Question about Erik Larsen

Do you guys consider his books fiction or non-fiction? Just curious.

Non-fiction . . . no question. He writes about real people and real historical events, and at least in the books of his that I've read, he doesn't play fast and loose with the facts or extrapolate unreasonably far beyond them for the sake of the narrative.

Did anything in particular prompt you to ask the question?

Do you mean Erik Larson?

I've only read Devil in the White City, and I'd say it's a mix. The sections about Daniel Burnham and the Columbian Exposition are definitely non-fiction, but when he starts writing about H.H. Holmes, he engages in a great deal of unsupported speculation and reliance on dubious sources, so blurring the line between non-fiction and fiction.

I can't speak to his other books.

>2 ABVR:

Sorry, I think you mean Erik Larson with an O.

Erik Larsen with an E draws comic books.

>4 Muscogulus:

Actually, there are two Erik Larsens on LT. The other is an art historian, clearly non-fiction.

>1 Jacksonian: I've heard Erik Larson's books described as "narrative nonfiction". More on that here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_nonfiction and https://www.creativenonfiction.org/what-is-creative-nonfiction

ETA touchstone

Sorry I did mean Larson with an O. Stupid phone.

I asked because I'm a stickler for not mixing my fiction and nonfiction on my bookshelves and wanted to know where to categorize him honestly.

Book stores put him in non-fiction, for what that's worth.

Libraries also put him in non-fiction.