(Bonus Episode) You Have Questions

Guarantee human.

“Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal but encouraged,”

it's the enhanced games.

Some call it "grotesque," others say it's unleashing human potential.

Either way, the podcast's superhuman documented it all, embedded in the games and with the athletes for a full year. Within probably 10 days, I put on 10 pounds. I was having troubles stopping the muscle growth. Listen to superhuman on the "I Heart Radio" app, Apple podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. This is Saigon, the story of my family and of the country that shaped us. From "I Heart Podcasts," Saigon, you don't think I'm serious about a free Vietnam, one city, a divided country, and the war that tore America apart. It's for Vietnam.

They're pouring patches all over here. Freedom for Vietnam! There's a fire coming to this country and it's going to burn out everything. Listen to Saigon. On the "I Heart Radio" app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

There are times when the mind becomes a difficult place to live. This is Dave Deagleman with the inner Cosmos podcast, and for mental health awareness month, we'll talk with singer-songwriter Jewel about anxiety. I started living in my car, and then my car got stolen.

I was having panic attacks. I was at war of phobic. This is a month of deeply personal and honest conversations about what happens when the brain goes off course. Listen to the inner Cosmos on the "I Heart Radio" app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Sometimes, a suspect is found guilty before a verdict is ever read in court. On the "Wicked Words" podcast, I talk with the writers who dig deep into the cases that changed history, including Marsha Clark, who went from prosecuting one of the most famous murder cases to writing crime fiction.

It doesn't matter that you didn't take part in the murder. If you were at the scene at all, you're guilty of murder. Every week, the real story is revealed, join us every Monday for new episodes of "Wicked Words." Listen to "Wicked Words" on the "I Heart Radio" app,

Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, it's Aaron. Coming to you today with something a little bit different. We have been absolutely overwhelmed by the response to the show, and of course, completely delated.

I never expected it to become the number four show on the Apple charts, just mind-blowing.

Thank you so much to everyone who's been listening to the show and sharing it with friends. It has been a huge help. And my producer and I are back here today because I know you have some thoughts. So, I'm going to answer some questions that we've received from listeners and friends of the show, and I'm also going to bring in a few other voices,

including two very special guests who can answer a couple of the questions, way, way better than I ever could. I'm really excited to talk to them. Let's do this. Hey, Aaron, we've talked about three different Willy Wonka's. We've talked about lots of stall adaptations.

“Why do you think that filmmakers keep adapting dolls work?”

I think, I mean, I've thought about that a lot too. I think it's because the books are really plotted like screenplays, which probably comes from the fact that well before, I mean, years and years before dolls was writing children's books, he was in Hollywood. He was writing the fifth James Bond movie,

and he was writing Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and he was writing a bunch of screenplays that never

got made. And so he always thought as a screenwriter. And so dolls stories, all of them, have almost a perfect dramatic architecture. There's a clear protagonist with clear intentions and obstacles. There's a rising threat. There's a third act twist that we contextualizes everything. And so I think he's really easy to translate to screen because he's already thought through the structure, and he's thought oftentimes he's also thought through it visually.

And you know, I think he can be adapted through so many generations with all the movies we're continuing to get because his stuff is so timeless. Unlike so many writers from the 60s, the 70s and the 80s, he doesn't feel musty. Doll writes for the id. Right. He his work taps into something that I think is really primal. The fantasy ever avenge against cruel adults, and the terror of the world being really secretly monstrous. That kind of stuff that doesn't

“age. So every generation of children gets to get to discover it fresh. And so I think for many,”

many more years, especially with this Netflix deal, we're going to get more doll adaptations. When you brought this show out to make, why do you pick roll doll? You could have done anybody. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I think a big part of it is that I've got really young kids. So I made me think a lot about, you know, not only what kind of books that I'm reading to them,

And so as I started getting more interested in doll. And I bought one of his, one of his autobiographies. And then I started reading some articles about him. And I just fell down a rabbit hole. I mean, they were just so many interesting things about his life. I mean, obviously there's, there's the controversies with the anti-Semitism. But there's just so much more when I, when I discovered that he was also a medical inventor who discovered, you know, who built a valve

to try to help save life of his infant son. I was, I found that's so romantic and was completely attracted to doll for that. Of course, the spy stuff I found fascinating. And overall, I just found doll to have, you know, to be, to be going through this search for identity, which felt, um,

“you know, very universal. I think we all know what that's like to try to figure out who we are.”

