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

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American Lightning: Terror, Mystery, the Birth of Hollywood, and the Crime of the Century [2]

Howard Blum

It was an explosion that reverberated across the country—and into the very heart of early-twentieth-century America. On the morning of October 1, 1910, the walls of the Los Angeles Times Building buckled as a thunderous detonation sent men, machinery, and mortar rocketing into the night air. When at last the wreckage had been sifted and the hospital triage units consulted, twenty-one people were declared dead and dozens more injured. But as it turned out, this was just a prelude to the devastation that was to come.

In American Lightning, acclaimed author Howard Blum masterfully evokes the incredible circumstances that led to the original “crime of the century”—and an aftermath more dramatic than even the crime itself.

With smoke still wafting up from the charred ruins, the city’s mayor reacts with undisguised excitement when he learns of the arrival, only that morning, of America’s greatest detective, William J. Burns, a former Secret Service man who has been likened to Sherlock Holmes. Surely Burns, already world famous for cracking unsolvable crimes and for his elaborate disguises, can run the perpetrators to ground.

Through the work of many months, snowbound stakeouts, and brilliant forensic sleuthing, the great investigator finally identifies the men he believes are responsible for so much destruction. Stunningly, Burns accuses the men—labor activists with an apparent grudge against the Los Angeles Times’s fiercely anti-union owner—of not just one heinous deed but of being part of a terror wave involving hundreds of bombings.

While preparation is laid for America’s highest profile trial ever—and the forces of labor and capital wage hand-to-hand combat in the streets—two other notable figures are swept into the drama: industry-shaping ?lmmaker D.W. Griffith, who perceives in these events the possibility of great art and who will go on to alchemize his observations into the landmark film The Birth of a Nation; and crusading lawyer Clarence Darrow, committed to lend his eloquence to the defendants, though he will be driven to thoughts of suicide before events have fully played out.

Simultaneously offering the absorbing reading experience of a can’t-put-it-down thriller and the perception-altering resonance of a story whose reverberations continue even today, American Lightning is a masterpiece of narrative nonfiction.

Bookmarks Issue:

37-Nov-Dec-2008 [3]

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A-American Lightning A former reporter for the New York Times and currently an editor for Vanity Fair, Howard Blum has twice been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for his investigative reporting. This is his eighth book.

The Topic: At the turn of the 20th century, many observers thought that the United States was on the verge of another civil war—not between North and South, but between management and labor. One of the most notable (yet rarely discussed) strikes in that war was a 1910 bombing of the virulently antiunion Los Angeles Times. The attack was intended to be coordinated with others in as many as 100 American cities. Blum dramatizes the attack, the manhunt for the perpetrators, and their eventual fate. In doing so, he sketches the grand figures who became involved with the bombing and its aftermath, including gumshoe William J. Burns, famed lawyer Clarence Darrow, and filmmaker D. W. Griffith (best known as the director of the notorious Birth of a Nation).
Crown. 352 pages. $24.95. ISBN: 0307346943

Dallas Morning News [4] 4 of 5 Stars
"[A] thumping-good drum roll of narrative history. … Mr. Blum, an award-winning investigative reporter, has written about the Jewish Brigade, the Yom Kippur War and the search for the true Mount Sinai. This time he blows the dust off a page of America’s own incendiary past and brings it to pulsating life." Jane Sumner

Wall Street Journal [5] 4 of 5 Stars
"The dynamiting of the Los Angeles Times was, for Howard Blum in American Lightning, the war’s decisive engagement. … Mr. Blum, with extraordinary skill, restores the conflict’s immediacy at the crucial moment when both sides saw the war’s cost and began reluctantly to take the long and difficult road to armistice." D. J. Waldie

Chicago Sun-Times [6] 3.5 of 5 Stars
"‘Novel’ is not an inappropriate word to use in connection with American Lightning, Howard Blum’s fast-moving, skillfully constructed account. Journalist and author Blum (The Brigade) makes the facts work for him and upon the reader the way the nascent motion pictures he describes worked upon audiences of the period." Roger K. Miller

Los Angeles Times [7] 3 of 5 Stars
"[A]stonishingly, American Lightning … is the first book devoted in its entirety to this seminal event. So what have we got? The answer is a mixed bag, a swiftly paced and hugely engaging narrative that covers most of the bases, but from a limited point of view." Richard Rayner

Denver Post [8] 2 of 5 Stars
"Blum had a terrific idea and it is clear that he intended to write a masterful meditation on the tense relationship between unions and capitalists a century ago. It is obvious he wanted to examine the growing class struggle of those times, labor’s flirtations with socialism and anarchy, and the role of various types of social activism as a means to securing decent wages for anxious working men. But he lost his way." Elaine Margolin

Critical Summary

Most critics were eager to learn more about this neglected event in American history and were glad to have Blum as their teacher. They were most impressed by the first half of the book, which covers the attacks and investigation and which was several times compared to a Hollywood thriller or an episode of the television show 24. Reviewers were less thrilled by the second part of the book, where Blum introduces Darrow and Griffith into the story. Several felt that these great American personalities were presented superficially, perhaps because Blum attempted too great a scope in the book. But on the whole, critics found American Lightning to be a satisfying work of narrative history.