Brad Meltzer, THE LIGHTENING ROD: A Zig & Nola Novel
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[0:37]Hi, hi. Hello.
[0:38]Enjoy the show.
[0:41]Brad Meltzer is the author of The Lightning Rod, a Zig and Nora novel.
[0:45]Brad Meltzer, if you don't know, is the number one New York Times bestselling author of 12 previous thrillers,
[0:51]including The Escape Artist, with more than 11 million copies sold.
[0:56]He also helped find the missing 9-11 flag with his History Channel TV show,
[1:00]Brad Meltzer's Lost History, and Brad Meltzer's Decoded.
[1:03]In addition, he is the author of The Nonfiction Bestseller, The Lincoln Conspiracy,
[1:08]as well as The Blockbuster Children's History Book series, Ordinary People Change the World.
[1:13]You've probably seen all those books when characters in history appear as children.
[1:18]Like, I am open free in all those books.
[1:20]Anyway, they're amazing.
[1:21]And I actually talked to Brad about those books and his other books on this podcast
[1:25]before, so you can go back and listen to our previous episode if you just can't get enough.
[1:30]A PBS Kids TV show, based on his books, Xavier Riddle and the Secret Museum now has 28 million viewers
[1:36]and was recently nominated for multiple Emmys and TCA awards.
[1:40]Brad has written Best Selling Comic Books with Superman, Batman, and Spider-Man.
[1:44]The Hollywood Reporter put him on their list of the 25 most powerful authors,
[1:48]and he is a favorite author of multiple U.S. Presidents.
[1:51]I wonder how they know that, but anyway, that's amazing.
[1:53]He has been asked to serve as a member of the America 250 Council to celebrate the upcoming 250th birthday of the country.
[2:00]He lives in Florida with his wife and three children.
[2:03]So welcome back to Brad.
[2:04]Welcome, Brad.
[2:05]Thank you so much for coming on Mom's Don't Have Time to Read books.
[2:08]Again, to discuss the lightning rod, your latest novel. Congratulations.
[2:12]Thank you. I love being back.
[2:14]I am not sure I can ever value park my car again after this book.
[2:18]Trust me, this is one of my greatest fears come true.
[2:22]And whenever I read a thriller, especially something like this, which is personal and that kind of normal universe,
[2:28]the book opens with my greatest fears handing your keys to a valet parking your car.
[2:34]And in the opening scene, as the character hands his keys to the valet, the valet takes the car,
[2:40]and instead of parking it in the parking lot, he hits the GPS button.
[2:44]He says the words go home.
[2:47]And now he's driving to that man's house with his car keys and his house keys.
[2:51]It's my nightmare come true, right?
[2:53]And the garage.
[2:55]And he basically it's a robbery, right?
[2:57]This is what it is.
[2:58]You've got a garage opening opens it up and you can crack those in an instant.
[3:02]All based on reality, you can see everything in there.
[3:04]He gets into the house and someone's waiting for him with a gun and says you really think we didn't know what you were up to.
[3:10]And this isn't a robbery at all.
[3:11]It's a trap.
[3:12]And I'll just say the body show up.
[3:15]The body goes to our hero Zig, who is a mortician who finds the body.
[3:18]And it unleashes one of the greatest secrets of our main heroine, Nola,
[3:23]which is what the book's about in the book asks.
[3:25]You know, what's the best secret about yourself that no one knows.
[3:28]I just ruined chapter one of the lightning rod, but it is absolutely 100% to be based on my fear every time I hand those keys over.
[3:38]Why doesn't this guy and we in my family know you take your house keys with you, but it's all based on my own craziness.
[3:44]I worry about so many things, but that was not something that was on my list.
[3:49]But now it will be on my list.
[3:51]Yeah, particularly the girl.
[3:52]I'm going to take the garage door opener too and not use the GPS.
[3:55]Anyway, I love how I'm glad the lightning rod has given you nightmares already.
[4:00]Yeah, given me nightmares already.
[4:02]So I feel like my kids who like art, I'm like after reading about Zig and how he does.
