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Millionaires v. Billionaires in NYC · Reasonably Happy with Paul Ollinger

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SPEAKER_00: Hey everybody, welcome back to Reasonably Happy.
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SPEAKER_00: I am Paul Olinger, your host.
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SPEAKER_00: Thanks for being here.
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SPEAKER_00: My guest today is Chris Pavoni,
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the best-selling author of some of the smartest and most
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stylish thrillers of the
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SPEAKER_00: past decade.
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SPEAKER_00: That means books, folks, books.
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SPEAKER_00: Before becoming a novelist,
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SPEAKER_00: Chris spent nearly two decades in book publishing,
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SPEAKER_00: working as an editor with authors like John Grisham and Pat Conroy.
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SPEAKER_00: Ever heard of him?
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SPEAKER_00: His debut novel,
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SPEAKER_00: The Expats,
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SPEAKER_00: became an international bestseller,
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SPEAKER_00: won the Edgar Award and the Anthony Award for best first novel,
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SPEAKER_00: and was translated into more than 30 languages.
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SPEAKER_00: Since then,
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SPEAKER_00: he's written a string of critically acclaimed thrillers,
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SPEAKER_00: including The Accident,
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SPEAKER_00: The Travelers,
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SPEAKER_00: and The Paris Diversion,
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SPEAKER_00: known for their globe-trotting settings,
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SPEAKER_00: psychological depth,
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SPEAKER_00: and characters navigating secrets,
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SPEAKER_00: ambition,
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SPEAKER_00: money,
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SPEAKER_00: and power.
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SPEAKER_00: His latest book,
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SPEAKER_00: The Doorman,
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SPEAKER_00: which I read and loved,
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SPEAKER_00: is set in a glamorous Manhattan apartment building where the lives of the
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ultra-wealthy residents intersect with the man who quietly
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watches all of it,
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SPEAKER_00: The Doorman.
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SPEAKER_00: Over the course of one explosive day,
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SPEAKER_00: secrets,
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SPEAKER_00: class tensions,
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and personal betrayals collide in a fast-moving plot that
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doubles as sharp social
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SPEAKER_00: satire about modern New York and the divides of race,
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SPEAKER_00: wealth,
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SPEAKER_00: politics,
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SPEAKER_00: and status.
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This invites inevitable and much-deserved comparison to Tom
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Wolfe's Bonfire of the
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SPEAKER_00: Vanities,
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though the masters of the universe are now fleece vest-wearing
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tech and hedge fund
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SPEAKER_00: bros.
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SPEAKER_00: Not that there's anything wrong with that.
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SPEAKER_00: This is Chris Pavone.
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you're never going to be perfectly happy all the time the best
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you can hope for is
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SPEAKER_00: to be reasonably happy
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SPEAKER_00: This book came out a year ago.
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SPEAKER_00: Are you out of publicity mode and on to the next thing?
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SPEAKER_01: Yes, very much so.
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SPEAKER_01: But I also, the paperback is being published in a few weeks.
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SPEAKER_01: Oh, cool.
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SPEAKER_01: Usually that doesn't mean almost anything for the rhythm of my life,
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SPEAKER_01: but this time the book is a community reads for Long Island.
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SPEAKER_01: Do you know what community reads are?
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SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
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SPEAKER_01: This program,
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SPEAKER_01: I don't know when it started,
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SPEAKER_01: it's fairly recent,
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SPEAKER_01: sometime in the past decade or so,
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SPEAKER_01: where librarians in a community,
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SPEAKER_01: in a county or something,
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get together and figure out one book that they're going to try
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to get everybody to
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SPEAKER_01: read.
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SPEAKER_01: And for Long Island for this year, that book is The Doorman.
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SPEAKER_01: Oh, that's cool.
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SPEAKER_01: So I have.
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SPEAKER_01: It is cool.
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Did you have to hire a lobbying firm to go hit up all these
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librarians across the great island?
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SPEAKER_01: No, I don't think there's any campaigning to be done.
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SPEAKER_01: And, you know, they have their choice among many books.
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SPEAKER_01: I once saw...
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SPEAKER_01: guidelines for not Long Island, but somebody else's community reads.
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And they're looking for something very,
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very specific in their community reads.
