James B. Stewart, UNSCRIPTED: The Epic Battle for a Media Empire and the Redstone Family Legacy
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[1:03]James B. Stewart is the author of Unscripted, The Epic Battle for Media Empire, and The
[1:09]Redstone Family Legacy.
[1:11]James Stewart is the author of 10 books, including The New York Times Best Sellers, Deep
[1:16]State, Tangled Webs, and The Blockbuster, Den of Thieves.
[1:20]Also Disney War, which I read and absolutely left.
[1:23]He is currently a columnist for The New York Times, and a professor at Columbia Journalism
[1:27]School.
[1:28]In 1988, he won a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on the stock market crash, an insider
[1:33]trading.
[1:34]Welcome, James.
[1:35]Thank you so much for coming.
[1:36]On mom's, don't have time to read books to discuss your latest book, Unscripted, The
[1:40]Epic Battle for a Media Empire, and The Redstone Family Legacy.
[1:45]Welcome.
[1:46]Thank you.
[1:47]Thanks for having me.
[1:48]I have to tell you, I have been such a fan of yours for so long, and this is about
[1:53]guest.
[1:54]I'm like, giddy excited to be doing.
[1:56]I have read so many of your books.
[1:58]I read Den of Thieves.
[2:00]I read Disney War on my first honeymoon to my ex-husband, and I was like, the entire
[2:05]honeymoon I sat there and read this book.
[2:07]So now Unscripted, and all your articles and everything, so anyway, I'm a huge fan.
[2:11]I love the way you write, and you're amazing reporting, and all of it.
[2:14]Thank you.
[2:15]So why don't you tell listeners a little about Unscripted?
[2:18]Well, this is quite this saga.
[2:21]You know, early in my career, I sometimes wondered, like, oh, where's the next story
[2:24]going to come from?
[2:25]And at this point in my life, I realized there's always another story.
[2:29]And sometimes it's, you know, I think nothing's going to surprise me, and then everything
[2:33]about this surprised me.
[2:35]But this is the saga.
[2:36]Really, the arc of the story is the billionaire Sumner Redstone is entering his final
[2:43]years.
[2:44]He was at his peak, you know, arguably the most important figure in media and entertainment
[2:49]with the Empire, the controlled, you know, the CBS Network, Paramount movie studio, divide
[2:55]on table channels, Nickelodeon, MTV, Comedy Central.
[3:00]And he was increasingly estranged from his family, especially his daughter, Sherry.
[3:05]And the story really is, she has drawn back into both the family business and her father's
[3:11]life by a bizarre set of circumstances, and really she confronts, you know, one obstacle,
[3:18]one hurdle after another towards restoring her relationship with her father and regaining
[3:22]family control, this multi-billion dollar empire.
[3:26]So a lot of people have compared this to a real life succession.
[3:30]And I get that in some ways, I think it's stranger than succession.
[3:34]But ultimately, it's, I think it's a family drama, and particularly about a very rich
[3:39]and powerful father and a daughter.
[3:42]And that fascinated me, I think, because I think especially in nonfiction, you don't see
[3:46]that many depictions of that relationship.
[3:49]I've always been sons, mothers, daughters, much more common, but this is the dynamic
[3:53]it really drives the plot here.
[3:55]So interesting.
[3:56]You know, it almost, did you read the new Jim Patterson book with Mike Lupika, the House
[4:01]of Wolves, or something like that, the House of Dent, what's it called, something with
[4:04]Wolves?
[4:05]Well, no, I haven't read it, but I should read it.
[4:07]And I would admit to you something that I have not said in the public forum, but I was
[4:13]starting, I guess I'd started writing, maybe, I just started writing this book, and I was
[4:18]on vacation.
[4:19]We ran at the House in the Virgin Islands, and they had a bookshelf there, books people
[4:24]had left, and there was a James Patterson novel there, and I've never read a lot.
[4:27]And I thought, well, wait a minute, this guy has sold how many millions of, I couldn't
[4:32]even count.
[4:33]So I thought, you know, we don't be the leadest here, I'll just take a look at this.
[4:37]So I started reading this, and I'm telling you, it's like you and your honeymoon or whatever.
