How Patrick Radden Keefe unravels mysteries

[0:00] Hey everyone, it's Amna here. Welcome to another episode of Settle In. Today we're talking to New [0:05] Yorker staff writer and award-winning author Patrick Radden Keefe. He's the man behind books [0:10] like Empire of Pain and Say Nothing, which also went on to be a great TV show. His latest book [0:16] is called London Falling, and it tells the story of the mysterious death of a British teenager a [0:21] few years ago. So we talked about the book, we talked about what it was like to find that story, [0:26] how he finds all of his stories, and how he gets people to trust him and open up to tell him what [0:32] happened. We talked about the stories that he won't tell, like being approached to write the [0:36] memoir of the Mexican drug lord El Chapo. We talked about why families always play such a central role [0:43] in all of his storytelling and reporting. And we also talked about what it was like to play himself [0:49] guest starring on a hit TV show. So settle in and enjoy my conversation with Patrick Radden Keefe. [0:55] Patrick Radden Keefe, welcome to Settle In. Thanks for being here. [1:00] So good to be with you. [1:01] So before we jump into this book, which is fascinating and an incredible read, [1:06] I want to ask you about your journalism career. Just because you're someone who seems to be drawn [1:11] to complicated people, I think sometimes less than savory characters, it's fair to say. [1:18] Family dynamics, all that kind of interpersonal connection stuff that makes your storytelling so [1:23] fascinating. So what was it about journalism, about this line of work that drew you in? [1:28] I started reading The New Yorker magazine when I was in high school. I would wait for my mother to [1:34] pick me up from school, and there was a periodicals room in our high school library. And I took The New [1:40] Yorker off the shelf and started reading it. And I just loved these long, detailed articles that were [1:47] true stories, but they felt as though they had some of the qualities of a fictional short story, [1:53] you know, where there's a sense of drama and interesting characters, and the plot keeps [1:58] thickening. And so I sort of grew up on that kind of journalism and always wanted to do it. [2:05] And actually pitched and pitched and pitched for years before I finally got an assignment. [2:10] And I had this whole other life that I was sort of gonna have, because I was worried I wouldn't [2:17] make it as a writer. And so I actually went to law school, I trained to be a lawyer, I was [2:22] You finished, you went past the New York bar, I was all ready to go work at a law firm when finally, [2:27] after, truly after seven years of pitching, The New Yorker accepted my first assignment. [2:31] Seven years of pitching. [2:33] Yeah. [2:34] Wow. And so law school is just a distant memory now. [2:37] Just a memory. That was 20 years ago that they accepted that first pitch. And I've been at it [2:42] ever since. [2:43] What was the very first pitch? Do you remember? [2:44] It was about, I do, it became my second book. It was about a woman in Chinatown in New York City [2:51] who came from Fujian province in China, in Southeast China. And she had arrived in New York in the early [2:57] 80s. And she started sending for people from her village who couldn't get papers to leave China. [3:03] And so she would smuggle them into the US. And in Chinatown, people who work as human smugglers [3:09] like that are known as snakeheads. And her name was, people called her sister Ping. Her name was [3:13] Cheng Chui Ping. And she was the biggest of the snakeheads. And she brought all these people and [3:18] eventually went on the run from the authorities and was caught. And it was a big federal trial and [3:23] a fascinating figure. [3:25] I mean, the details of these stories, even as you tell them now all these years later, they [3:29] clearly live so deeply within you. For seven years, a lot of people would have given up before [3:35] seven years went by. Why did you keep going? What did you love about this? [3:39] I think it's the best job in the world. I really do. I mean, it's funny, we often hear these stories [3:45] about doom and gloom in the media and cutbacks and the kind of, you know, people aren't reading as [3:50] much as they were anymore. And attention spans are shortening and everything's so unpredictable and dire. [3:58] And I feel as though it's still just the best job imaginable. I mean, it beats working, right? [4:04] You go out, you meet fascinating people. Literally, you sort of have adventures, right? [4:11] My job a lot of the time is just to kind of go out and have adventures. And once I get hold of a [4:18] story, it will pull me into all these different dimensions that I never could have [4:22] predicted or imagined from the outside and meet a lot of people, hear their stories, [4:29] and then come back and try and figure out what would be the most pleasurable way to relate this [4:37] to other people. How can I turn this into a page turner? [4:39] How do you find your stories? [4:41] So when I go looking for my stories, I never find anything good. The best way is to just be sort [4:49] of moving through life and be curious and talk to people. And I find things. My book, Say Nothing, [4:57] started because I just happened to be reading the obituary page of the New York Times. [5:00] Really? [5:01] And I stumbled on a fascinating obituary of somebody I'd never heard of. And I thought, [5:04] I want to know more about this woman. And that kind of pulled me in. And that initially was a [5:10] New York article and then a book and then a TV series on Hulu. That right there was about 10 [5:15] years of my life that started because I was just sort of flipping through the paper, you know, [5:19] drinking my coffee in the morning. [5:21] Is it really just that sense of curiosity that you saw the obituary and you were like, [5:24] I want to know more? [5:25] Yeah. And I think some of it is kind of, I think the thing that I've gotten better at over the years [5:29] is in a strange way, not overthinking it, but kind of listening to my own attention span, [5:36] listening to what engages me. You know, you have that experience. You see a friend you haven't [5:42] seen in a while and you meet for a drink or a cup of coffee and they're catching you up on their [5:47] life and they might suddenly start telling you a story and you feel yourself leaning forward a [5:51] little bit, you know, involuntarily. [5:53] It's going to happen during this conversation too. [5:55] But those are the moments for me. I've learned to pay attention to those moments. [5:59] And so if it was in that situation, I'm