I just don't think people for the most part do it as aggressively as doll did. I mean, he was really searching for his identity by going into all of these fascinating worlds. And so the other thing that sort of got me excited about this is I wanted to, I wanted to profile a writer.

You know, it was always surprised me. There, there are very few movies, if you think about it,

where a writer is the main character. You know, there's the ones that that jump to mind are, our movies like adaptation, uh, by Charlie Kaufman or Shakespearean Love. Um, but for the most part, uh, you know, they're very few of them. And I think the, the reasoning is that writers live a mostly internal life. Um, and so it's just not dramatically interesting to put them at the center of a film. Uh, but, but I am very interested in writers. And so here was a writer, role doll, who, um,

was not just living an internal life. He was going out and he was, he was a playboy and he was a seducer and he was an espionage agent and he was a fighter pilot and he was a medical inventor and he was, uh, all of these things. And so it was an opportunity to, to write about a writer. Um, and I just, yeah, I just, I just, I find it very personally interesting that role doll and I, uh, technically have the same job, right? We do the same thing. Our job is to sit in a chair for four hours

a day and wrestle words into an interesting order. But that is where the similarities stop. You know, I, I live in, in my Brooklyn apartment and I, um, I just don't have a very exciting life. I love my life. I have a very happy life. But I, um, I mostly stay close to home. Doll, we're shipped off to Africa when he was 20 years old. And back then it was a very big deal to go off to, um, another continent.

And he, he signed up for the rail Air Force. He volunteered, even though he had never been in a

plane before. And of course, you know, if you've listened to the show, I could go on and on and on. Um, so I just, I found it so interesting. Now, he's a writer and I'm a writer, but we could not be more different. Aaron, we love to have you. I don't you choose to bring us and imagine this project.

“Yeah, whenever I make a podcast, I look for a really good partner, um, someone who, uh, I think”

can be creatively helpful. Um, you know, uh, both in, in getting the show made in the way that it should. And also, you know, we're giving me feedback on the writing. And imagine is just like the perfect place for this. I mean, imagine has made so many great true stories, um, Cinderella Man and Eight Mile and a beautiful mind. And especially Frost Nixon, which is also about a complicated man in the mid 20th century with his own share of demons. I think it has a lot in common with, with this

world doll story. Um, and yeah, I've just, I've really loved the team and imagine, uh, you know, we're, I'm talking to, uh, for listeners, I'm talking to my producer, uh, Nathan Kokey right now and, um, also Cara Welker, um, and in terms of the day-to-day making of the show, I do want to take a the opportunity to, um, to tell people who's, who's behind the scenes, um, Matt Schrader, uh,

“is my producer and, um, just, uh, so essential, uh, to the show, uh, really made it happen. He had,”

he had a ton of creative input, um, but he also handled everything behind the scenes. The budget, the hiring, the equipment, the insurance, the, the music license, uh, the schedules. He

always made sure that we were ready and prepared, um, I had worked with Matt on an earlier, um,

podcast that I made for Audible, called Summer Breeze, and he was just so fantastic. Um, I was so thrilled that he said yes to helping on the show. And then, um, Mark Henry Phillips is our editor and sound designer. Um, Mark, uh, Mark picked the music for the show and made a work incredibly well. He created the, the pacing for the show, the rhythm. He cut out all the times that I sound of like a dummy. Um, he also created those great scenes where, you know,

come to life. That's all Mark. Um, and he did so much more. Mark is just, he's brilliant at this.

Um, he's also a great composer. If you can, um, if you can hear season one of cereal, the music in your head, that hunting score, that's Mark. He created that. Um, I had also worked with Mark on what Audible shows and was, yeah, just beyond thrilled that he was willing to come on and help us out here. Um, yeah, it was an absolutely fantastic team. And I also really want to thank the team at I Heart. Um, they've been nothing, but encouraging about this show. They got it right away.

Um, and I've been a really terrific day today, uh, working with Katrina Norvel and Anna Stump, um, who I've worked with, uh, a previous show. They're, they're really fantastic creative producers. Um, and the whole team at I Heart has just been so great at supporting the show. And that's

“something you absolutely need, um, as a, as a, as a creator. Um, and I think they're, you know,”

the, the fact that they've been behind us is a huge part of why we've been so successful. Hi, my name is Devin Fontecchio. I'm in seven grade and I've been in the musical

Matilda three times. In the play, Matilda's parents didn't love her, and they didn't want a second child.