[4:42]I would, we'd be at the beach right now, so can we get back, can we go home, can we go home
[4:45]a little early?
[4:47]I've got to keep reading this book, and I was obsessed with it, I loved it.
[4:52]So after that, I was, you know, scattered around online, and I saw that James Patterson
[4:57]gives these courses in writing, and he taught us some huge amount of money, and I wasn't
[5:02]going to sign up for that, but then I saw some of the former pupils had distilled a lot
[5:06]of what he wrote.
[5:07]And so I eagerly read all of that, and honestly, I did follow some of the suggestions
[5:12]here, including to write shorter chapters.
[5:16]And I'd always written these like 10,000 word chapters before, and like suddenly I thought,
[5:20]you know, that's, that's an interesting idea.
[5:22]I mean, his chapters are three pages or four pages, I didn't go that far, but I definitely
[5:27]chopped it down, and it's really interesting because you have to craft that, you know,
[5:34]you've got to be thinking, okay, the end of a thought, end of a scene, and then how do
[5:37]you get people going?
[5:38]But it really sped up the momentum.
[5:41]I think anyway, but people have been complimenting, you know, the book and how readable
[5:45]it is.
[5:46]And again, I never said this before, but I think it is included to James Patterson.
[5:50]That is so funny.
[5:52]Oh my gosh.
[5:53]I love it.
[5:54]I love that you didn't pay for the class, and you're like getting the clips notes of
[6:00]the class.
[6:01]I mean, that's like, I'm sorry, James Patterson's listening to this, I know he doesn't
[6:06]miss that income, but, you know, I got that second hand.
[6:11]Oh my gosh.
[6:12]Well, his latest book is about, and I just had him on the podcast for this, which is
[6:16]why I'm bringing it up.
[6:17]I don't usually just talk about other people's books, but featured like the daughter
[6:21]of a very powerful man who has to then take on the company.
[6:26]And I don't know.
[6:27]I think you'll find interesting.
[6:28]Yeah.
[6:29]Some real similarities there.
[6:30]Yeah.
[6:31]In fact, the two of you should really go on the road.
[6:33]You should do like an event together.
[6:34]I'll moderate.
[6:35]I'll be the moderator if you want.
[6:37]Anyway, but it is interesting.
[6:40]And especially sort of this withholding of parental lover, like what it does to a child,
[6:46]to not have the consistency of love and how do you handle that and how does that affect
[6:50]your personality and therefore, of course, your leadership style, but really everything
[6:54]that you do in life.
[6:55]Right?
[6:56]Absolutely.
[6:57]And that's a theme that runs throughout the book.
[7:00]As someone who rests on the billionaire mogul has many, I don't quite have this in
[7:07]the polite way, but he's not exactly a role model, but I mean, he himself said, you know,
[7:15]I'm going to go to hell anyway.
[7:16]So I might as well do whatever I want or something to something without effect.
[7:20]But clearly throughout the story, his daughter, Sherry, is still yearning for his approval
[7:25]in this love.
[7:26]I think an incredibly poignant scene, you know, right, almost at the very end where, you
[7:32]know, son of his finally died and his daughter reaches out to his closest confidant and
[7:38]says, well, do you think he really loved me?
[7:42]And I really, it just, you know, it gets me even now because I was thinking after all
[7:47]that, all that she did for him, the fights that she went through, she doesn't have the
[7:53]piece of mind of even knowing that, you know, which is probably the one thing that she really
[7:58]wanted.
[7:59]I think that's the lesson, you know, for anybody in a family to some extent, you know,
[8:03]we all feel that our parents.
[8:05]It's true.
[8:06]I feel like she might have benefited from maybe a little bit of a better therapist or something,
[8:11]you know, like, you know, because after, well, what can you can only, you have to make
[8:17]peace with that in the future, you're going to be a successful person, right, emotionally?
[8:22]I don't know.
[8:23]My brother just abandoned the family completely.
[8:25]He sold out his interest.
[8:26]He took his $250 million and he went to a ranch in Colorado and never to be hurt from
[8:30]again.
[8:31]I don't know that that's the, the answer either.