reading an obituary in the paper and I can kind of feel [6:05] my heart quickening. And, um, you know, the next thing, next thing, you know, it's a decade of my [6:10] life later. [6:11] Oh, well, so tell me about London Falling. Tell me about this story. Tell me about Zach Brettler [6:17] and what it was that said, this is a story you want to lean into. What first grabbed you? [6:23] So, yeah, I mean, that's an easy one. And it's actually another good example of this, [6:27] the way in which things start for me. So that book, Say Nothing, we ended up turning into a TV [6:33] series and I, um, was very involved in the series. I was a producer and I was there on set every day [6:39] and I moved my family over actually for a summer to London where we were shooting. [6:42] Oh, wow. [6:43] And I was on set one day between setups where they were kind of redoing the lighting. And there was a [6:53] guy who was a guest of the director, someone I'd never met before, who was just kind of hanging [6:57] out, having a coffee. And I started chatting with him. And, um, it was interesting. He's Jewish and [7:06] he was talking about the difference between the Jewish community in London and New York. And so [7:10] we were just kind of going back and forth about that. And then I mentioned that, uh, there's a [7:15] family friend of mine who's a rabbi in London and something clicked with him because he knows who [7:22] that rabbi is. So we were just kind of going back and forth, you know, shooting the breeze. [7:27] And then he said, you know, I might have a story for you. He said, you're a magazine writer. I might [7:31] have a story for you. And he said, I know this family here in London who are very dear friends [7:37] of mine. And they had this tragedy happen a few years ago. They lost their 19 year old son. [7:43] He died in really mysterious circumstances. He went off the balcony of a luxury building overlooking [7:51] the Thames, the river that runs through London. And he died in the river. And after his death, [7:56] his parents were trying to figure out what had happened. And they made this shocking discovery. [8:01] They learned that their son, his name was Zach, had had a secret double life that they hadn't known [8:07] about. So he was just a teenager. He's 19. But he had been moving through London with this secret [8:13] alter ego, pretending that he was the son of a Russian oligarch. And the reason this guy told me [8:21] the story is because Zach Brettler, the boy, his rabbi, the woman who did his bar mitzvah, [8:27] was my family friend. And it was this coincidence where I mentioned her name. It made him think of [8:32] this boy. He told me the story. And he told me basically as much as I just told you. And I knew [8:38] if the family is willing to tell me their story, this is how I'm going to spend the next year of my [8:44] life. You knew in that moment. I knew it. You leaned in. Yeah, I did. Like, I want to know more. [8:48] Yeah, absolutely. So you hadn't heard anything about this story up until that chance conversation. [8:52] And in fact, I went back to my apartment that night. And I googled Zach Brettler. And I couldn't [8:59] find any record of I could see a record of him having been alive. But there was no indication [9:06] that he died or anything about the circumstances of his death. The family had kept it very quiet. [9:11] So how do you get this is key getting the family to talk to you, right? That you know that right off [9:17] the bat. Tell me a little bit about your process on that. How do you get someone to trust you? [9:23] You call the Brettlers years after their son has passed. And what do you say? [9:28] Well, so what I did is in this case, I talked to this friend of theirs. His name is Andrew. And I said, [9:33] I'd really love to meet with them. I understand this is an incredibly raw and traumatic thing. This was [9:39] the summer of 2023. He had died in late 2019. So it wasn't that long afterwards. How about we meet, [9:49] and we're meeting totally off the record, no commitment in either direction? You know, [9:55] they're not committing to talk to me, and I'm not committing to write about this. I won't even [9:59] bring a notebook. We'll just sit at a cafe and talk, and I'll listen to their story. And so those are [10:05] the terms. And it's interesting, you know, a lot of the time, I'm, I'm meeting with people, [10:13] for one reason or another, I often am writing about these quite traumatic events. And I'm sometimes [10:21] meeting with people, and I'm asking them to describe the worst thing that's ever happened [10:24] to them. And I think I'm a pretty good listener at this point. I mean, I think I've learned how to be [10:30] a good listener. And I also think that people, when they feel safe, and they trust you, it feels good [10:40] to tell their story. And so I sat with them for two hours, and they just talked, I hardly asked a [10:46] question, it just all came kind of tumbling out. And they could do that with the security that I [10:52] wasn't going to go off and write the story, they could just talk just to, I think they got a feeling [10:58] for who I was through that conversation. I think they may have done a little homework on me and read [11:04] some of my work. And then we agreed to meet again. And one thing that's very important to me is, [11:09] is transparency is just to be very, very honest and straightforward with people. And so basically, [11:15] what I said to them was, we met again, and I said, I would love to tell this story. I don't want to [11:21] twist your arm, you guys have to decide. The one thing I have to tell you is, if you decide you want [11:28] to trust me to tell this story, there's no take backs. You can't say yes today, and then I go off and [11:34] work on this for eight weeks. And then you get cold feet. You know, if you're in, you're in. So [11:40] think, think really hard about it, because I don't want a yes today, unless it's a yes for good. And [11:47] so they thought about it. And then they said, we, we want to do this. [11:52] Why do you think they were in years after their son died under such mysterious circumstances for all [11:59] the pain and the grief and the questions left unanswered? Why do you think, what was it about [12:05] their son's story in his case, that they wanted to get out? [12:09] Well, so part of what is interesting about this story is that it's, it's partially a story about [12:22] how easy it is to think that you know the people you love most, your own family, people you live [12:32] with, your own child. And, and that in this case, what they learned quite suddenly when Zach died was [12:41] that they didn't know the half of it, that there was all this