[4:08]How he can make magic out of faces that have been completely destroyed.
[4:12]Perhaps that's another way to go if you have an artistic child that you could be a mortician and and and doctor up people's bodies in the very respectful way that Zig does it in this book.
[4:22]Lesson I found Zig based on real people.
[4:25]I was obsessed with do a lot of work for the USO.
[4:28]They bring thriller writers.
[4:30]So myself and Sandra Brown have gone and Kathy Reichs, who does the bone series.
[4:34]We've all gone to Kuwait and Oman and Qatar and Cuba.
[4:37]They've taken us all over the world.
[4:39]And it was there I heard about a place called Dover Air Force Base.
[4:41]I'm not a big military person, but I didn't know much about it.
[4:43]But I knew and we've all know where our fallen troops when they're killed when the soldiers come home.
[4:49]We see those flag cup of coffins.
[4:51]And you see everyone saluting them.
[4:53]You also means that the Pentagon victims on the Pentagon flight from 911.
[4:58]Those bodies went to Dover.
[4:59]The astronauts when the space shuttle blew up, those bodies went to Dover.
[5:03]Every spy we have a broad James Bond or anyone else when those bodies come.
[5:07]They come to Dover, which means that Dover is a place filled with secrets.
[5:10]And I was like, I want to get in there and that's where my character Zig works.
[5:14]And then I was like, I got the book.
[5:16]It was great.
[5:17]Location.
[5:18]I have a great set up.
[5:19]I got everything.
[5:20]But I wanted this character, a female character named Nola.
[5:22]And I was in an army of all places had a warehouse that was filled with artwork.
[5:29]And they had paintings.
[5:30]All these paintings done by soldiers.
[5:32]I'm like, why does the army have all this art?
[5:34]And they told me this is true that since World War One, the army is a natural painter on staff,
[5:40]painting disasters as they happen from storming the beaches and Normandy to Vietnam to 911.
[5:45]And I said, you're telling me that everyone else is racing with guns blazing.
[5:49]And we have a guy who races in with paintbrushes in their pocket.
[5:52]I'm like, I got to meet that guy.
[5:53]He sounds crazy.
[5:54]I want to meet him.
[5:55]And they said to me, you mean her.
[5:58]You want to meet her.
[5:59]It was a woman.
[6:00]And that's where Nola Brown, our hero in the book was born.
[6:04]And I said, now I know what the, you know, Nola is the lightning rob trouble finds her.
[6:09]She's my favorite character I've ever worked on.
[6:11]She's who everyone's, you know, reacts to in the book.
[6:14]And as a hero, I don't think I've ever found anyone so developed as when I, in that moment, found that leap character.
[6:20]Wow.
[6:21]And she's an artist, right?
[6:23]I mean, obviously, zig's an artist in one way.
[6:24]I bought his, is a painter.
[6:26]And she, when she goes into a situation, she can find something about you.
[6:31]You don't even realize you're putting out there.
[6:33]She sees with a painter's eye.
[6:34]So she'll see which way the tongue on your belt buckle faces.
[6:37]And she knows whether you're already ready or lefty.
[6:39]She sees that there's crow's feet just on one of your eyes and not the other, which means you're the one who's the marksman in the room.
[6:45]You're the assassin because she can, that's the eye you aim with and split with.
[6:49]She can see which way leg you put more weight on because you had knee surgery.
[6:53]What she can find is your weakness.
[6:55]What Nola finds her strength is she can always find your weakness.
[6:59]And as a character, especially as a heroine and a thriller, you know, I love the fact that people react to her and take into her.
[7:06]I need her to like come over.
[7:07]I want to get, you know, I would like to interview Nola.
[7:09]How do we make that happen?
[7:11]Oh, listen, you're talking to her.
[7:12]I mean, no.
[7:13]The truth is is Nola.
[7:14]Nola, you know, I gave her name Nola Brown that the real artist or as a woman named Amy Brown.
[7:19]It's just one of the most amazing people.
[7:21]And like Nola, she has, unlike myself, had a teacher who changed her life.
[7:26]Who saw that she had this talent.