[8:34]You know, that's like just, you know, running away from the thing.
[8:37]And, you know, I don't know what kind of piece of money he has, but I don't know that
[8:41]that's, you know, the best way to deal with it either.
[8:44]True.
[8:45]Well, you, you describe in the book some of the ways in which he is not like the most
[8:50]role model of a guy.
[8:52]They put it mildly.
[8:53]Can you tell the story here about the fire?
[8:57]Because I hadn't known that until I read this book.
[8:59]Oh, yeah.
[9:00]Well, I think this was a very formative episode as well at my band, but he was staying,
[9:05]he was from the Boston area, but he was staying at the Copplee Plaza hotel one night,
[9:10]which is, you know, kind of famous old hotel on Copplee Square in Boston and a fire
[9:14]broke out on the floor.
[9:16]And he had to escape from the room and he went out the window and tried to climb out
[9:21]the window there.
[9:22]And he was hanging from the window ledge, eventually he was hanging by only one hand because
[9:26]the flames were, you know, lapping out of the window and they seriously burned its hand.
[9:33]Somehow he managed to hang on until the rescuers got there and he escaped, but his hand
[9:39]was permanently, he was in the hospital for serious surgery and his hand was just figured
[9:43]for the rest of his life.
[9:45]But he seemed to take away from that episode the sense that he was invincible, that nothing
[9:50]that sheer willpower had saved his life.
[9:54]And that willpower went on to, you know, conquer the media world and, you know, he
[9:59]loved it.
[10:00]that one suited up another to acquire all these properties.
[10:03]And that seemed to, at survival,
[10:06]instead seemed to shape much of the rest of his life.
[10:08]I mean, he went around later and was saying,
[10:10]oh, I'm never going to die.
[10:11]And you know, he cannot literally believe that.
[10:13]But he certainly said it on many occasions.
[10:16]And I think that you can trace a lot of that to that episode.
[10:21]Now, one thing that was not disclosed at the time
[10:24]was that he had a mistress in the room with him.
[10:26]And she got out first, and he was credit.
[10:29]He let her go.
[10:30]She was relatively unscathed.
[10:32]But it took 20 years for that to emerge.
[10:36]And it was just the beginning.
[10:37]I mean, his philandering was notorious and only got worse
[10:41]as he got him.
[10:42]But he was so funny, too, because he
[10:44]like described how he dressed and the size of his lipels
[10:48]or his tie or the shirt.
[10:50]And you're like, he's so unlikely to be this, you know,
[10:52]lothario, the way that he looks and dresses.
[10:55]And there's one detail there that he came to a meeting
[10:59]I think it was a closing or something in New York.
[11:02]You know, with all these high powered investment
[11:03]bankers.
[11:04]Oh, with like Sam's clovers, nothing.
[11:07]No, you want to do say TJ Maxx, TJ Maxx?
[11:09]Yeah, you're not a fan.
[11:12]Well, you know, he was always saying his favorite movie
[11:15]was The Godfather.
[11:16]And, you know, I agree.
[11:17]It's an excellent movie.
[11:19]I don't know that I would want to like dress
[11:21]like one of those characters and, you know,
[11:23]with the implications that involved with that.
[11:26]You know, that's just me.
[11:29]I feel like my life keeps circling around The Godfather.
[11:32]Did you watch that show about Bob Evans?
[11:34]Oh, my God, Bob Evans.
[11:35]No, but that Bob Evans was Saunders
[11:38]so-called best friend.
[11:39]And you know, seems to have been a bad influence.
[11:41]But I sometimes wonder who was at the other way around.
[11:44]I think there's a scene in the book where Bob Evans sits down
[11:47]at one of his birthday parties to one of the younger women
[11:50]who he was sort of dating.
[11:52]And he was living with these two mistresses in the mansion.
[11:55]And Bob Evans says, you know, you've got to save him
[11:58]from these women.
[11:58]And I was thinking, oh, my God, that's rich coming from Bob Evans
[12:01]given his, you know, more is fun.
[12:04]You have to watch it when you have a second.
[12:05]It's like the best show.
[12:06]You have to have got to read the James Patterson book.