stuff going on that his parents had [12:45] been unaware of. And I think some of this will be very familiar to anyone who's raised an adolescent, [12:53] or frankly, been an adolescent. I mean, we all remember growing up and keeping secrets from our [12:58] parents, right? That their parents saw, they, they knew you really well in some regards, but I think [13:03] with, with most of us, there were probably sides of who we were at 14, 15, 16, 17 that our parents [13:09] didn't see, may still not know. Um, I can certainly say as the father of two adolescent sons myself, [13:17] um, there is a moment when your child stops seeming like a human being that you've [13:26] kind of formed out of clay in your own image. And they start surprising you and they start kind [13:32] of becoming something else that actually doesn't necessarily look like you or your spouse. Um, [13:37] and you kind of wonder where did that come from? And I think Zach's parents went through that and [13:45] then they went through it in a really profound way when he died because they suddenly realized there [13:50] was this whole other side of things. The question was what happened to him? Did he commit suicide? [13:54] Was he murdered? Was it something else, something kind of more exotic? And they learned that he had [14:00] gotten mixed up with some very dangerous people in this, um, kind of con that he was carrying out [14:06] where he was pretending to be the son of a wealthy Russian oligarch. And so the Bretlers did what I [14:13] think a lot of us would do, which is that they trusted the police to get to the bottom of this. And part of [14:18] what the story is about is that the police didn't, the police in London, Scotland Yard couldn't figure [14:23] out what happened. And so the parents kind of had to become detectives and get to the bottom of [14:29] themselves. So when I met them, the timing was really fortuitous because they'd kind of gotten [14:36] to the end of the line in terms of trusting the authorities to figure out the death of their son. [14:41] And they'd reached this point where they felt as though, God, we're going to have to kind of go [14:45] this alone. And, um, they'd work with a private investigator as well, private investigator. And [14:52] they, they felt as though there were some people who were responsible for their son's death, [14:56] who had not been held responsible. And so having been really private about the whole thing up to that [15:03] point, suddenly they were kind of ready to go public. And it's one of the strange, there are many [15:08] strange coincidences in the story. And one of them is that I just happened to show up on this film set [15:14] with their friend right around the time when they were thinking, what more can we do? [15:18] I want to ask you more about the law enforcement response, because what you learn and reveal here, [15:22] so it's so key to the story and interesting, but to back it up a little bit more, there is this sort of [15:30] story of London that you uncover as well, that you reveal the secretive web of money and power and [15:37] influence and a lot of it from other nations. Like anyone who spent time in London, I got to live [15:42] there for a few years, you see, this is really the place where the global 1% come and convene and [15:49] they buy up property and Gulf money flows through there, a lot of Eastern European money flowing [15:54] through there, a lot of Russian money flowing through there. And Zach gets wrapped up in this. [15:59] Tell me a little bit about that, that whole world that not many people really spend a lot of time [16:04] in or understand in London. Yeah, you know, I lived in London when I was in my 20s in grad school. [16:11] I lived there in 2000, 2001. We just missed each other. Did we? I went to the LSE the year after [16:18] you did. Really? Yes. Look at that. We'll talk about that later. Amazing. Okay, so you will relate to [16:24] what I'm saying here. The changes were starting to happen already then, and then it really accelerated [16:31] later. Part of what I became really fixated on as I delved into the research for this book was the [16:39] idea that, on the one hand, you have this very intimate story about grief and loss and a kind of a [16:44] mystery, which is what happened to this boy. But just beneath that, there's a story really about the [16:51] history of London over the last four or five decades and how it's changed. And as I delved into this, I [16:57] found that, you know, you have these two big changes that happen in the, really in the 1960s [17:04] and 70s, which is that London, which historically for hundreds of years had been a manufacturing city. [17:11] It was a city that made things. There were lots and lots of factories and people engaged in industrial [17:16] work. And it had been a port city. I mean, really one of the most important ports in the world. [17:22] And in the space of about two decades, both of those things completely disappear. The manufacturing [17:30] base in London just goes, you know, from a really robust sector to next to nothing. And all of the [17:38] docks close in about the course of about 20 years for fascinating reasons. Because of the advent of the [17:44] kind of modern stackable shipping container, which meant that you had these much bigger ships, which [17:50] couldn't really navigate the Thames. And so shipping in Britain moved to other ports outside London. [17:57] So in the 1970s, 1980s, the UK is kind of left wondering, well, what's this city going to be? [18:04] What's its identity going to be? And really under Margaret Thatcher, they decide London will be a [18:10] destination for money and people who have it. And you get the deregulation of the banking sector, [18:16] which leads to a kind of big influx of actually American bankers, really before the Russians come. [18:22] It's the Americans who come. And there was a history going back much further in London of [18:28] wealthy people having second homes there or, you know, buying a mansion there or having their kids [18:33] educated in British schools. There was a sort of a tradition of people who had money but were fleeing [18:38] instability, whether they were leaving Greece or Iran or whatever, name your country, who would kind of [18:43] find a foothold in London. And with the dissolution of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, [18:51] you have this huge influx of Russians who come. And they're drawn by the real estate, by the shopping, [18:59] by the security, you know, the financial markets and the idea that you could come and kind of park [19:04] your money there and be safer there than it would be in Moscow, and by the schools. And this process in [19:13] which foreign elites, the sort of, as you say, it's the kind of global 1%, everybody wants to have a [19:21] second home in London and maybe send their kids to school there, really transfigures the city in [19:27] dramatic ways. I'm sure you've experienced this too. But I've gone back ever since living there. I left in [19:32] 2001. And I've seen this change happen kind of gradually over the last few decades. It sort of [19:40] changed the texture of English life. And there's a lot more conspicuous consumption. In certain [19:46] neighborhoods, there are these kind of supercars everywhere. There's unbelievable real estate [19:53] prices, which have driven a lot of people who previously lived in London actually have had to [19:57] leave. And then you get these kind of bizarre things that happen where in the really expensive [20:02] real estate, it's often the case that people will buy these properties, but then not live in them [20:07] for most of the year. So you get these neighborhoods where there are no people, you know, and you walk [20:13] around at night and all the windows are dark. And it's these incredible sort of multi-million dollar [20:18] dwellings. But nobody actually living there. So it's quite an eerie effect. But this is the London [20:24] that Zach Brettler grew up in. And the schools in particular, the portrait that you paint of a young [20:31] man who goes to a relatively elite boarding school, right, comes into contact with a lot of kids who [20:38] are sent there from other nations or, you know, with parents from other nations. And he develops this [20:44] sort of fascination with, well, sort of an obsession with being perceived in this way. I mean, tell us a [20:50] little bit more about how he starts to change his views and how that informs the person he becomes. [20:56] Yeah, I mean, there's a few things going on here. One of the things that's sort of interesting is [20:59] that Zach comes from a pretty comfortable family. His father works in finance. His mother's a [21:05] freelance journalist. He has an older brother, Joe. They live in a really nice apartment in central [21:12] London. This is a kid who kind of has everything. He goes to a fancy private school. But in the new [21:21] London, he feels poor because he's surrounded by all this conspicuous consumption and, you know, [21:31] Bentleys and mansions and people shopping at Harrods and all the rest of it. I think it's also [21:38] significant that he's a child of, you know, he's a digital native and he's a child of the social [21:43] media generation. And so he grows up on, it wasn't so much TikTok, but for Zach, it was Instagram. [21:48] And Instagram is kind of feeding him up these images of people living a very kind of blingy, [21:56] dazzling lifestyle. And he's very taken with that. And he's in school with all these kids [22:02] who are the children of Russian oligarchs and oligarchs from other parts of the world as well. [22:07] But he's sort of amazed by the swagger of these kids who, you know, they're there in class with [22:15] you, but they're wearing these designer suits. And on the weekends, they go and kind of party in [22:20] fancy hotels. And they're sort of carrying on in a way that the average 16, 17 year old maybe doesn't. [22:27] There's a story I tell in the book about how a lot of these kids lived in dormitories. And it was [22:33] about an eight minute walk from the dorm to class. And on cold mornings, these oligarch sons would [22:37] summon Ubers that have these Ubers pull up to take them to class, you know, so they didn't have to walk [22:42] for eight minutes in the cold. And Zach gets really kind of caught up in that. And I think sort of loses [22:52] some of his perspective. And his parents' point of view was, you know, we live a great, comfortable [22:57] life. We're lucky. And he felt as though it wasn't enough. And he would say, why don't we live in a [23:03] bigger house? Why don't you drive a nicer car? He was kind of ashamed of their situation. And he [23:09] wanted more. [23:10] And that's a real tension point in the family, too. I mean, you unpack these conversations you [23:15] have with them that had to be very uncomfortable for parents talking about their own child. [23:21] Intensely, yeah. And I think, I mean, on top of that, there's a bit of background here, [23:24] which is that Matthew and Rochelle Brettler, who are really the kind of big characters in [23:28] the book, I mean, it's about them and Zach, but it's very much, I've spent a lot of time [23:33] with them. And one thing that they both have in common is that Matthew and Rochelle both [23:38] have fathers who survived the Holocaust, and who were refugees as teenagers in England. [23:45] And so they both grow up in a way that I think a lot of people can relate to if they've talked [23:50] to older family members, you know, people who've lived through the Great Depression. [23:53] And if you have a history in your family of being in a situation where you really had [23:59] nothing, there's a kind of suspicion sometimes of the idea that you would, you know, you'd [24:05] take out a credit card and spend money that you don't have on things that you don't need. [24:10] All of that felt very foreign to Zach's parents. And for Zach, this was kind of the coin of the [24:16] realm. This is the life that he wanted. He was obsessed with movies. And his favorite movie [24:21] is The Wolf of Wall Street. He loved stories about kind of young men on the make. He loved [24:27] hustlers. [24:28] The law enforcement piece of it is fascinating, because there are so many moments as you're [24:35] reading, you're like, how did they miss that? Why did they not do that? That doesn't make [24:39] any sense that they don't go back to the apartment from which he jumped until days later. There's [24:47] blood spatters that are not noticed on the first pass. They don't interview key suspects [24:53] or people who could be involved in all of this. As you uncover this, and you see some [24:57] of the sort of darker circles he was adjacent to and coming into contact with, did that strike [25:03] you as incompetence on their part? Was it an unwillingness to dive into some of these things? [25:10] What do you take away? [25:11] I think it was a combination of both. I mean, I will say, over the last 20 years, I've often [25:16] written about law enforcement and criminal justice in one way or another. And most of [25:22] the time, I feel as though, I think I'm a pretty good investigative reporter, but I'm not in [25:29] law enforcement. I don't have subpoena power. I can't get a warrant to search a place. I can't [25:33] force people to talk to me. [25:35] And so a lot of the time, I feel like