What enrolled dolls life made him write the characters like that? Thank you for that question, Devin. Um, yeah, so I think a lot of it comes from the tragedy of his youth, which we talked about in earlier episode, but when doll was just three years old, his older sister Astray, who was seven, she died. And a few weeks later, literally only three weeks later, dolls father died. So it was that one to punch that really colored his entire childhood, um, and really is responsible.

I think for the dark outlook of so much of his work. Um, now in real life, dolls mother Sophie was actually very, very devoted to him. So I don't think she's reminiscing of the mother in Matilda at all, but dolls father was kind of a different story. Um, doll didn't really remember much about his father. He was only three, like I said, when um, when his father died. But I do think doll believed that his father allowed himself to die. And that was of course because of of his

sadness over losing his daughter. So think about what they would do to someone. If they thought that their

“father chose to die instead of to raise them, I think that could absolutely help explain how”

negligent the father is in Matilda and how negligent both parents are. I also think that the answer comes from the boarding schools that doll attended. You know, he was shipped off to these schools at just nine years old. Um, he was absolutely miserable there. The teachers were often really cruel, uh, really physically abusive. And he just felt profoundly unseen by all the adults and charge of him. And so that loneliness, um, being surrounded by adults who just don't get you, that's basically

Matilda's entire life. Miss Trunchball is just like how doll describes the sadistic headmaster I wrapped in. So I absolutely think that that was a big influence on that book. And then I think the

final answer to the question is the loss of Olivia. Doll never fully recovered from it. She was just

seven years old. Doll's daughter Olivia when she died. And doll partly blamed himself. Um, they

“measles had broken out. And there were some antibodies available. But doll and Patricia Niel”

is wife chose to give the antibodies to Theo because Theo had been in an accident when he was just a few months old. He was, he was hit by a taxi cab in New York City. And so he was very fragile. And so they gave the antibodies to Theo and they were not able to give any tool of yeah. And so she did contract measles and soon died. And so think about that. I mean, doll blamed his own father for dying instead of raising him. He blamed himself for his own daughter's death.

It kind of makes sense that when he writes Matilda, he creates these parents who don't love their child. That is a primal terrifying thing for doll. Um, and it's kind of, it's what writers do. Right? Not not to go on too big attention here. But I talk about this in my TV class at Yale. When David Chase was creating the sopranos, um, he was thinking about his own family. And he had all of these uncles and aunts and cousins who were all in the eyeglass business.

They all owned rival eyeglass stores. And they were constantly sabotaging each other and competing with each other. Um, and so when when Chase tried to turn it into a TV show, he realized the eyeglass business is not going to make for great TV. So he used all of their, um, all their dynamics with each other and even some of the characters. And he simply made them a mafia

his guilt over, uh, his daughter and his, his really, um, sort of hurt feelings over what happened to his father. And he was creating these parents who are very negligent, um, with their own daughter. But the nice thing about Matilda and one of the reasons it's probably my favorite of his children's

books is just how hopeful it is at the end. Matilda's parents, they never get any better. They never

get more attentive, but Matilda finds magic to be back the darkness, which is just lovely. So thank you Devon for this question. Hi, my name's Katie Langley and I work in education. Well, what I would love to know about role-daliers, if he was listening to this podcast now,

“what do you think he would be most proud of? And what would absolutely enraged him?”

Thank you. I love this question. It's something I thought about a lot as I was making the show. Because it brings up some really interesting issues, like what a writer owes to his or her subject. How do you do right by them? What's at a bounds? What's not? To answer this question, I want to bring in someone way more equipped than me, who, uh, someone who's undoubtedly you've thought about this stuff a lot. Um, Mark Harris has written a couple of my favorite non-fiction

books of all time. His first book is called Pictures at a Revolution. And it has not completely

brilliant conceit. It's about the five movies nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards in 1967. And by looking closely at those films, it tells you everything about the era and about how New Hollywood was born. It's Dr. Do Little Versus the Graduate. And neither of them one can not recommend it highly enough. But the main reason I want to talk to Mark today is that he wrote, "What is? Unquestionably, my favorite biography of all time." It came out just a

“few years ago. It's called "Michael's Life." The best thing you could ever read about the director.”