[12:08]I've got to watch the Bob Evans.
[12:10]You do.
[12:11]You're going to keep me busy for a while.
[12:12]I am.
[12:13]Well, I mean, I guess I should ask when you're not doing
[12:16]what I'm telling you to do.
[12:17]And you're not writing books like this.
[12:19]What do you do with your, like, are you working non-stop?
[12:22]I know we'll come back to the book, but in your spare time,
[12:25]what do you normally like to read and write and do?
[12:28]Oh, I have a lot of interest.
[12:29]You know, I know where to start.
[12:31]I mean, yes, I do.
[12:32]Like the weekends, I was writing this book, you know,
[12:35]which my co-aud, they're during the pandemic, you know,
[12:38]which was the weekends just blurts.
[12:40]You know, I really, I probably did work virtually every weekend
[12:43]during that period, but not all the time.
[12:45]And so I have a number of hobbies.
[12:47]I'm a very avid pianist.
[12:50]I play classical music.
[12:51]And you know, if life is sort of normal,
[12:54]which it's not at the moment, I practice every day.
[12:57]I try to practice every day.
[12:59]And of course, I don't get to do it every day,
[13:00]but maybe I do follow up out of sound.
[13:02]And so, and I play a lot of chamber music.
[13:04]And so that's one very nice hobby.
[13:07]And I also like gardening and I have a garden
[13:10]both here in the city, small and in the backyard.
[13:13]And then I have, we have a house upstate New York
[13:16]where I have a garden that's way too big as I realize now.
[13:21]And I've had to, like, get a little help there.
[13:23]But so I really enjoy all that.
[13:24]And I do.
[13:25]I read a lot.
[13:26]And I teach at Columbia as well.
[13:28]I encourage my students to read both fiction and nonfiction.
[13:33]And again, writing this, this to me was,
[13:35]there was such rich raw material.
[13:37]And it really gave me an opportunity
[13:38]to write what I would call like a nonfiction novel.
[13:41]It has, it has all the elements of fiction,
[13:45]even though all the facts are verified and, you know,
[13:47]accurate, I certainly hope.
[13:49]And, but you can, there's enough material there
[13:51]that you can, you know, evoke these broader themes.
[13:56]Like I mentioned, the general, generational issues
[13:59]to family, drama, the corrupting influence
[14:03]of great wealth or at least the opportunity
[14:06]to get it, all of that sort of emerges
[14:08]about me having to, you know, take a baseball bat
[14:10]and hit the reader over the head.
[14:12]So I do read fiction.
[14:13]I read nonfiction, you know, I'm busy,
[14:16]but I like to cook, I like to cook too.
[14:19]I find that very soothing.
[14:21]Especially after writing, you know, all day.
[14:24]And a weird thing about the pandemic is they think,
[14:26]well, writing is kind of a solitary enterprise anyway.
[14:29]You've got to hold up somewhere and like turn this out.
[14:31]But in normal times, the day ends
[14:34]and you like, you can go out, you can go to dinner,
[14:37]you can see your friends, you can let off steam.
[14:39]You can say, oh, you won't believe what I found out today.
[14:41]You know, something like, I think there's a reason
[14:44]why, you know, I live in the West Village in Manhattan
[14:47]and there are all these bars around the where, you know,
[14:49]famous writers used to go hang out.
[14:51]Probably drink too much, but you do sort of need that.
[14:54]And then with the pandemic, that was gone.
[14:56]But I found that at the end of the day,
[14:58]a little cooking is very therapeutic.
[15:00]You know, you have to, at least I have to concentrate.
[15:03]I'm not one of those people who can like cook and talk
[15:05]at the same time.
[15:07]I like to concentrate.
[15:08]And it really kind of, I found was very soothing
[15:11]and a nice change of pace.
[15:13]So I don't think fancy, but I do like it.
[15:17]I like the shopping too.
[15:18]Yeah, that's awesome.
[15:20]I feel like my husband also used to love to cook
[15:22]and tell the pandemic when he cooked for the four kids
[15:24]and me the entire time.
[15:26]And he's like, I never want to do this again.
[15:28]Yeah, I know.
[15:29]I don't have to do it three meals a day.