[7:28]And I think for those of us who have had our lives touched by that teacher,
[7:32]you know, remember the first person whoever told you were good at something.
[7:35]That person leaves an indelible mark on you.
[7:38]And Nola only found that love in her teacher.
[7:43]Her parents threw her away.
[7:44]She was treated like garbage.
[7:45]She was always treated like trash.
[7:47]And Zig, our other hero in the book, he basically lost someone very dear to him.
[7:51]I don't want to ruin the scene, but lost someone dear to him.
[7:54]And that's why he's trying to find help people find closure in their lives when they lose someone close.
[8:00]But, you know, he will never have a daughter.
[8:03]Nola will never have a father.
[8:05]And that's the true North, Frisig and Nola.
[8:08]Is they both will never ever have what they want?
[8:11]And those needs are so deep and so wrong.
[8:14]But yes, you know, yes, there's a plot and there's a mystery and there's a murder and there's, you know,
[8:18]all these wonderful things that will happen in secret should be revealed.
[8:21]But at the core of it, of these books, the lightning rod is always about that character of Nola.
[8:26]It's always about who she is and what she needs.
[8:28]I feel like grief that pervades a lot of these scenes in one way, shape or form.
[8:33]Even with the, since we've already been giving away the first chapter, when the person whose car is stolen and he has a teen son and there is the scene with the son and the mom where they are, he is sobbing and saying, like, I can't do it.
[8:47]And she's like, I'm here for you. I'm here. I'm here. I'm here.
[8:49]And he feel like, like, you just want to cry with this family. How is this family going to make it?
[8:54]Listen, that's, that's me burying in my own parents. I lost my mom. I lost my dad.
[8:59]And I spent a long time, Debbie, trying to ask myself, how do I get over it?
[9:05]Right. My mother was the greatest person on this planet.
[9:09]When my second book did poorly, I called my mom devastated.
[9:14]Like, my career's over. They're shutting down. The publish was shutting down.
[9:17]And I never anything. My mom said to me on there.
[9:19]She said, I'd love you if you were a garbage man.
[9:22]And she wasn't taking a crack at garbage man. You know, my uncle was a garbage man, but she was saying, I don't care for the king of England or anyone else. I love you.
[9:29]And then I lost her. Right. Lost her breast cancer. And now I spent all this time going, how do I get over that?
[9:36]And I were all these books trying to figure out how do I get over it. And I finally realized.
[9:40]Maybe this is why we're talking today that I will never get over the loss of my mother.
[9:45]And I never should get over the loss of my mother.
[9:47]The only thing you can ever do when you lose someone who touches you to your core like that.
[9:52]The only thing you can do is you transform. You become someone else.
[9:57]And it's not a better person, a lesser person.
[10:00]I have to, you do become someone else.
[10:03]And I think for me, you are absolutely right.
[10:06]I love writing those scenes that you're reacting to
[10:09]because they are real.
[10:11]They are me dealing with the grief of everything I've been
[10:14]through.
[10:15]And it's funny, my 20-year-old son,
[10:18]who never might kid's never cared about anything I do.
[10:20]They're never impressed with anything.
[10:21]My daughter says to me, dad,
[10:22]why doesn't anyone want you to sign their books?
[10:24]Why they want you?
[10:25]Like, thanks.
[10:26]You understand what feeds you every day, right?
[10:28]But my son was reading the book and he's like,
[10:30]dad, there's so much of us in here.
[10:33]He knew, and he's like, all this love that you have,
[10:35]all the love I've had for my children is that love
[10:38]that's it has for his daughter.
[10:39]All the love you see in that scene
[10:41]and what he's saying is what I,
[10:43]his my love for my kids and my wife.
[10:45]Like, that is what always will drive the emotional core
[10:48]of these books.
[10:49]Wow.
[10:50]Well, the emotional residence is powerful.
[10:54]I mean, who everybody has lost.
[10:56]Everyone has felt that way.
[10:58]Or maybe not.
[10:59]I hope, well, I certainly have.
[11:01]I certainly know a lot of people who have.
[11:03]And I find it's so interesting.