It does everything you want a great biography to do. It gives you a full picture of it's subject so that you feel like you know him backwards and forwards. And even though Nichols, you know, couldn't have had a more different life than mine, like a magic trick, the book makes me see myself in Nichols and really connect with him. The book also doubles as an exploration of the whole era and all the fascinating people in Mike Nichols' orbit. Plus it reads like a thriller. You

can't wait to read what comes next. And maybe most important, Mark never judges Nichols,

which is a trap so many biographers fall into. I think what a biographer owes to their subject is really only a sincere pursuit of the truth. That's the only thing. I don't think a relationship between biographer and subject is necessarily adversarial. I don't think it has to be. But if it doesn't feel adversarial sometimes, then you probably pick the wrong subject for a biography. Just as if it doesn't feel admiring sometimes, you've also probably picked the wrong subject. I mean,

I'm, you know, you mentioned the idea of someone looking over your shoulder as you. The subject of your writing, looking over your shoulder, either as you write or as your researching. And that really resonated for me because that was an experience I felt I had many, many times when I was working on the Mike Nichols book. Probably more often when I was researching. I'd be sitting in the library and I would come across some old document or story or interview and I would read it

and start taking notes really diligently. And sometimes I really felt like it could hear Mike over my shoulder saying, you know, that's not quite accurate. Or let me tell you what was really happening that day. Or yes, that was a lie that we all agreed on. But, you know, what really went on

“with so-and-so. And I think that kind of internal dialogue between biographer and subject”

is a really valuable thing. Even if all it really is is a way for the biographer to stretch their own imagination. You know, it's working on a biography is constantly kind of an active checking in with your subject. And by checking in, I don't think it's necessarily a question or saying, is this okay, can I do this? Was this right? Are you going to be mad at me? I mean, obviously with a subject who's died, that's all theoretical and I wouldn't ever want to write

of this, asked in a biographer's head about the subject they're writing about, is often a really useful question because you spend years trying to chase what you can't definitively have, which is what was someone thinking at a given moment. You can try to reconstruct that from diaries or from letters or from conversations with someone who you interviewed, but you're ultimately guessing. And I don't believe in writing the kind of biography where there are sentences

like, so-and-so, paste the room nervously. Like, if they were alone in the room and they never

told you whether they paste the room nervously or not, then you shouldn't put it in. But I do think that anyone who's writing a biography has to take on a certain level of arrogance at some point.

“You have to start to believe that you get them. You kind of know how they were thinking and”

what they were thinking or all you're going to end up with is a kind of bright recitation of fact. And so, I think to counterbalance that arrogance, it's good to feel the person over your shoulder sometimes, second guessing you, correcting you, telling you not to be so sure of yourself. It's a good

joke of humility, which I think you need when you're a biographer as often as you need arrogance.

I love that answer. It makes a lot of sense. And so that's sort of, you know, about what you owe to your subject. Did you feel an obligation to my knickles family, to his widow, his son, how much were they in your mind as you were writing and researching? Well, that's a very different thing, because that's an actual practical, tangible thing about living people. I would not have written the biography if I had not had their consent in advance. And consent rather than cooperation was

what I asked for. I specifically asked Diane if she was okay with this. And if I could state publicly that she was okay with it as a way of getting other people who were willing to talk to me to cooperate. And she gave me that. I did not say, and I needed to do an interview

or I want it. And she never said, "I want to read it along the way," or you can't talk about this

and this and this. And so I felt very fortunate. I mean, what I got from Diane and Mike's kids was exactly what I asked to get, which was permission, consent, and permission to make that consent public. So beyond that, I really tried very hard not to think what would they make of this,

“what would they feel about this part of his life that I'm writing about, because I think that”

really would have been presumptuous of me to try to guess what Mike's kids would think of any given moment. And also I think it would have been ultimately damaging to the book. I think that would have been really a problem. So I tried quite hard to keep them out of my head except when I was writing about them directly. And to this day, I don't know whether any of them have read the book or not. And as curious as I might be to know that, I'm also okay with not knowing.

Well, I was also thinking about when you said just now that you, you wouldn't have Mike pacing a room if he was alone in a room, because you have no idea if he was pacing. How do you feel about historical fiction? How do you feel about all the TV shows I'm thinking of love story, for instance, the JFK Junior Carolyn Busset Show? Do you are those? I mean, those are obviously very different than a biography. But they share some of the same DNA.

“How do you feel about those shows? Do you watch those shows?”