[15:31]So I know I can imagine my mother and I was doing all of
[15:34]the years, but.
[15:36]So I know you started your career as a lawyer
[15:39]and morphed into this whole other piece
[15:42]of your career afterwards.
[15:44]Did you want to be a writer when you were a lawyer?
[15:47]And by the way, I feel like most lawyers,
[15:49]one of you writers, I feel like we should take a poll.
[15:52]And like the next great place to find fiction,
[15:55]we should just poach all the law firms
[15:56]because I bet there are a lot of books lurking there.
[15:58]Yeah, well, there are courses, John Grishon.
[16:00]And I think, yeah, well, I was in litigation
[16:04]and I don't think I certainly didn't go to law school
[16:07]that'd spend three years with a lot of work
[16:09]and a lot of tuition knowing that I was going to
[16:13]but would be otherwise considered a relatively low pain,
[16:18]alternative practicing law.
[16:19]But I did, by the time I was working in a big law firm,
[16:23]I was giving more thought.
[16:26]I've written about this at some length.
[16:27]I think it was one of the most important lessons
[16:29]I learned in life.
[16:29]I was working at a big law firm in New York
[16:32]who asked when and more are very competitive.
[16:34]And I saw the people who thrived there
[16:36]and did the best, were the people who absolutely loved
[16:39]what they were doing.
[16:41]They have such a competitive advantage.
[16:44]And even though I enjoyed it and I did like any of the paycheck,
[16:48]I realized I didn't love it nearly as much as they did.
[16:50]And ultimately, I don't think that you can compete.
[16:53]So I thought, well, what I love as much as they do
[16:56]and I've been at a college newspaper
[16:58]and I was like all the time I was dreaming of story ideas
[17:02]that if I was a journalist to my right.
[17:04]And so I realized, I mean, it seems like a radical change
[17:07]but I'm going to make the leap into journalism
[17:10]because I think that's what something I would really love to do.
[17:12]And you don't love any job every minute of every day.
[17:16]That's completely unrealistic.
[17:17]But I really never look back from that.
[17:19]I really do love what I do for the most part.
[17:24]And that is a good part of your life
[17:27]has spent working.
[17:28]So if you can enjoy that, what an advantage.
[17:32]So I really feel very lucky that I learned that lesson
[17:36]working at Kravath and then went on and put it into practice.
[17:39]And you know, here I am all these decades later.
[17:42]Oh my gosh.
[17:43]I learned the same lesson.
[17:44]I went to business school.
[17:45]I thought I wanted to be in marketing.
[17:47]And then I went to business school
[17:48]and met people who loved marketing so much.
[17:51]And I was like, oh, yeah, no.
[17:53]I don't actually, I don't want to do it like you do.
[17:55]Like you should take those jobs and it's so true.
[17:59]I mean, there are people who love everything.
[18:01]You should, yeah, finding passion is wonderful.
[18:03]So what topics are you digging into these days,
[18:07]writing about, thinking about?
[18:08]Well, I did a really big piece for the times
[18:12]on this sort of AT&T management of the Warner assets.
[18:17]And I'm not a per se media or entertainment person.
[18:21]But I guess partly because I was working on this book,
[18:23]which was set in the world of Hollywood.
[18:25]And media and entertainment, I developed some sources.
[18:28]And anyway, that story is about a sort of colossal
[18:35]mismanagement if you want to call that
[18:37]of these incredibly valuable and historic media assets
[18:42]by a company, by phone company executives.
[18:45]So it's kind of, again, about it's more about a culture
[18:48]clash than it is any technical business thing.
[18:51]So that was a big story that I was working on.
[18:54]And then that led right into the succession drama Disney.
[18:59]A lot of people, as I said, have compared
[19:02]unscripted to the TV series succession.
[19:05]And I can see why.
[19:07]But then there are these other succession issues
[19:09]arising all over the place.
[19:10]So that was kind of an interesting drama
[19:12]that I read some about.
[19:14]I haven't started on another book project.
[19:17]I can never get my head clear.
[19:20]It's going to take me a little while before I get unscripted
[19:22]out if I'm not talking about it so much
[19:25]and have put that sort of behind me.