[11:05]People say, how can I go on?
[11:07]And what you're basically saying is,
[11:09]I can't go on.
[11:10]Like, I, the way you conceptualized it, that version.
[11:14]You won't go on.
[11:15]Like, that's not that same person.
[11:17]You truly are not that same, but you know,
[11:19]I felt for a very long,
[11:22]I was just talking to someone about it.
[11:24]And we were saying that you're on this,
[11:26]when you lose someone, again,
[11:28]who touches your deep to your soul.
[11:30]It's like you're in a car accident
[11:32]and the car's still spinning.
[11:33]And I remember going out my mom and dad first died.
[11:36]I remember going out and walking around
[11:38]and I see people smiling, just doing nothing but smiling.
[11:40]I'd be like, how can these people be smiling
[11:42]when I'm so sad right now?
[11:44]And I remember just being for months,
[11:47]months and months and months and months.
[11:48]And it's a roller coaster you're on, right?
[11:51]And this is what I've realized,
[11:54]watching what I've dealt with with my own parents
[11:55]is that in the beginning,
[11:57]you'll hear a song that reminds me of your parents
[11:59]and you'll be sobbing.
[12:00]Unlike some Barbara Streisand song
[12:02]that my mother just thought was the greatest thing in the world.
[12:04]And I remember sending it to a Barbara Streisand
[12:05]concept before she died.
[12:07]Just being like, you have to go.
[12:08]And I'd be undone by that.
[12:10]It'll be the most horrible, like, room my day.
[12:13]I'm wrecked by this old song, this old smell,
[12:15]this old, her old perfume, if I've smelled it on someone.
[12:19]And then that roller coaster you're on levels.
[12:23]I don't know how it's just time.
[12:25]There's no magical answer.
[12:26]There's no magical way to make it happen.
[12:28]But it levels.
[12:29]And those things, and this is actually in the lightning rod,
[12:32]Zig talks about this in the book,
[12:34]those things that torch you in the beginning
[12:37]when your loved one dies, eventually,
[12:40]those same exact things become little rewards
[12:43]that show up in the universe and you go, oh, that's great.
[12:46]Like, I remember my mom died.
[12:47]I just, I don't know.
[12:48]And I'm not something to age you, whoo, whoo, person,
[12:50]but I remember seeing lots of butterflies.
[12:52]And just while my mom died,
[12:54]all those butterflies were around.
[12:55]I never see butterflies.
[12:56]And now when I saw them again, I was like,
[12:58]what is this?
[12:59]I would be so upset.
[13:00]Now when I see a butterfly, I know it's my mom saying,
[13:02]dumbass, pick your head up and just go.
[13:04]And I'm like, thank you, mom.
[13:06]Thank you for that.
[13:06]And it's the same thing with an old song.
[13:08]I'll hear some old BG song.
[13:10]My sister, in fact, yesterday texted me.
[13:12]She was here and she's like,
[13:13]more than a woman just came on,
[13:15]which is my mom and dad's, that's their dad's song.
[13:17]And she literally texted me last night.
[13:19]So more than a woman's on, I'm like, awesome.
[13:21]And it was just like, it was now a gift,
[13:23]that thing that hurt us so much became this gift
[13:25]that was now like, now it's something you could take
[13:27]something good from.
[13:28]And I think that the lightning rod
[13:30]when you have one hero who's a mortician,
[13:32]when you have this other hero,
[13:33]was this incredibly powerful woman
[13:35]who's dealing with her own grief,
[13:37]I can't help but put my own into it.
[13:39]It's what has to fill it.
[13:40]I'm so sorry about your loss.
[13:42]But no, no, but that's the thing is, right?
[13:45]It's like, that's what you say when someone is
[13:47]freshly dead, right?
[13:48]That's the thing, right?
[13:49]I have to say it anyway, I have to say it.
[13:50]I know it's totally, I was just talking actually
[13:52]about this woman who lost her husband.
[13:53]And she was like, can we stop saying, I'm sorry?
[13:56]Like, I say, I'm sorry when I step on your foot.
