanation and analyses or as a full-on novel where the characters and events of "American Lightning" drive a plot involving fictional characters (Ragtime, for example). As a novel, it might have been easier to weave someone like D.W.Griffith into a main story where his connection is tenuous at best.

Writing narrative nonfiction is not an easy task, and it is hard for me to say whether the author succeeded here. I found the writing hard to get through, and I found the story to be even less interesting. At times I was so bored and uninvolved with the events of the book, I found myself having to go back and re-read what I had just read. While I don't dispute that this indeed a heinous crime, I wouldn't go so far as to called it the crime of the century. I agree with another reviewer that the Lindbergh baby kidnapping is surely more "heinous"! Narrative fiction really relies upon one connecting with the subject in some way, and I didn't feel that this book did that.

As a social historian, I found the crime and the subject very interesting, especially the way in which the investigator flushes out the perpetrators but also I found that the author really connected with the historical context. The end of the 19th century and the early years of the 20th century certainly must have been a tumultuous time in the United States but also in the world. Those aspects of the book (investigative techniques and historical context) are spot on, but I think that this book would have served its audience better with less narrative and a more broader "story-telling" of the events.

I think that serious history buffs and historians will reap the most benefit from this book!

I intended to read this book to pass the time during my morning commute, but eventually found myself so wrapped up in the story that I was reading it at home, at work, and wherever I happened to be.

Here's a list of the issues that struck me the most as I was reading it:

1.) There's a LOT of history in this historical thriller.
The book is incredibly well researched, and it shows. For some this is a bit of a turn-off since it reads differently than most historical novels, but it made me appreciate it even more. Knowing that these were real people and real events added a sense of urgency to the tale, and made everything seem more dramatic and urgent.

2.) The book reads like a cross between an episode of Law & Order and a documentary on the History Channel.
The story itself is a sort of hybrid murder mystery/courtroom drama, complete with a cast of evil villains and fallen heroes. The plot is complex enough to keep you interested, but not so meandering that you can't pick the book up again if you've had to stop reading it for several days.

3.) The segments with legendary filmmaker D.W. Griffith feel a bit detached from the rest of the story.
While I understand their importance in setting the scene and feel that Blum was right in including Griffith's story in this book, they felt very distanced from the central theme of the novel

4.) All history books should be like this.
Because of the excellent way this book was written I couldn't believe that I hadn't been taught about this when I was in high school or college, and I ended up spending several hours on the internet researching the characters in the book and the history surrounding the events of the 1910 bombing. If someone had handed me this book when I was in high school I would have paid a lot more attention in my history classes and might have even majored in the subject in college.


In summation, I really enjoyed this book, and I would happily recommend it to anyone, but I would PARTICULARLY recommend it to parents who have Jr. High or High School aged children who they want to get interested in history. This book does a fantastic job at making a historical event seem immediate and important, and serves as a wonderful example of how historical events can shed new light on contemporary issues.

The nucleus of Pulitzer Prize finalist Howard Blum's 'American Lightning' is the October 1910 bombing of the Los Angeles 'Times' building. From that one act of terrorism a story is spawned that includes legendary detective William J. Burns, defense attorney extraordinaire Clarence Darrow, and the early twentieth century's greatest motion picture director, D.W. Griffith. Mary Pickford even puts in an appearance. Burns works to bring the 'Times' bombers to justice, Darrow eventually steps in to save them from the noose, and Griffith churns out populist films such as 'A Corner in Wheat', which criticizes the greedy merchants who profit at the expense of the poor and working classes.

'American Lightning' is, as another reviewer accurately put it, history aimed at the popular fiction market. With its liberal use of dialogue and non-scholarly approach to the political intrigues and labour unrest that infested the 1910s, the book is an entertaining read. Because it will appeal to its intended audience, I have accorded it four stars. But I am personally uncomfortable with such a creative treatment of historic events, as it's difficult to discern what actually happened from what the author has included to make the story more vivid or smooth. I enjoyed 'American Lightning', but don't come away feeling as if I truly know what happened during the turbulent events that it covers.

I am a former Los Angeles resident, attorney (inspired as a youth, in part, by Clarence Darrow), who worked in the entertainment industry with a specialization in labor law. The confluence of these interest drew me to this book and let to my high expectations.

I am mature enough to know that Clarence Darrow was human, and not the person I idealized as an aspiring lawyer. I am also jaded enough to know that, despite the extreme inequities between management and labor at the turn of the century, many of labor's leaders (not to mention the corporate heads) were imperfect. I am also fascinated by the rough-and-tumble history of Los Angeles' emergence as a "real" city and the improbable center of the film industry.

The author bit off a complex bit of history as he researched and wove together the events surrounding the investigation and prosecution of a series of domestic terror events involving labor around the turn of the century. Unfortunately, it is told primarily from the point of view of the investigator who tracked down those responsible, but then takes a more "stepped back" journalistic point of view of the subsequent events such as the trial.

I also think that the effort to weave in the story of the birth of the film industry was a bit strained. I thought that we would learn more about the importance of unions in that industry -- after all, at this point, the unions are more powerful in the entertainment industry than most (where else do some members earn such stratospheric salaries, while most struggle to earn the minimum amounts for benefit eligibility?).

In any case, my 4 star rating is based on my disappointment that these historical elements were not more tied together. I'm not suggesting that one can make up history to make a more exciting book, I just felt that the effort to entwine these different aspects of the history of Los Angeles, locally, and the labor movement, as a national phenomenon, was a bit strained.

That said, the research is excellent, and most of the major characters appear human, with their strengths and character flaws exposed. Some of the minor participants are a bit two-dimensional, and that may be due to the lack of historical record, but the result was that I felt that some of the union leaders, entertainment people and management appeared a bit as caricatures, much as those portrayed in the early films described in the book.