I'm sort of drafting on law enforcement that they're [25:40] doing their thing and they have these superpowers that I don't have. And this story is one of the [25:45] ones where I'm kind of amazed that the cops didn't do more. A lot of the time, I was calling [25:51] people that they never called. I was doing these things that the police, when I came in [25:55] afterwards... [25:55] People that they had never called are coming into contact with. [25:58] That they never called. Yeah, absolutely. [25:59] How is that possible? [26:00] I think, well, to your question, I think some of it is incompetence. I think some of [26:06] it is that the Metropolitan Police has been dealing with cutbacks for decades. But I think [26:12] there's this other more interesting thing happening, which is that, and it connects to this story [26:16] about the oligarchs in London, because you've had the presence of these kind of powerful moneyed [26:26] interests in London. And because there was a real sense from the outset that we want these [26:32] Russians to come here. We want them here, spending money, investing in our economy. [26:38] There was a tendency to sort of look the other way when they engaged in criminal activity, [26:44] up to and including murder. And so there are a series of stories I tell in the book. [26:49] It's really an astonishing number of these cases in which you have people who either worked with [26:54] or crossed the Russians in London, sometimes Russians, sometimes English people, who end [27:01] up dead in London. [27:04] Under mysterious circumstances. [27:05] Under mysterious circumstances, but where they'll, you know, somebody will fall off the [27:09] roof of a building or fall in front of a train or they have a heart attack, which may or may [27:14] not be poison. There are some kind of almost outlandish cases. I mean, there's a story I tell in the book [27:21] about a guy who dies of multiple stab wounds all over his body with two different knives and the [27:27] police say, looks like suicide. And there was a tendency on the part of the authorities, anytime [27:34] something seemed a little exotic and a little bit as if it might implicate nefarious, powerful Russian [27:40] interests, for the police just to say, must be an accident, nothing to see here. And that pattern [27:47] gets repeated again and again and again. And I do think there's a little bit of that in Zach's story [27:53] in the sense that there was a sort of a whiff of some greater danger and something that might be hard [27:59] to prove in court. So this kid goes off a balcony, but you don't have evidence of somebody pushing [28:05] him off the balcony. The easiest thing if you're the cops in that situation is to say, oh, well, [28:10] he must have committed suicide. Somebody jumps off the balcony. They must want to end their own life. [28:14] Now, I think something more complicated happened. And if you read the book, I sort of get into all [28:19] the explanation for that. But I think there's a tendency on the part of the police, I'm afraid, [28:24] to kind of take the sort of easiest, most pat explanation, if it means they can say, [28:32] case closed, we're moving on. [28:34] What does that mean for Zach's parents, both in terms of what it is they're seeking now in the way of [28:40] accountability or closure or whatever it is someone who's been through something so horrific [28:45] can look for? But also, you know, in pushing for their own answers, right? Hiring a private [28:51] investigator, working with you on this. Are they at all worried about their own safety if they're [28:55] nefarious elements at play? [28:57] Yeah. I mean, they've been they've they're they are an extraordinary couple, I should say. I mean, [29:03] I think that they are I think have spent the last several years looking back at their son's life [29:07] and wondering, were there things we could have done differently that would have saved him? [29:13] And how could we have not seen some things that were going on? And I think that they've channeled [29:19] that feeling of guilt and those kinds of questions into a really extraordinary effort to do what the [29:28] cops didn't do and sort of become detectives and figure out what really became of Zach. And [29:35] it's a story that I relate in the book, the sort of resourcefulness and really the courage that they [29:42] have. I mean, they, you know, they go out, they they seek out these gangsters and meet with them and [29:47] they engage with people who are quite scary individuals. And I think that there are [29:56] some senses in which they they felt at times as though they were putting themselves in a vulnerable [30:02] situation. But to me, this is at heart, a story about their love for their son and the things that [30:09] they were willing to do really in the name of his memory, even after his death, the family piece of [30:17] it is so central to everything. And there's a lot in this book about legacy and the choices that our [30:24] ancestors and our elders make and how they live on through us in various ways in the way that we make [30:29] decisions and choices about our lives. Why, why was that important for you to unpack in this story? [30:37] And did it make you reflect any differently on your own life and your own family? [30:42] Yeah, I, well, I, I should say that I'm always interested in family histories. You know, I wrote a [30:46] book about the Sackler family and the opioid crisis, and I was interested in the earlier generations and the [30:52] way in which, you know, certain ideas get passed down from one generation to the next. In the case of [30:59] this book, there, there were three people in that apartment that night when Zack died. And we haven't [31:05] mentioned the other two, but one was sort of a slippery businessman, and one was a very dangerous [31:11] gangster. And what I did in the book was I traced Zack's family and also the families of these two guys. [31:19] And that was important to me in part because it is a story about London, and London emerges as this [31:25] kind of wonderful stage for reinvention. So Zack reinvents himself as the son of an oligarch. [31:31] But he had these grandfathers who fled the Holocaust and reinvented themselves as young men in England. [31:38] And these two other guys, similarly, there are these kind of tales of families sort of, sort of starting [31:45] afresh in London. Immigrant stories, but also, to me, stories in a kind of inspiring way about, [31:53] you know, what a city can be, the magic of a city. So I wanted to trace all of that. [31:59] And I should say, I mean, I, you know, I really marveled at Matthew and Michelle Brettler and how [32:05] they dealt with loss. And part of