I haven't actually watched love story. So I can't say anything specific about that. But in general, I feel fine about those shows. I don't think that historical fiction has precisely the same obligation to reality as biography. I mean, historical fiction is an area where you're taking real people and real events and you're trying to find a way to dramatize them

there's a line, but you can have someone in historical fiction say or do something that they

didn't precisely say or do. But if you find yourself having them say or do something that is the opposite of what they would have said or done, because you think that makes the story better,

“then yeah, I think you're cheating. And I think you're doing the disservice to those people”

and to history and even to your own storytelling. These are people that plenty of people actually knew and interacted and worked with and befriended and loved. So I think doing historical fiction about contemporary people is a really, really tricky thing when it feels less like historical and more like current events. Yeah, yeah, I think about the op-ed that Darrell Hannah wrote, Darrell Hannah was to have Kage Jr's girlfriend when he met Carolyn Bessette and

she wrote a piece that was fantastic saying just how violated she felt and quoting a writer on the

show who basically said we used Darrell Hannah for storytelling purposes. We needed an antagonist.

We needed a third wheel and so we used Darrell Hannah, but of course she's a living breathing human being who's still very much in the world. Right, and again, not haven't seen the show, I will say I found her argument against that kind of use, very, very compelling and convincing. Yeah, I'm curious how you decide how much of yourself to put in a biography. It may be the different mediums podcast versus buck, but I definitely put some of myself in the

role doll show. I guess I feel like it's my point of view, no matter what, so I may as well sort of acknowledge that fact from time to time. When I say something about myself in relation to doll, it feels like I'm almost, I'm almost telling the listener. You know, remember this is not an objective telling of the man's story if such a thing could even exist. It's through my

“particular lens. I think a lot of myself seems into the work. I mean, in the Michael's book,”

I never use first person, and the only occasion where I could have used first person was when I

write about him making the HBO version of Angels in America, because that was written by my husband, and I witnessed a lot of it, and I could have interjected myself. In the new book that I'm working on, which is a history of popular culture as relates to the game rights movement, there are a few occasions, even though it's a history book, where I do go into first person, because I think it's it's really important for readers to know that I'm a white cis gay man. It's really important

to them to know when I was born and where I lived, and what I experienced, even though this is not in any way an autobiography or a memoir, because I think it would be more misleading in a way, for me to pretend that I was writing a completely objective, God's I view of this whole subject, then for me to say to people, "Look, this is coming from a particular perspective." And here's what you have the right to know about me and the perspective that I developed. You should know

“if you're going to read a big long book, you should know who's talking to you. And I think in a podcast”

like the one you're doing, where you are literally, it's in your voice, literally and and figuratively, I don't see how you can not put a bit of yourself into it, and also don't people want that. There's a line by Jetta Malcolm, the great journalist and essayist that gets thrown around a lot. When people talk about biographies, she wrote, "The biographer at work is like a professional burglar, breaking into a house, rifling through certain drawers that he has good reason to think

contain the jewelry and money, and triumphantly bearing his loot away." I'm curious what you make of that. I'm curious if you agree. She also called journalist's con men. I mean, you know, I have agree with what she said. I think the image that she came up with going through drawers and looking for the thing, the valuable that you want to make your way

or some letter or some quote, you're like, "Ah, yes, this is what I need. This is the treasure in the trash because also when you're working on a biography, you go through a lot of stuff that is useless for you or redundant or off the point or irrelevant or just in comprehensible." So, yeah, she's right about that. I guess where I differ with her is, I don't think there's anything criminal or illicit

“or nefarious in what biographers are doing, but at the same time, you should feel humility”

when you are holding someone's letters or diaries or memos in your hand. You're looking at

private things that were not intended for you to read. So, it's always good to remind yourself of that

and to remind yourself to use that material responsibly. You know, your job is never to whitewash the life of the person you're writing about. Otherwise, why would you want to do that book in the first place? But you are being entrusted with telling the story of a life. This is a very self-serving thing for me to say to myself, but I would say I want to do right by Mike, but I think the way to do right by Mike is to write the kind of biography of someone that he would want to read. He valued

specificity and accuracy and truth and psychological clarity and narrative, and so that's what I

was trying to do. Now, maybe that was just me giving myself a permission slip to write the kind of

“book I wanted to write. But that's what I meant when I said, I think it's good to be in mental”

dialogue with your subject, as long as neither of you ends up pushing the other one around. Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal but encouraged, it's the enhanced games. Some call it grotesque, others say it's unleashing human potential. Either way, the podcast superhuman documented it all, embedded in the games and with the athletes for a full year. Within probably 10 days, I put on 10 pounds. I was having troubles stopping the muscle growth.

Listen to superhuman on the iHard Radio App, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

There are times when the mind becomes a difficult place to live. This is Dave Deagleman with the inner Cosmos podcast, and for mental health awareness month, we're dedicating a series to understanding the mind when it struggles. I'm joined by doctors, researchers, and those with lived experience will talk with singer-songwriter Jewel about anxiety. I started living in my car and then my car got stolen. I was shoplifting. I was having panic attacks. I was a gloraphobic.