[19:29]Of course, I'd like to do another story.
[19:31]And I do have the germ of a few ideas.
[19:34]But I look back sort of on my career.
[19:36]And I thought I planned it.
[19:38]But I do seem drawn to stories of people who
[19:43]seem to have everything, but yet it's not enough.
[19:46]And then they misbehaved and they do the kind of bad things
[19:50]that they know they shouldn't do.
[19:52]And it gets into trouble.
[19:54]And I think there are five.
[19:57]Those stories go way back.
[19:58]I mean, a Shakespeare is off.
[20:00]obvious place to start. But those themes have reappeared in literature for centuries. And I
[20:08]think it's because at their core, they're really about fundamental issues, about human nature,
[20:13]and how we as people process information and wealth and relationships, and then act on those
[20:23]drive and ambition. And because it's all about people, it's endlessly fascinating to make.
[20:29]So I seem to be drawn to those kinds of stories. I wonder if over time we'll see similar patterns
[20:36]emerge from more and more women in power? Because the generations of women who are leading all
[20:42]the companies is just... Well, you know, I mean, and this is the first book in Sherry Reston,
[20:47]she's the protagonist of the story. She's drawn in. She's drawn into this prey initially
[20:52]kind of against her will. She grows. She changes. She matures. She ends up, you know, if you want to
[20:58]call it that victorious at the end. And this is the first of my... This is my eleventh book. And
[21:02]this is the first one where I've had a significant protagonist as his woman. And I think that is
[21:07]the sound of the times, although there's still a long way to go. And by the way, you know,
[21:12]certainly one of the themes of this book is the, to me, astonishing, misogyny and sexism that
[21:18]permeated the upper ranks of the boards and management in these companies. They can only
[21:24]delve into this particular company, but I have no reason to believe this is an isolated example.
[21:30]And, but to see it laid out, you know, people don't ever want to admit this, but you see it in
[21:35]their emails, their texts, that all the documents we got, somebody told me that after reading this
[21:40]book, no CEO is ever going to write a text again. Maybe that's the... Maybe that'll be the case.
[21:47]And, you know, partly because there were so many lawsuits about all this, and again,
[21:50]an advantage of being a lawyer, the lawsuits generate, you know, a trove of valuable information
[21:58]when you can get access to it. And we did get even things that were supposed to be kept
[22:03]secret. A lot of people did hand over to us. So we got the raw material. We could demonstrate that.
[22:08]Wow. And how did you like collaborating on this book?
[22:11]It was great. I've never had a co-author. Rachel and I, we really, I don't think we knew each other
[22:16]or at all. I mean, I guess I'd seen her in the newsroom, but when we, she bumped into me one day
[22:21]and we realized we were working on parallel tracks on the kind of the same story, which was about
[22:25]the Ouster of Lesson Invest from CBS. And then we went from there, but she had this incredibly
[22:31]valuable source who we still can't identify at this point, but who provided an amazing trove
[22:38]of information. And so that was, you know, fundamental to getting the book deal and doing the book.
[22:43]And then I also had some sources funneling additional information. We ended up having, you know,
[22:48]you know, maybe a half dozen sources we can't name, but nevertheless, because I think motivated,
[22:53]because they didn't want the story swept under the rug. They contributed, you know, really valuable
[22:58]information. So we, we put it all together. And I was, I was very happy that in talking to
[23:02]someone since them, they said, Oh, can't believe, you know, I gave you all this, but then you got
[23:06]all this other material. And it is true in reporting that with every additional fact tends to lead
[23:12]to more than more, you know, the more you can find out. Oh, and that proved to be the case here.
[23:17]My big takeaway is that you actually people actually listened to the tip line of the
[23:22]do you say, oh, yes, yes, that's where the source came from. Just, you know, kind of out of the
[23:28]blue. And yes, those kept taken very seriously. Even though honestly, 99% of them don't go anywhere,
[23:34]but, you know, the one that does, boom, also also that people have said that like the fact that
[23:39]I ran into Rachel and we went down this path together is a case for in office work because that
[23:45]would just sitting in our bedrooms or whatever, tapping what. Very true. Yes. Well,
[23:55]never know what happens around the water cooler or walking by each other. I know you've
[23:59]mentioned this, but I was going to ask you what advice you have for aspiring authors, but maybe I
[24:04]should ask what other advice you got from James Patterson for aspiring authors. No, I do have
[24:10]some advice. I mean, I teach at Columbia, which I really enjoy. And one of the things I stress
[24:16]from my students is that it's not what you know. That's so interesting. It's what you don't know.
