Erik Larson
Erik Larson's new book is In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin: The time is 1933, the place, Berlin, when William E. Dodd becomes America’s first ambassador to Hitler’s Germany in a year that proved to be a turning point in history.
From Larson's Q & A with Randy Dotinga at the Christian Science Monitor:
Q: With her great interest in the opposite sex and her flirtatious lifestyle, Martha Dodd [the ambassador's daughter] has been called a kind of Carrie "Sex and the City" Bradshaw in Berlin, although Martha seems much more intelligent and seductive to me. Is that comparison fair to her?--Marshal Zeringue
I've also heard her compared to Paris Hilton. But Martha was a complex character. That seems to be coming through to readers. Some readers are critical of her and me for writing about her: They see her as flighty and kind of promiscuous and all of that. But a lot of people see her as a compelling character. She was liberated at a time when that wasn't always the case for women.
I'm the father of three daughters, and I thank God I don't have a daughter who's like Martha. On the other hand, she's obviously a smart woman and sexy in her own way.
Would I have liked to have dated her? You bet. Would I have sought her out as a good friend? I don't know.
Q: What surprised you as you researched your book?
I was never concretely aware of the extent of anti-Semitism in the United States and in...[read on]
