my Goodreads review: In the Garden of Beasts

In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin by Erik Larson

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


If you're not a regular reader of long-form nonfiction (like me!), you're probably looking for a fine sense of narrative & character when you do pick up a book like this. Just as he did with Devil in the White City, Erik Larson delivers both.

I decided to read this after the last season of Upstairs, Downstairs, to get another view of diplomatic life in Berlin immediately before WWII. I wasn't disappointed. Without bogging down too often in the complex political details of an isolationist America, Larson manages to keep the life stories of unlikely diplomat William E. Dodd & his socially adventurous (to put it mildly) daughter Martha humming along. We also get glimpses of Dodd's wife and son, though perhaps not often enough. The focus on these two characters does make for a more coherent narrative, though, & Martha in particular keeps the pages turning.

When things start falling apart -- appallingly -- in the summer of 1934, there's a real sense of shock as tedious dinner parties, diplomatic infighting, & Martha's romantic adventures give way to executions and terror. Larson picks up the pace even more at this point, though Dodd's moral principles and unwillingness to deal with the new reality of Hitler's Reich don't allow for much suspense.

For those curious about such things, Larson includes a full set of notes on sources -- reassuring even for those of us swept along by the story.



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