what's fascinating about them, even today, I still talk to them all the [32:09] time, is that they, they live a life that is actually full of joy. And, you know, they, they had a [32:19] celebration when, for what would have been Zack's 25th birthday. And they invited me to come to London [32:25] for this event. And I sort of thought it would be very maudlin. I was felt very honored to be [32:30] invited. But I thought it would be this kind of sad memorial. And it ended up being about 30 or 40 [32:35] people at their apartment, people who were family and friends who'd known and loved Zack. And it was a [32:40] celebration of his life. And I thought, God, these people have really figured it out. There's something so [32:45] enlightened about the way they're grieving. And, and I did, if I'm honest, I sort of had a moment [32:51] of thinking, I don't know if I could do it as well as they are. Yeah, if I had that kind of loss. But [32:58] I think that has everything to do with family history, because I think they both grew up with [33:02] these fathers who lost everything. They lost their whole families when they were really young. And then [33:08] they learned in a kind of defiant way, to keep going and build a new life and to have joy and live [33:16] with a kind of grace and beauty, even in the aftermath of just the most catastrophic loss. [33:22] And to me, that was, it kind of remains incredibly inspiring as an example. [33:28] Do they believe or do you believe that this will ever be solved, that there will be [33:33] a definitive answer to what happened to Zack? [33:37] Yes and no. I mean, I think that they probably share my view that some things will always remain [33:46] mysterious. There are some maddening characters in this story, people who do know more than they're [33:53] saying, who won't tell the brettlers and won't tell me some of the details. [34:00] But I think... And aren't being compelled by authorities to share that either, you should say. [34:02] And aren't being compelled by authorities because the cops dropped the ball. [34:05] Right. [34:05] Um, but they, um, but I think the brettlers have a kind of rough sense of what happened [34:12] to Zack. The interesting question for me is the emotional one, which is, and I've seen [34:18] this in other cases I've written about where people have a terrible loss and, and the way [34:23] they deal with the loss is to think of the sort of mystery of what happened almost as like [34:28] a math problem that you have to solve. [34:30] And there's a sense that the way I'm going to deal with my grief is to solve this problem. [34:35] And I think the hard thing for the brettlers is that even if you, even if you solve the riddle, [34:41] even if you crack the mystery, it's not going to make that sense of grief and loss go away. [34:48] So it's sort of learning instead to live with some of the ambiguity, to, um, take comfort in the [34:54] things that you do know and you have been able to find out. And they've been able to find out a lot. [34:57] Um, but then also to sort of, I think in Zack's case, to see him more completely than they ever [35:05] did when he was alive and, and to, and to love him even in, uh, that more complete and kind of [35:12] flawed complexity. [35:14] There are so many complicated people in this book, right? But by tracing back their family stories [35:20] and unpacking them the way that you do, you're sort of forced to reckon with people as they are, [35:28] full complicated human beings with all the weight of their ancestors' decisions on their shoulders [35:33] and everything ahead of them as well. For Zack in particular though, what is it you hope people [35:38] take away or understand about him? Because there's a lot in there, right? Questions about why he did [35:45] what he did that we will never know the answers to. But what do you, as someone who's looked into [35:49] this for so long, what do you take away from that? [35:52] I mean, I, you know, the way that I write is not a, um, I, you know, I trained as a lawyer, [36:00] but I, but I, I'm not writing legal briefs. It's, you know, the book's not an op-ed. I don't have a, [36:05] um, [36:06] You're not arguing about it. [36:06] I'm not, I don't have an argument to make per se. However, um, part of what's interesting [36:13] about Zack is he's this incredibly distinctive personality. You know, he was a real sort of [36:17] sui generis, unusual person who turns out to have been this amazingly talented, fabulist who could [36:23] kind of code switch and, um, you know, mix it up with people who, who work all the time with real [36:30] Russian oligarchs and somehow trick them into thinking. I mean, there are Russians who he convinced [36:35] that he was Russian. I don't know how he did it. Um, so on the one hand, he's this very distinctive [36:41] kid. On the other hand, I think that the siren song that pulled him into some of these dark places [36:53] is one that many of us would recognize. It's a culture that venerates wealth above all and [37:02] venerates hustle. Um, even when the hustle is illegal, potentially and immoral and could end [37:12] in catastrophe. And I don't think that you, I don't really touch this stuff in the book because [37:19] I think it's implicit and you can kind of make these connections yourself. But I think that if you [37:24] look around in our culture, in our political leadership, uh, there are all kinds of examples [37:32] of people who have chosen that kind of zero sum approach to life in which everything is about, [37:40] I'm going to get mine. And it doesn't matter who I hurt along the way or what I might be risking [37:46] in the process. There's a kind of fire that's sort of motivating people. And, um, there's an [37:54] adulation, I think, in our culture of, uh, those Wolf of Wall Street type characters. And I think the [38:01] problem for Zach was he didn't see the Wolf of Wall Street as a cautionary tale. He saw it as an [38:07] instruction manual. And I do not think he's alone in that regard. I don't think it's a generational [38:12] thing even either. I don't think it's just young people. I think across the culture, um, there's a [38:18] lot of that out there. And so on the one hand, Zach's story is very, very distinctive. Couldn't [38:22] have happened to anyone else. On the other hand, there are aspects of this that I think speak to [38:28] some kind of deeper ills in terms of where we are these days. You've drawn parallels to some of your [38:35] other work as well, in terms of our modern context. Um, your book, Say Nothing, that went on to be, [38:43] uh, a television series as well, focused on the troubles, the decades long violent conflict in [38:49] Northern Ireland. And