[13:58]I don't say, I'm sorry, you know,
[13:59]the someone in Kelsey should make sure that she's awesome.
[14:01]I can't say, I'm sorry, I'm sorry,
[14:02]he's not the same thing.
[14:03]Like, how can we even use the same expression?
[14:05]But I don't know.
[14:06]I had to say something.
[14:07]I have to say, you have to say something.
[14:09]Like, maybe I'm sorry, it's the wrong word.
[14:11]I feel, I am, I feel your loss.
[14:14]And I am sorry you had to go through that.
[14:16]And I know it's not a stretch, but.
[14:19]No, but I'm not, I actually love that you feel that.
[14:22]that is a beautiful thing to say.
[14:23]I was actually saying it because I don't feel it as that anymore.
[14:27]I feel like I'm blessed that I have my parents.
[14:30]Like, my mom is the best or I can tell you about my mom.
[14:33]When, when borders books were still around,
[14:35]the head of border sales said to me,
[14:38]guess where your books sell nationally more than anywhere else?
[14:40]And I said, I don't know, New York City,
[14:42]eight million people in one place.
[14:43]No, I said, Washington DC.
[14:45]I write thrillers that are sent in DC.
[14:47]No, the number one place where my book sold
[14:49]was the book or a tone of Florida borders.
[14:51]One mile from the furniture store where my mother used to work,
[14:55]which means my mother single-handedly beat eight million
[14:57]New Yorkers, right?
[14:58]Like, that's the power of a Jewish mom.
[15:01]Like, that's the ultimate power of any mother.
[15:04]And, and I love the fact that is crazy as my mother was.
[15:08]And she just poured love onto us.
[15:11]Like, I'm not sorry at all.
[15:13]Like, I, I, I, the only thing I,
[15:15]I feel bad about is I, I wish my kids have my mom.
[15:18]I have my mom.
[15:19]My mom is still with me every day.
[15:20]I think of her every single.
[15:22]I remember going to my father-in-law,
[15:24]buried his mom when he was in his 30s.
[15:26]Really young, younger than I was in my,
[15:27]I was in my 30s like, but he was,
[15:30]I was in late and he was in early.
[15:31]And I said, how, I said to him,
[15:32]how often do you think your mom?
[15:35]And he said to me every day.
[15:37]And I remember at the time going like,
[15:38]what?
[15:39]And I was exactly how my mother's with me
[15:40]every single day.
[15:41]And I'm like, my mother is in all the pages
[15:43]of the crazy mom in the lightning rod.
[15:45]That's my mother.
[15:47]I remember going when I wrote my first book,
[15:48]I never tell this story.
[15:50]I wrote in my very first thriller,
[15:53]the mom in the dad in the book.
[15:54]I wrote, I was a kid at that point.
[15:55]I was in my 20s,
[15:56]but I wrote my mom and dad.
[15:57]And my editor said to me,
[15:59]you can't keep these parents like this.
[16:00]They're too crazy.
[16:01]No one will believe them.
[16:03]And so I did the best thing I could do is
[16:04]I took my parents to meet my editor.
[16:07]And I literally slept them to New York.
[16:08]They set, brought them in the office.
[16:11]And for it must have been 15 minutes, half hour,
[16:13]whatever it was, I sat in the editor's office
[16:16]and my parents taught this poor man's face off.
[16:19]And I remember they left the office.
[16:22]And my editor turned to me and said,
[16:24]keep the scenes as they are.
[16:25]And I just love that that is,
[16:29]they are forever in all of my thrillers.
[16:31]They're always there.
[16:32]Uh-oh.
[16:33]No, it's funny.
[16:34]As a mom, you know, I'm always so worried.
[16:35]Not that, I mean, I have my parents luckily,
[16:38]but I'm more worried about my death
[16:41]as it affects my kids, right?
[16:43]Like I'm not worried about me itself.
[16:45]And so I always am telling them, I'm like,
[16:47]listen, if I one day drop off the face of yours,
[16:50]I'm sure I'm giving my kids all these horrible things
[16:52]I do, but you know, whatever it comes to being a child of mine.