And making it through hardship. To be present is a learned skill and it's hard to be present. We'll talk with John Nelson about clinical depression and the brain implant that saved his life. What I learned is that procedure may be happy because I'm disease-free. And we'll talk with leading experts like Judd Brewer about anxiety and John Hirschfield about obsessive compulsive disorder and the science of how the brain can change. This is a month of

deeply personal and honest conversations about what happens when the brain goes off course and what we can do about it. Listen to the inner Cosmos on the IR Radio App, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is Saigon, the story of my family and of the country that shaped us. The United States will not stand by and allow any problem. I'll ever break, take over another country.

From My Heart Podcasts. Saigon. Please allow me to introduce Joseph Schorben. You don't think I'm serious about a free Vietnam? I should stop talking so much. I like hearing you talk. One city, a divided country in the war that tore America apart.

“This is for Vietnam. I've taken a hit from Japanese ground fire. Do you read?”

They're pouring petrol all over him. He's holding matches. I'm on a landmine. We're free John. Let's get out, freedom from it now. Saigon. Starting Kelly Marie Tran in Rob Benedict. Staying here's madness. The world should hear about this. There's a fire coming to this country and it's going to burn out everything. Listen to Saigon. On the IR Radio App, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I actually dropped better when I'm high. It heightens my senses. It comes with down.

That's probably what the driver who killed a four-year-old told himself. And now, he's in prison.

“You see, no matter what you tell yourself, if you feel different, you drive different.”

So, if you're high, just don't drive. Brought to you by Nitsa in the ad council. Hi. I'm Steve Israel. I'm a former member of the United States Congress, a novelist. And now, the owner of theater is books in Oyster Bay, New York. Roll doll created stories that capture generations of young readers, but his legacy has been tainted by some well-documented anti-Semitic remarks later in life.

And some anti-Semitic stereotypes noted within his work. So, specifically,

thinking about the witch's scholars and readers have pointed to elements that echo long-standing

anti-Semitic stereotypes. And so, my question is this, when we look back at dolls' work today, how should readers reconcile the brilliance of his storytelling with the prejudice that he expresses publicly and subtextually? It's a great question. And I am guessing as the only one we're going to get today from a former member of Congress. How cool. I love, by the way, that Steve went back to his hometown and opened a bookstore. Now, we've obviously already spent a lot of time and episodes

seven and eight on dolls' anti-Semitism and the question of separating the art from the artist. So, to answer this question, I want to bring in someone with a really unique perspective that we haven't heard from yet. Someone who is at the dead center of the action. I am really excited to talk to him. And if you've been following the show, I hope you're going to be excited

“too. You may remember that we teed out our episode about dolls' anti-Semitism by describing how doll”

picked up the phone one afternoon and called a young journalist. That journalist, who happened to have a Jewish father, asked all about a book review he had written, criticizing Israel. doll took the opportunity to go on an anti-Semitic screen that culminated in doll saying to him. There is a trait in the Jewish character that does provoke animosity. Going on to say, even a stinger like Hitler didn't just pick on him for no reason. The new Broadway play giant

uses that conversation of doll with a young journalist as it's spine. Well, I am very pleased to say, we have that young journalist on the line. Michael Corn is now an Anglican priest and the author of 20 bucks. I am so thrilled he agrees to help me answer Congressman Israel's question. I asked Michael to start off by telling us about the infamous call with Roll doll. I was a pretty young journalist in my early 20s and I had a job with the new statesman magazine,

which was a bit of a coup because Matt then Christopher Hitchens was writing for it and I mean, it still is a good magazine, but back then it was very quite an important publication. I was in awe, but out of my dear, and then doll, I had no contact with, I mean, I was at Mara of his works to learn. I knew his children's writing, and he said, and he had reviewed a book called God Cryed about the invasion of Lebanon, Israel's invasion of Lebanon, and nothing changes,

and he had reviewed it for a magazine called the Literary Review, but I've written for many times, and it was published owned by man called Naim Atala, who was a friend, he'd met doll and doll and said, you know, I had a stationed out there, I know the area, and so Naim said to the editor, "See for all doll, I'll review the book," and he did review the book, and it was a very

