![Erik Larson, on being affected by his subject matter: “I pride myself on having a journalistic remove. For example, after my book The Devil in the White City, people often ask if I had nightmares [and] wasn’t I horrified by the nature of that serial killer? And my answer was always, ‘I always wear two hats. The one that says: this is horrific. And the other part that says: this is great stuff.’ In this case, something very different happened. I found myself entering a low-grade depression. There’s something so relentless and foul about Hitler and his people, and the way things progressed from year to year. It just got to me in the strangest way.”](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lkxsq4zDPR1qd9dz2o1_500.jpg "Erik Larson, on being affected by his subject matter: “I pride myself on having a journalistic remove. For example, after my book The Devil in the White City, people often ask if I had nightmares [and] wasn’t I horrified by the nature of that serial killer? And my answer was always, ‘I always wear two hats. The one that says: this is horrific. And the other part that says: this is great stuff.’ In this case, something very different happened. I found myself entering a low-grade depression. There’s something so relentless and foul about Hitler and his people, and the way things progressed from year to year. It just got to me in the strangest way.”")
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Erik Larson, on being affected by his subject matter: “I pride myself on having a journalistic remove. For example, after my book The Devil in the White City, people often ask if I had nightmares [and] wasn’t I horrified by the nature of that serial killer? And my answer was always, ‘I always wear two hats. The one that says: this is horrific. And the other part that says: this is great stuff.’ In this case, something very different happened. I found myself entering a low-grade depression. There’s something so relentless and foul about Hitler and his people, and the way things progressed from year to year. It just got to me in the strangest way.”