[16:55]I'm like, I will be there.
[16:57]Like I feel like I'm gonna do whatever.
[16:59]I'm gonna make sure.
[17:00]So you don't have to worry about that.
[17:02]But I think one of the things you're saying
[17:04]about losing people you love like that so much.
[17:06]It's not just that you lose those people,
[17:08]but you lose that like steady stream of love
[17:11]that you receive from those people.
[17:13]So it's almost like, you know, you're under a showerhead.
[17:16]And then all of a sudden it turns off, right?
[17:18]So you also have to deal with that lack of like constant love
[17:22]that you get, which also is like all of a sudden
[17:24]you're standing out there freezing,
[17:26]being like I need to tell.
[17:27]No, my sister and I talk about this all the time.
[17:29]No one will ever, my sister and I always say no one will love us
[17:33]like my mom loved us.
[17:34]And I don't mean the love of like, oh, it's a mother love.
[17:37]I'm talking about the absurd, unquestionable,
[17:41]like ridiculous love.
[17:43]Like I remember, you know, if I,
[17:45]if I started a fire and let someone on fire,
[17:47]my mother would be like good fire.
[17:49]Like she would like whatever the crime was,
[17:51]my mom would come with me before.
[17:53]But, but I remember in fact it hit me recently.
[17:56]And I said it this to my wife who, you know,
[17:58]God bless her.
[17:59]She just understands right.
[18:00]And she, cause she has a great, amazing mom too.
[18:03]I got the first copy of the lighting rod came in the mail, right?
[18:06]My kids have seen and my wife has seen a dozen thrillers
[18:09]come before.
[18:10]They've seen our ordinary people change the world series.
[18:13]They've seen 30 of those kids books enter this house,
[18:16]opening a box and seeing a new book as, as thrilling as is to me,
[18:20]they've seen it.
[18:21]And the lighting rod came a week and a half ago
[18:24]and I opened it up and I was so excited.
[18:26]And no one cared and again, I don't need it.
[18:29]It's okay. I didn't need the love.
[18:30]But what I, what I miss was not that.
[18:32]What I missed is I said to my wife, I'm like,
[18:34]my mom would have made such a big deal over the stupid thing.
[18:37]Like, and that is that thing that like, no one replaces.
[18:41]No one will love you for those dumb things, like your mom.
[18:43]Well, in fact, when one of the books came out,
[18:46]I remember I, this was years and years ago.
[18:49]This book that I love,
[18:50]they got the best reviews everywhere.
[18:52]USA Today wrote, it was called the first council.
[18:55]And USA Today wrote this giant headline
[18:57]that said, make first your last and just rip the book apart.
[19:00]It was a terrible review.
[19:02]And I called my mom and I said, mom, I said,
[19:05]you see that review?
[19:06]She goes, oh, don't worry.
[19:07]No one reads that paper anyway.
[19:09]I'm like, mom, it's the number one paper in the country.
[19:11]The most, it's USA Today.
[19:13]It's not like the local, you know,
[19:16]but she didn't care.
[19:17]She didn't care.
[19:18]That's true.
[19:19]No one is here.
[19:20]It's fine.
[19:21]They skim.
[19:22]Oh, I've got bad reviews where people have said to me,
[19:24]that's, I saw you a great review.
[19:25]And I'm like, that's why I realized no one's reading articles
[19:27]and why that's okay.
[19:28]But I remember my mom, I remember, you know,
[19:30]when we hit the number one spot on the best,
[19:34]I, you know, they called my wife because I wasn't home.
[19:37]And then my wife told them where to find me.
[19:39]And the first person I called was my mother.
[19:41]And I called my mom to tell her, you know,
[19:43]I was the first in my family to go to a four year college.
[19:46]So to tell her that we hit the number one spot.
[19:48]She was on my huge deal.
[19:50]And my mom starts bawling.
[19:52]She's just sobbing.
[19:53]And she's crying.
[19:54]I said, and now I'm worried she's in the car
[19:55]and she's gonna like crash the car.
[19:57]So I said to her, mom, where are you?