“stream review. I think it led over from critique of Israel and Zionism into anti-Semitism,”

to the extent that the editor of the new statesman, and then I don't think there was anyone there who was Jewish, who had any sort of Jewish heritage, and my father was Jewish, but that wasn't why they gave me the job. They said, "Cool doll, I'll open, and see what he has to say." And the assumption was, he would say, "Oh, yeah, I really emotions got the better of me," and that was, it was over the top, and I'm sorry, but that was what happened at all. He was extremely polite,

courteous, extremely English, even though, of course, he wasn't really English anyway, and explained what he said, why he said it, and the more I spoke to him, and it wasn't an aggressive interview, I don't know, I felt very young in his experience. How old were you? I suppose I was about 24? Wow. And he said, I mean, these things have been printed so many times, you know, Hitler may have been a sting couple, there's a reason why people do this,

and they think that sort of thing. It just went over, and I said to him, I said, "Mr. Dada,

you should never, I'm a father's Jewish, and this, I don't think actually attack, I didn't attack,

He just, he didn't really respond, and then he spoke about not seeing any Jews in the armed forces during the Second World War, that old canard, I mean, it's such garbage, it's what the, said in Germany during the First World War, to the extent that the authorities

took a poll, a survey of how many Jews were fighting, it was amazing how many German Jews were fighting,

in infantry positions frontline, one of them, of course, alongside Adolf Hitler. But I said to him, well, my father was in bomber command, and I mean, he just wouldn't listen, just spoke over me at that point, and quite a bit of other stuff too, and so I went to the

“territory, I said, "You should see this," and listen to this, and he did, and he said, "Well,”

you've got to write it." So I wrote it, and this was pre-intinent, remember, and very hard, a lot of people watching now will say, "What?" There was a time when there was no internet, there was social media, so the article ran, wasn't that big, and there was some surprise in shock, and I did a follow-up, and it was mentioned in a couple of other news, well, I think that just one other newspaper at the time, but it really didn't make much of a splash at all. It seemed to just come and go, I remember Naim,

Atala, who owned the literary view, and a publisher could quartet books. He phone me, and he was very upset, you know, I'm so sorry this has happened, and it's embarrassing for him. I met with him, we became friends, but it really just faded away. I can't pretend that everybody was up in arms, it. Now, today, while in the current context of what he'd been said about Jewish people, who knows, but if they'd been social media and internet back then, I think it would have been normal,

and caused the cancel him, but they've always opposed. After that, I've got about it. I interviewed

loads of people, and every few years somebody would contact me about the dial piece, and then a few years ago, Martin Rosenblatt, who I didn't know, contacted me, lovely fella, and he said, I mean, I had to write a plug around this. I'm going to say, "Wish yo?" Do what you want to do? I need to interview me at some length, and he interviewed me again, and we met in London,

“and then he said, "You have to keep a confidential concert to anyone." I read it and put it”

very impressive. And then he called me, and said, "I think you may have said, "Are you sitting down?" And he said, "The real court theater want to stage it." And John Lythgo has got hold of the script, and he would love to play rolled out. And that's what happened, and I was at the first night at the Royal Court Theatre, and it was a very strange experience sitting down. It was with my cousin, I remember sitting there and hearing your name, because I'm not in it physically, it's my voice.

It was a lovely, actical prison hope who played me very accurately, and my cousin said, "He's got and on the speaker phone, and I don't want to give too much away, but it's the new model conclusion of the play." Because what the play does, it doesn't, it's nuanced, it doesn't do the black and white thing, it's not garlic's bad, he has many of the best lines, he's charming,

and he's critical, visoral, and Zionism, for example, is a set quite a lot of people, it's quite

convincing, anyway, and it shows him as a man of compassion and empathy put on this issue, it's different, and so the conclusion, including 15 minutes or whatever, is me, and that's very strange, and it's going to be very strange. And when I sit, again, in a humble Broadway, and when John Lythgo has said, I play serial killers, but it's different when I am on stage, and in the audience, I am saying lines that I know will be deeply offensive to people sitting there.

He does it so very well. When I met him for the first time at the party in London for years ago, and I went downstairs, and he said to me, "Your Michael Garon, and the first thing you said was, did I get him right? Did I get him right?" Which I thought was such a sensitive and vulnerable thing to say, and the reviews were magnificent. Yeah, we went to see it on Broadway the other night, and when your character comes in, it's the climax of all the riots, it's the very end,

and you could hear a pin drop in the theater. All thousand people are glued to the stage.

