BookTowne Welcomes Abbott Kahler, Author of Eden Undone, December 10 @ 6PM

A ticket includes a signed copy of the book.

ABOUT THE BOOK

EDEN UNDONE: A True Story of Sex, M**der, and Utopia at the Dawn of World War I

At the height of the Great Depression, Los Angeles oil mogul George Allan Hancock and his crew of Smithsonian scientists came upon a gruesome scene: two bodies, mummified by the searing heat, on the shore of a remote Galápagos island. For the past four years Hancock and other American elites had traveled the South Seas to collect specimens for scientific research. On one trip to the Galápagos, Hancock encountered an equally exotic group of humans: European exiles who had fled political and economic unrest pre-World War II, hoping to create a utopian paradise. One was so devoted to a life of isolation that he’d had his teeth extracted and replaced with a set of steel dentures.

In EDEN UNDONE: A True Story of Sex, M**der, and Utopia at the Dawn of World War II (Crown Hardcover; On Sale 9/24/24), New York Times bestselling authorAbbott Kahler draws from a rich seam of never-before-published archives and brings her celebrated storytelling to this little-known, macabre history of the Galapagos, and the Smithsonian scientists left to sift through the ruins.

As Hancock and his fellow American explorers would witness, paradise had turned into chaos. The three sets of exiles—a Berlin doctor and his lover, a traumatized World War I veteran and his young family, and an Austrian baroness with two adoring paramours—were riven by conflict. Petty slights led to angry confrontations. The baroness, wielding a riding crop and pearl-handled revolver, staged physical fights between her two lovers and unabashedly seduced American tourists. The conclusion was deadly: with two exiles missing and two others dead, the survivors hurled accusations of M**der.

From the virtuoso pen of Kahler, “a pioneer of sizzle history” (USA Today) and a “master” of narrative nonfiction (Wall Street Journal), comes this spine-chilling, mind-boggling tale that combines the atmospheric world-unfolding of Charles Darwin with a M**der mystery worthy of Agatha Christie. Just in time for the Ron Howard-directed film Eden, starring Jude Law and Sydney Sweeney, readers can learn all about the stranger-than-fiction chapter in history.

Abbott is best known as the New York Times bestselling historian of The Ghosts of Eden Park, Sin in the Second City, and American Rose. EDEN UNDONE is her biggest undertaking yet, and has major pop culture buzz, following the same little-known, true yet crazier-than-fiction story as upcoming Ron Howard movie “Eden,” about European refugees settling on remote Galapagos islands in hopes of building their own utopia between world wars—and they’re willing to do anything to stay, even in unhabitable conditions.

Scheduled to release either end of this year or early next (no trailer yet but it is screening at Toronto Film Festival), we know film casting: Jude Law is playing Friedrich Ritter; Vanessa Kirby is playing Dore Strauch; Sydney Sweeney is playing Margret Wittmer; and Ana de Armas is playing the Baroness. It’s a perfect intersection for both history and movie lovers, reads like fiction.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Abbott Kahler, formerly writing as Karen Abbott, is the New York Times bestselling author of Sin in the Second City; American Rose; Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy; The Ghosts of Eden Park (an Edgar Award finalist for Best Fact Crime), and a novel, Where You End. A native of Philadelphia, she lives in New York City and in Greenport, New York.

Host or Publisher BookTowne