[19:59]Like,
[20:00]to make sure she's okay. And of course, where is she? She says, I'm at marshals. Of course,
[20:07]you're like, here we are. The number one spot and you're still trying to buy a regular
[20:11]socks for a cheap, you know, like God bless my mother, like, she still believed to her dying day
[20:16]that marshals was the greatest place of all time. And I can't disagree. We grew up there.
[20:22]Can you send me a picture of her later, like, when you're done with us?
[20:25]happily. I would love to see her too. I would love that. I feel like I have such a clear vision
[20:31]of her in my head now. Oh, she's easily, she's easily conjured. Well, I know we haven't really
[20:36]touched about your book, but I feel like it is not a stupid thing to be excited when the
[20:41]when the carton arrives. I think it's still no matter how many books you've written, I still think it's
[20:46]really awesome. And each book is its own accomplishment. So whatever I say, you should, I'm sorry,
[20:53]the kids aren't, you know, kids don't care about anything, but they don't care about anything.
[20:57]You know, somebody should, you should take that victory dance and still enjoy it. Because like,
[21:03]they're so, I don't know. There's so much work involved in each book. You might as well like
[21:06]take the little victories. And I think when I can impress my kids, there's one scene in the book,
[21:13]I was, I'm always obsessed with how you keep secret from people, right? How do you, if we,
[21:17]if I text you something, we know that that text can be found and show up on the, you know,
[21:21]someone can grab it. If I, even if I have a signal or WhatsApp, encryption can be cracked,
[21:25]we all know it. So I said to my, I always work with these people who have like high-level
[21:29]government jobs who have to do this stuff and these acronym agencies. And I said to them,
[21:34]what do I do now? Like, how do I do that? And they said to me, there's a great one. They said,
[21:37]this, this don't want to impress my kids. They said, if you have a hotmail account and I run,
[21:43]write an email as if he, okay, don't send it. Just hit save draft, don't send it.
[21:49]Now it gives it your login. She's going to go into the same account. She's going to go into
[21:52]save draft. She's going to read what you wrote. She's going to delete it right back to you. She will
[21:57]not send it either. Now you and I are speaking and we've sent nothing on the internet. And I thought
[22:02]that was so great. I put it in a book. And then General Petraeus, the head of the CIA used that trick
[22:09]when he was cheating on his wife. And I called my buddy and I'm like, that's my trick. You just
[22:13]took my trick. So he gave me, he gave me a brand new trick that's even better that you will see
[22:20]what the government is, you'll see. I can't say that who does it. But you will see when you read
[22:25]the lightning rod and you get to that scene where I tell that exact story, you'll see what the next
[22:28]trick is. But I didn't make it up as a thriller writer. That's real. It really happened. And that to
[22:33]me is the fun is when my kids can react to that, that's better than the open carton. Like that's
[22:38]that's when I'm like, okay, I am press my kid on one day. It'll never happen again. I can wait
[22:43]another 10 years for it. But if I have that, I'm okay. Oh my gosh. That's amazing. I feel like I
[22:49]wanted to call you when all the stuff is going on with this invasion and the war. And I feel like
[22:53]you're one of the most astute, like smart people about all political everything, everything. And I
[23:01]feel like, you know, I want to call you like you're my dad. Like, okay, now what do I need to know?
[23:06]What do you think? What's going to happen next? Do you know, I mean, that like reassurance or are we
[23:10]going to be okay? Are they going to be okay? Yeah, listen, I mean, it's a crazy time as we're
[23:15]talking about this right now. I mean, but what we have to remember is even even for the people in
[23:19]power is their human beings and we forget that, right? We forget we want to yell at the government
[23:25]and yell at the president and yell at this so and so we yell at it. And like, I'll tell you,
[23:29]you know, my first job ever was an intern. I was an intern for Joe Biden. And then I remember getting
[23:35]getting fan letters from President Clinton and President George H. W. Bush who passed away last
[23:41]year. I don't know if I told you the story. But one of the things before President Bush died
[23:46]and we couldn't tell anyone at the time it was a secret. But I can tell a story now is they were
[23:51]bringing in his favorite authors to read to him before he died. Like, and I was one of the authors. And
[23:57]so I go to, I'm in Kenabung Court, Maine. They bring me in. It's my wife and myself
[24:02]and the secret service leave. And we know this is the end, right? It's just, it's me, my wife,
[24:07]President Bush and his service dog, Sally. And they say to me, listen Brad, you're going to
[24:12]read to him for five minutes. He's going to fall asleep in five minutes. He's just sleeping a lot
[24:15]these days. I said, you got it. I'm honored to do it. I'm honored to be here. And I bring one of my
[24:19]books with me and I get into the room and I see he has a stack of books on his desk. And one of
[24:23]the books is my book, The First Conspiracy. It's about a secret plot to kill George Washington.