[24:23]And that people aren't used to thinking that way. You have to kind of train your brain
[24:28]over a period of time. I was an editor at the Wall Street Journal for a number of years and
[24:33]I was a page one editor. So we had to like come up with 15 front page stories a week, three,
[24:38]three, five days a week. And that was excellent exercise because I was constantly,
[24:43]of course, many of the reporters had their own ideas, but we were also sending out ideas for
[24:48]stories. And so to me, what's interesting is like what questions you have that you might be able
[24:53]to answer. What don't we know? What has happened? It seems inexplicable. That's what I think
[25:00]turns into good stories. Too many of my, not so much my students, but people they think,
[25:07]you know, there's an old saying that the writers like write what you know. My variation on that
[25:12]would be figure out what you don't know, but want to know, find out, and then write it. I mean,
[25:18]over the years, I've had reporters or writers kind of say, oh, I have writers block. I can't write.
[25:23]I've been in a room all eight hours and I can't. I'm throwing everything out. It's, I don't really
[25:28]believe in writer's block. It's invariably that they have nothing to say because they have not
[25:35]gone out and gotten the information yet. And almost always, I would say, you know, you're not
[25:39]ready to write. Go do more reporting. So what don't, you know, what are the questions? How can you
[25:45]find out? Go out and do that work. And then you'll be able to, to write it. And everything that
[25:51]happened in this book, which made a great impression on me because I'm always telling my students,
[25:56]don't have any preconceived ideas about what a story is. You might think you know what it is,
[26:00]which is fun, but be open to facts are taken in another direction. So I started writing this. And I
[26:07]thought it was, we kind of thought, oh, it's the Me Too movement. It's the corporate board group.
[26:10]And then we've gone and touch with this guy, George Pilgrim, who was the boyfriend of one of
[26:15]Saunders' mistresses. And I figured, at most, he'd be a minor character in all this.
[26:21]It's a racial went out to interview him. And he's an incredibly interesting character. And
[26:27]he was telling us everything. And he'd say emails and texts. And he turned everything over.
[26:32]And he was a fantastic source, even though he was also an ex-conbit.
[26:37]So I was thinking to myself, you know, this is not, this is incredible, but you know,
[26:41]he's taking over the story. I was kind of annoyed. So this is not the book that we set out to write.
[26:47]And what's going on here? And one morning, I woke up and I had this flash of insight. And I
[26:52]said, let him take over the story. He is the story. He is a key part of the story.
[26:57]We threw everything out and started all over again. He's in the opening scene. And it was
[27:03]incredible how the whole story just fell into place.
[27:08]Wow. Oh, thanks to George Pilgrim. His Facebook posts and all of that.
[27:12]You know, we have to be careful now about our texts and Facebook posts and everything else.
[27:16]It comes out of our fingertips. You never know what's going to happen.
[27:19]Anyway, well, James, thank you so much. It's been really fun talking to you. I love this idea of
[27:24]you like cooking and gardening and playing the piano. It's like so relaxing. It'll relax. Just
[27:29]even talking to you about it. It sounds so nice. I think I'll press the piano right now.
[27:34]You should. You can go for that. Anyway, thank you so much for your time. I congratulate you.
[27:39]And this is really fun. I'm going to go with it. Good. Me too. All right. Figure.
[27:43]Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[27:48]Don't forget to follow me on Instagram at zebi Owens and at Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[27:53]Also sign up for my newsletter at zebiowens.com and sign up for my virtual book club and meet lots
[27:58]of authors on Zoom every other week. Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan in fact, texture sound for
[28:03]the sound editing. And thank you to Morning Moon Productions for providing this fantastic intro and
[28:07]now trim music.