“Did he sound like you? Yeah, I think so. I think, Richard, Richard Hope, he's English,”

and I have a sort of a slight lisp. I know I have a sort of lower middle up of working class East London accent, which has been refined over the years, I suppose. But not easy for the American to get that, you don't have to, doesn't have to be. So a listener to our show wrote in

asymmetism firsthand, and I'm curious if you have any opinions on this subject. Are you, for instance, are you still interested or are you able to read dolls' books or see the film adaptations without thinking about dolls' anti-Semitism, or, you know, I'm just curious for how it's affected you. It's a good question. We have four children, and we read all of the role doll.

“And that is an interesting thing. You know, I see the movies. Does it occur to me?”

Not really. Let's be honest here. There are a lot of people who I will consider great. I love

troll-up, for example, actually troll-up. I love T.S. Eliot, who didn't always say the nicest things

about dolls. So we have to, but with doll having actually heard it, I didn't have to form a counselling for goodness sake, you know, and this is what he said, and this is what he believed, and it's, it's very strange, and when it happened, there were people I knew who they were in in the arts, and they met him, what? They said, what? This is, no, it couldn't be. But someone, I was also working on an TV show at the time called The Outside, as that was just the

researcher and writer. But one of the people who interviewed back there with Simon Rushley, he was before the fact who I was on all that. Very nice fellow. And I told Rushley, I think, I did a good role doll, the day, and this is what he said. And Simon said, "Yeah, I'm not really surprised." Not because he knew about his anti-Semitism, but he said, "There's a cruelty in dolls writing that is extraordinary, and that makes it quite a trap to him many ways." But I can see

how that cruelty could turn into something like anti-Semitism, which I thought was a very interesting comment. Absolutely, that's really interesting. Just to be clear, this was your only interaction with Roll doll, the phone call. Yeah, did I, I may have called him again, but it wasn't a very sense to this. Yeah, this was the only one. And you know, you've, you've, you've, you've spoken a lot about that phone call, but did you have any other takeaways from the call, any other

impressions of doll, his personality, or anything else from talking to him? And how long was the

phone call, by the way? 15 minutes, 20 minutes. Well, it was just a position of incredible courtesy

“and viral opinions. And I think he said, "Is that enough for you, Mike?" That's sort of”

thing. And as though he was, you know, trying to be helpful, I think I guess a lot, we did it in London, and I've had a given you enough, and I said something like, "Oh, very much so." But I've been brought up England in the 1970s. Anti-Semitism was minimal, minimal. There'd be one or two kids in the school who were, and nobody liked them. The political parties that were a fascist parties, they've got even close to winning a seat. So, yeah, it was there, but it was nothing really.

But I've seen it a bit like in the soccer games. That's a different, so long story, but, and you hear, they were fards. They were ironic, fards. And so, who cares, you know, you expect that sort of thing. Their racist, before we had the term homophobic, but believe me, they wouldn't be. They just hated. But when you get it from someone at Rolldahl, who is Erede and courteous, and obviously brilliant, it's different. And that was what was most disturbing. If a screaming idiot in the street

screams out something, I'd just ametic. But Rolldahl, it was different. Hi, this is Hannah Tracy, your wife. I was just wondering, are there any lessons as a father or a husband that you learned from Rolldahl that you're leading to bring into our family,

“so that I can mostly prepare, or are you just sort of succain to the storytelling and spell?”

Okay, Hannah, first of all, did you listen to the show? You do not want me bringing home Rolldahl's lessons as a husband. His wife, if 30 years Patricia Neal wrote a really juicy revealing autobiography called As I Am. She has some very unkind things to say about her husband.

And it will never not be shocking to me that Neal spent three decades married to Doll,

and spills way more ink in her book on her relationship with Gary Cooper, who she was with for one tenth as long. But she also does point out what a good father Doll was. He really loves his kids. And the only reason we have all those classic children's books is because he wanted to impress them with his bedtime stories. Also, Hannah, I wanted to take the opportunity to apologize for any time in the podcast that I used to use as a straw man or a punchline. On one of the other

podcasts I went on to promote our show, the host pointed out that my references to my wife

I love you. Thank you for putting up with me while I tore my hair out writing the show.

“And for all the really great feedback and contributions you made to a throughout,”

could not have made the show without you. And also thank you for letting me record it in our bedroom. Hopefully next season, we'll have more of a studio. You put up with a lot of equipment in our room for way too low. And so that's it for this episode. Thank you again to all of our listeners

for your help in making the show such a head. We are hard to work on our next story. So we'll be back soon.

I hope you'll stick with us.

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