[24:28]Not a fictional thrower like the lightning rod. It was actually a history book. And I say,
[24:31]sir, you want to read this. He says, because he can't speak at this point. He's just
[24:35]more important. And I read to him in five, 10 minutes. He's sleeping. And I'm like, great,
[24:41]I'm just going to finish the chapter. I'm going to sneak out of here. And I get the scene that I
[24:45]read to brought to read to him was the moment where George Washington presents his troops with
[24:50]the copy of the Declaration of Independence and as it read to them first time.
[24:54]And this is the first time they're going to hear it, I should say. And I get to those words,
[24:59]those words we all know. We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal.
[25:04]And President Bush's eyes pop open. And now he's wide awake. He's locked on me. It's like,
[25:10]it's like intravenous from the Declaration of Independence itself. And he, we finish the chapter,
[25:16]and I say, sir, you want to read another chapter? And I finished that one. We're right another, sir.
[25:22]And another. And instead of being there for five, 10 minutes, my wife and I are there for an hour.
[25:27]And I say goodbye to him. And I know I'm never going to see him again. I know it's the end.
[25:32]And when we went to his funeral, we got invited to his funeral. And the thing that I remember
[25:37]is the one word that everyone kept using over and over was this word, decency.
[25:42]Decency. And yes, I think it's because he was a decent guy. But I think we're a culture right now
[25:46]that's starving for decency. All we see when we look up the news, when we look up whatever's happening,
[25:50]we see this war that's happening right now is, you know, we're starving for us to remember that
[25:55]we're just human beings all struggling for just, we all have hopes. We all have dreams. We all have
[26:00]wants. And if you can see people like that, I think you'll just be far better off. And I think,
[26:05]you know, one of the lines, my favorite line I've ever written, one of my books, it says,
[26:09]the most intimate thing in life is to be understood and be understood by someone else.
[26:14]And I think right now, we all need a little bit of that. It's beautiful.
[26:17]Okay, Fred, what a half an hour in my day. Just like, amazing. Thank you. Thank you for this
[26:25]conversation. Thank you for all of it. Congratulations on your buck. And I hope so you can see him.
[26:31]I can't wait. And thanks. I do have to end by saying thank you for supporting the lighting
[26:34]world. But thanks for supporting the kids books. You were one of the first. And I appreciate it from
[26:39]I have an amazing, are you kidding? I know, but you, but you and I met through those,
[26:44]but I appreciate, I know everyone's like, oh, we want to talk to the thriller, but I just
[26:47]need to personally thank you, because you were like, first on board. And we were doing a lot.
[26:51]And I love that fact. So I know the Muhammad Ali, we just had Muhammad Ali and Malala are the two
[26:56]newest, but you were there way before they were the newest ones. And I just need to say thank you for
[27:01]supporting those. You're welcome. Thanks for writing him. All right. Thanks, Fred. Take care.
[27:07]Take care. Bye bye. Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms Don't Have Time to Read
[27:12]Books. Don't forget to follow me on Instagram at zibi Owens and at Moms Don't Have Time to Read
[27:18]Books. Also sign up for my newsletter at zibi Owens.com and sign up for my virtual book club and
[27:23]meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week. Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan in fact,
[27:27]texture sound for the sound editing. And thank you to Morning Moon Productions for providing
[27:31]this fantastic intro and now trim music.