you drew a parallel between some of the divisions and elements of that, of the [38:56] troubles and what we see here in the States in terms of our own political divisions. This was right [39:01] before the 2024 election that you mentioned that sort of parallel. Do you still see that today? [39:08] And if so, how, just tell me more about that. Yeah. I mean, I, the, the, it's a thing I've [39:13] thought a lot about, um, because you had this period of three decades in Northern Ireland in [39:18] which there was this entrenched conflict and, um, people picked sides and there was a great deal of [39:26] sort of tribal allegiance and the different sides had their own facts. And there's a lot about this [39:31] that would actually be probably quite familiar to people. Um, the thing that worries me the most, [39:38] which is a, uh, something I wrote about in Say Nothing and I noticed in the Northern Irish [39:43] context, and I'm afraid it's something that you see happening, um, even in very recent months here [39:50] in the U.S. is a kind of dehumanization where the idea of tribal identity or political identity [39:59] in some quarters becomes so entrenched and so extreme that you can have a person killed. Um, [40:11] and I mean, just, just to put a very fine point on it, you can have, uh, an American citizen, [40:17] civilian murdered by federal agents on camera. And the first reaction among some people [40:26] is not to say, gosh, this is horrifying. This is one of my fellow citizens who's been killed by the [40:34] state, but to look at aspects of that person's identity and political outlook and essentially say, [40:42] I'm not too troubled by this. You know, it doesn't bother me as much when one of theirs gets killed [40:48] as when one of mine gets killed. And that was, I'm afraid, the kind of poison that kept the troubles [40:58] going for as long as it did was a sort of indifference even to human life, uh, because [41:05] everything was secondary to that notion of which camp are you in? Which color? Are you red or blue? [41:10] You know, in that case, are you orange or green? And, um, I feel us inching towards that kind of [41:18] reality and it worries me. Related, but on a bit of a lighter note, only because you mentioned you [41:23] were on set when this book was being turned into a television series every day. Is that a weird [41:29] experience to see your work turned into television before your eyes? Are you like, [41:36] how is this happening? Or this doesn't make sense? Does it still resonate in the same way? Like, what [41:41] was that like? Oh, it's very strange. I mean, it, yeah, it's so weird. Um, yeah. And, um, I mean, [41:48] in a bunch of ways, because, because in this case, it's a book where I'm imagining a world that is kind [41:56] of a vanished world. Sometimes I'm talking about people who I never knew because they were dead [42:00] before I started writing. Um, literally there's a housing project, which, which is, um, the place [42:08] where Jean McConville lived called Divis Flats. And Divis Flats was torn. This is, we should say, [42:13] the widowed mother who's the central character who ends up murdered. Who's, who's murdered at the [42:17] beginning of my book, Say Nothing. And she, real woman murdered in 1972. Um, her 10 kids were orphaned. [42:25] And there's this kind of very chilling opening scene of the book and the series, um, where she's [42:30] living in this kind of hulking housing project in West Belfast, this place, Divis Flats. Now, [42:36] Divis Flats was torn down. And so when I was writing the book, I had to do all this research to try and [42:42] reconstruct it for the reader. And so I, you know, I found old documentaries and old still photos. And [42:48] I talked to people who lived there and I read accounts of people who'd been there. And, um, [42:53] I was, um, trying to kind of, you know, recreate this place that didn't exist anymore. So then we [43:02] make the series and we find that there's another housing project in Sheffield, England, which was [43:08] very similar structurally to Divis Flats. And there's this old wing of the housing [43:13] project that is soon going to be renovated, but they haven't renovated yet. So it's kind of [43:17] abandoned and we go and we shot all the exteriors there and it's very eerie. I mean, it would be as [43:24] if you'd sort of, you know, I mean, it's, it's like something, the place that was in your imagination [43:30] is, is there. And then the apartment, the interiors we've created on a set, but to, to watch an actress [43:39] play, Jean McConville is an incredible actress, Judith Roddy. Um, you know, I stood there at the, [43:46] I mean, if I'm honest, I stood there at the monitor, I was outside the room because you can't be inside [43:49] the room. They're shooting in there, but I was just outside and I'm at the monitor and every take [43:53] I'd be in tears. [43:54] Really? Yeah. Why? Because, I mean. Because it was suddenly so real? Yeah. And it's, and I mean, [43:59] she's an extraordinary actress and the, but, but the kind of, um, I like to think that I'm a, I'm a [44:08] pretty visceral writer that I can, if I, if I want to sort of make you feel certain things or experience [44:13] certain things, I can, I'm going to use every tool in the box to do that on the page. Yeah. But there's [44:19] only so far you can go on the page to, to watch a really talented actress, um, with the camera [44:27] tight on her face and wardrobe and hair and makeup and, um, just brilliant production design where [44:36] you've got all of the furniture, they've matched the wallpaper that was the actual wallpaper in [44:40] the flat, you know, the light switches, the, the door handles, everything is kind of period [44:45] precise. Um, you sort of feel it in your solar plexus, um, I think kind of inescapably. And so [44:56] there's a, there was a kind of horror and a pathos that I was trying to achieve when I wrote the book. [45:02] But, um, when you're, when you're dealing in television, it's just all that is sort of turbocharged. [45:09] Does that make you want to turn more of your work into TV series, movies, visual format? [45:14] Doesn't, it doesn't. I mean, I, I really enjoyed that experience and I was really pleased with how it [45:18] came out. I think the show is great and I'd encourage people to watch it if they haven't. [45:22] Book was great, show was great. [45:23] But the, and, and it's funny, many people said to me after the series came out, you're never going [45:27] to be this lucky again. You know, the story is generally not, uh, author loves adaptation, [45:32] you know, adaptation actually gets made and author is happy with it. Um, so, uh, I really lucked out [45:38] in that regard. Um, but the thing that I love the most is to do this kind of work. And so I'm, [45:46] I'm already back at it. I'm working on a new thing for the New Yorker that'll be out soon. [45:49] And I love being back in the trenches. [45:52] I have to ask you about something you said no to, because I'm fascinated on the backstory [45:56] here, but you were approached about writing the memoir for El Chapo, the infamous Mexican [46:01] drug Lord. [46:02] Yes. [46:02] And you said, no, thank you. [46:04] Yeah. [46:04] Tell me why. [46:05] Um, I mean, it was tempting in the sense that he had, um, at the point where I was approached, [46:12] he had never given an interview of any sort. He did subsequently talk to noted investigative [46:16] journalist, John Penn, um, for Rolling Stone. But, um, but at the time, uh, he'd never given [46:23] an interview. And, um, I think what I worried about was that, um, I mean, first of all, listen, [46:32] I, you know, it would be very difficult to write a version of that book that he, that I would be [46:36] happy with and he would be happy with. And, and Chapo Guzman is not somebody I particularly wanted to [46:41] make unhappy. Um, so there's that. Um, but I also, there is a, there's a kind of a tightrope [46:49] that I'm often walking when I write, which is that I'm very interested in people who are [46:54] charismatic and I want to try and capture some of that charisma on the page. Cause I think it's [46:58] important. I think if you want to understand how Chapo Guzman could be one of the biggest drug [47:03] traffickers in the history of the world, part of the answer is that he is personally a very [47:06] charismatic guy. Um, and it would be sort of irresponsible of me not to capture that similar [47:13] thing when I was doing say nothing. Part of the reason people signed up for the IRA in the 1970s [47:17] is that it was romantic and it was glamorous. And they had a sense that, uh, it wasn't just that [47:24] what they were doing was righteous. It was also cool. And as a writer, I've, I want to capture that. [47:30] I want to make you understand that this is part of it. The question is, how do you show the [47:35] romance without romanticizing it? In Chapo Guzman's case, how do I show the charisma of the guy and [47:41] the sort of fun of being him without glossing over the fact that this is somebody who's responsible [47:45] for thousands, maybe tens of thousands of murders? Um, you know, there's a lot of families out there [47:52] who've lost loved ones because of this person. And so that's always a, a line that I need to kind [48:00] of very carefully walk. I think any scenario in which I was a man's ghost writer, um, would make [48:09] that just untenable. I think I would sort of fall on one side of that in a way that I couldn't live [48:14] with. But you do deal with a lot of people, groups, organizations, um, in a very dark world. [48:22] And I mean, even in this book, there are elements in there that if they are made unhappy, [48:26] could try to take that out on you. Do you, do you worry about that, about your own personal [48:31] safety? And also, are there, are there groups or organizations you just won't touch? [48:35] I, I try to be pretty careful. Um, I, you know, I have two children. I have, um, a wife who I [48:45] consult with, um, all the time, very actively, who has many opinions about, uh, what I should and [48:53] not be writing about. Um, and I, um, it, it is true that I often am writing about, um, unsavory [49:04] folks, but I try and manage those relationships in a fairly careful way. And, um, and I, I [49:15] wouldn't, you know, I wouldn't do anything that I felt as though really put people in, in a great [49:20] deal of harm. I think there'd be a kind of selfishness there. Um, but I've, I've managed [49:27] it all right. And I think some of it is, you know, there's, I tell stories in this book [49:30] about, there's a gangster named Andy Baker who, um, uh, I started engaging with because [49:38] he knew one of my central characters. And, um, and the first thing he said to me when we [49:44] first met was he, he shook my hand and he looked me right in the eye and he gave me a big smile [49:49] and he asked after my wife and children by name and I hadn't told him their, their names. [49:55] And, um, I wouldn't put my family in a situation where I thought he was going to do anything to [50:02] them. I do think it's important. I mean, the reason I put it in the book to understand that [50:07] this is the way these guys operate and it kind of all comes back to family, right? That all [50:12] of us, that the, the, the way these gangsters operate is a very predatory. They're looking for [50:17] your vulnerability and the biggest vulnerability for all of us as our families. [50:22] Before I let you go, I have to ask about a surprise cameo you made on one of my favorite shows, [50:28] HBO's industry in the season four finale. Just tell me what that was like. [50:34] I had so much fun doing that. [50:36] It was fun. [50:37] I had so much fun doing that. [50:37] You're basically playing yourself. [50:39] I was playing myself. And in fact, I, I knew that they'd written me into the script. [50:43] And then what happened was that they, they'd written me into the script as a character, [50:48] just the idea that they had, it's, there's a journalist in season four and that he feels [50:52] competitive with this guy, Patrick Redden Keefe. And one of the co-creators, Conrad, [50:59] sent me a text and said, so listen, we're actually going to have a scene and, you know, [51:02] would you rather somebody else play you or do you want to just play yourself? And I thought, [51:05] why not? And, um, I had a blast. It's way too much fun. [51:10] Way too much fun. Is it going to be a recurring role? We're going to see you in the season? [51:12] I am pitching them that, that season five really should take place in the lucrative [51:17] high stakes world of legacy magazine journalism. [51:19] A thousand percent. I would watch this. [51:21] Yeah. They seem unconvinced, uh, of the innate glamour of, um, yeah, the world of magazines. [51:27] I don't get it, but, uh, uh, anything you can tell us about the next thing you're working on? [51:33] I have a big story that I have been working on on and off since 2020, um, which is, [51:43] a really wild crime story, um, in New Orleans and should be out soon. [51:51] Can I say I am among the many who, uh, are very, very glad you did not become a lawyer or stay a [51:57] lawyer. Thank you so, so much for being here. I think the legal, the legal community is probably [52:03] grateful as well. [52:05] Such a pleasure. Appreciate your time. [52:07] Thanks for having me.