The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill Family and Defiance During the Blitz

About this book

#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 Blitzan inspiring portrait of courage and leadership in a time of unprecedented crisis One of Erik Larsons best books yet . . . perfectly timed for the moment.Time A bravura performance by one of Americas 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 Churchills 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 allyand 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 its also an intimate domestic drama set against the backdrop of Churchills 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 reportssome released only recentlyLarson provides a new lens on Londons 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; Pamelas illicit lover a dashing American emissary; and the advisers in Churchills Secret Circle to whom he turns in the hardest moments. The Splendid and the Vile takes readers out of todays political dysfunction and back to a time of true leadership when in the face of unrelenting horror Churchills eloquence courage and perseverance bound a country and a family together.