#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - The author of The Devil in the
White City and Dead Wake delivers an intimate chronicle of Winston
Churchill and London during the Blitz--an inspiring portrait of courage
and leadership in a time of unprecedented crisis
"One of [Erik Larson's] best books yet . . . perfectly timed for the
moment."--Time - "A bravura performance by one of America's greatest
storytellers."--NPR
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book
Review - Time - Vogue - NPR - The Washington Post - Chicago
Tribune - The Globe & Mail - Fortune - Bloomberg - New York Post -
The New York Public Library - Kirkus Reviews - LibraryReads -
PopMatters
On Winston Churchill's first day as prime minister, Adolf Hitler invaded
Holland and Belgium. Poland and Czechoslovakia had already fallen, and
the Dunkirk evacuation was just two weeks away. For the next twelve
months, Hitler would wage a relentless bombing campaign, killing 45,000
Britons. It was up to Churchill to hold his country together and
persuade President Franklin Roosevelt that Britain was a worthy
ally--and willing to fight to the end.
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 brinkmanship, but it's also an intimate domestic
drama, set against the backdrop of Churchill's prime-ministerial country
home, Chequers; his wartime retreat, Ditchley, where he and his
entourage go when the moon is brightest and the bombing threat is
highest; and of course 10 Downing Street in London. Drawing on diaries,
original archival documents, and once-secret intelligence reports--some
released only recently--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 youngest daughter, Mary, who chafes against her
parents' wartime protectiveness; their son, Randolph, and his beautiful,
unhappy wife, Pamela; Pamela's illicit lover, a dashing American
emissary; and the advisers in Churchill's "Secret Circle," to whom he
turns in the hardest moments.
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, Churchill's eloquence, courage, and perseverance
bound a country, and a family, together.
