Meet Erik Larson: An Evening with the Bestselling Nonfiction Author

Bookshop West Portal is delighted to host acclaimed bestselling author Erik Larson in person for an evening of conversation. We are celebrating the release of The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War.

This event will take place at the United Irish Cultural Center at 2700 45th Ave.

• General Admission + Personalized Copy of The Demon of Unrest

includes admission for 1 attendee and 1 signed copy of The Demon of Unrest for pick up at the event

**Your ticket purchase includes a hardcover, signed book that must be picked up at the event.

Please use our website here to order the book if you require shipping, or if you do not intend to attend the event.

• 6:15pm: Doors open

There is no assigned seating, so arrive promptly collect your books and get your seats.

• 7:00pm: Author Talk

• Pre-order additional copies of The Demon of Unrest
• Snag copies of Mr. Larson's many other titles!

Erik Larson is the author of six previous national bestsellers-- The Splendid and the Vile, Dead Wake, In the Garden of Beasts, Thunderstruck, The Devil in the White City, and Isaac's Storm--which have collectively sold more than ten million copies. His books have been published in nearly twenty countries.

One of Time's Most Anticipated Books of the Year

On November 6, 1860, Abraham Lincoln became the fluky victor in a tight race for president. The country was bitterly at odds; Southern extremists were moving ever closer to destroying the Union, with one state after another seceding and Lincoln powerless to stop them. Slavery fueled the conflict, but somehow the passions of North and South came to focus on a lonely federal fortress in Charleston Harbor: Fort Sumter.

Master storyteller Erik Larson offers a gripping account of the chaotic months between Lincoln's election and the Confederacy's shelling of Sumter--a period marked by tragic errors and miscommunications, enflamed egos and craven ambitions, personal tragedies and betrayals. Lincoln himself wrote that the trials of these five months were "so great that, could I have anticipated them, I would not have believed it possible to survive them."

At the heart of this suspense-filled narrative are Major Robert Anderson, Sumter's commander and a former slave owner sympathetic to the South but loyal to the Union; Edmund Ruffin, a vain and bloodthirsty radical who stirs secessionist ardor at every opportunity; and Mary Boykin Chesnut, wife of a prominent planter, conflicted over both marriage and slavery and seeing parallels between them. In the middle of it all is the overwhelmed Lincoln, battling with his duplicitous secretary of state, William Seward, as he tries desperately to avert a war that he fears is inevitable--one that will eventually K*ll 750,000 Americans.

Drawing on diaries, secret communiques, slave ledgers, and plantation records, Larson gives us a political horror story that captures the forces that led America to the brink--a dark reminder that we often don't see a cataclysm coming until it's too late.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

United Irish Cultural Center, 2700 45th Avenue, San Francisco, United States