The Midtown Scholar Bookstore and WITF are honored to welcome #1 New York Times bestselling author Erik Larson to Harrisburg for a conversation and signing on his new book, The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War. Larson will be in conversation with NPR's Steve Inskeep. This event is in partnership with WITF.

This ticketed event will take place at the Scottish Rite Cathedral in Harrisburg, located at 2701 North 3rd Street, Harrisburg, PA 17110. Ample free parking is available in their lots, located behind the venue and across the street. Every ticket includes a pre-signed, hardcover copy of The Demon of Unrest. Doors will open at 1:00pm, and the event will begin at 2:00pm. Seating is General Admission; first come, first served.

Additional signed copies of Erik Larson and Steve Inskeep's previous books will be available for sale at the event. There will be an opportunity for a book personalization with Erik Larson immediately following the program. A maximum of two additional books (besides The Demon of Unrest) may be personalized, and those books must be purchased through the Midtown Scholar Bookstore's on-site bookselling station. No outside books may be brought to the venue.

LIVE-STREAM TICKET

This event will be live-streamed. Every live-stream ticket includes one signed copy of The Demon of Unrest and the live-stream link. The live-stream link will be sent at least one hour before the event begins, and will expire after 24 hours. Please check your SPAM folder if you do not receive the link in time. Books will be shipped via USPS Priority. US addresses only.

About the Book:

The #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Splendid and the Vile brings to life the pivotal five months between the election of Abraham Lincoln and the start of the Civil War—a slow-burning crisis that finally tore a deeply divided nation in two.

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 both. 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 kill 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.

About the Authors:

Erik Larson is the author of six New York Times bestsellers, most recently The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz, which examines how Winston Churchill and his “Secret Circle” went about surviving the German air campaign of 1940-41. Larson’s The Devil in the White City is set to be a Hulu limited series; his In the Garden of Beasts is under option by Tom Hanks for a feature film. He recently published an audio-original ghost story, No One Goes Alone, which has been optioned by Chernin Entertainment, in association with Netflix. His Thunderstruck has been optioned by Sony Pictures Television for a limited TV series. Larson lives in Manhattan with his wife, who is a writer and retired neonatologist; they have three grown daughters.

Steve Inskeep is a cohost of NPR’s Morning Edition, the most widely heard radio program in the United States, and of NPR’s Up First, one of the nation’s most popular podcasts. His reporting has taken him across the United States, the Middle East, Latin America, Africa, Pakistan, and China. His search for the full story behind the news has led him to history; he is the author of Instant City, Jacksonland, and Imperfect Union.

Tax-Inclusive: a $2.03 Harrisburg City amusement tax and 6% PA state sales tax are included in the cost of each ticket.