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SPEAKER_01: They wanted tales of underrepresented people.
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SPEAKER_01: They loved first generation immigrant tales.
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they wanted a specific type of writing style and level they
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wanted it to be
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applicable appropriate for high school kids as well as adults
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and there it was just
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like eight things that they wanted and somebody I knew reverse
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engineered a book in
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SPEAKER_01: fact a career to write books to that
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SPEAKER_01: Books are products too.
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SPEAKER_01: Books are products too.
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That struck me as an extraordinarily cynical way to figure out
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what it is you want
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SPEAKER_01: to write about.
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SPEAKER_01: If you're essentially going into this world of writing,
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SPEAKER_01: asking the world,
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SPEAKER_01: what is it that is going to possibly make me
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a bestselling author and then setting out to deliver that,
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then what are you?
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SPEAKER_01: What is your taste there?
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SPEAKER_00: Well,
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SPEAKER_00: I think you also,
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SPEAKER_00: even,
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SPEAKER_00: well,
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SPEAKER_00: in podcasting,
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SPEAKER_00: for example,
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SPEAKER_00: you have to,
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SPEAKER_00: who do I serve is a question that is,
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SPEAKER_00: it's not cynical.
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SPEAKER_00: Right.
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And as an author,
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what's the difference between who do I serve and what could
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sell?
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SPEAKER_00: I completely agree, but who do I serve?
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SPEAKER_00: Maybe that's more nonfiction than fiction.
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SPEAKER_01: No, no, I think it's everything.
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SPEAKER_01: I think who do I serve is a very important question.
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SPEAKER_01: And you definitely serve the reader.
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SPEAKER_01: Who is your reader,
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SPEAKER_01: I think,
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SPEAKER_01: is an important thing for any writer of any sort to figure out,
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SPEAKER_01: whether it's nonfiction or fiction or poetry or journalism.
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SPEAKER_01: Who is consuming this and what do they want out of it?
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SPEAKER_01: That's very different.
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than trying to figure out how can I reach the broadest possible
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audience in this
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extraordinarily narrow lane of figuring out how can I get
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librarians to embrace my
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SPEAKER_01: book for their entire community.
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That,
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to me,
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is a step beyond figuring out who your reader is and instead
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targeting.
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It's like targeting a book because a Barnes & Noble buyer
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happens to like a
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SPEAKER_01: particular type of book.
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SPEAKER_01: Is that really how you want to go about building your career?
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SPEAKER_00: Probably not, but it's not the worst.
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SPEAKER_00: I mean,
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SPEAKER_00: if you've got to make money,
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if you've got if you need to make a living and put your kids
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through school,
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SPEAKER_00: there's worse things to do.
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SPEAKER_00: There are.
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And we all know in publishing that it's one of the three
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questions you need to
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SPEAKER_00: answer for your reader in nonfiction,
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SPEAKER_00: which is how do I make money,
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SPEAKER_00: lose weight or get laid?
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SPEAKER_00: Right.
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SPEAKER_00: Those are the three things that sell.
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SPEAKER_01: They are.
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SPEAKER_01: But in fiction,
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I also I don't really think I know people who have successful
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careers writing
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SPEAKER_01: things that they don't love.
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SPEAKER_01: Right.
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SPEAKER_01: And if you're asking somebody else to tell you what it is you love,
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SPEAKER_01: then you are almost by definition not a real novelist.
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SPEAKER_01: So what do you love and how does your love come through in your work?
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SPEAKER_01: I love language.
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SPEAKER_01: I love beautiful sentences.
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SPEAKER_01: I love extraordinary vocabulary.
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SPEAKER_01: I love character.
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SPEAKER_01: I love credible people in extremely challenging situations.
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SPEAKER_01: They don't need to be 100% realistic, but they have to be credible.
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SPEAKER_01: I love extraordinary in a book.
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It doesn't need to be extraordinary circumstances,
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but it needs to be extraordinary something.
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SPEAKER_01: And if it's extraordinary language, great.
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If it's extraordinary language plus extraordinary characters
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plus an extraordinary
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SPEAKER_01: situation plus an extraordinary plot,
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SPEAKER_01: that's what I'm trying to create.
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SPEAKER_01: Those are the things that I love.
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I love taking what are relatable people and putting them into
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extraordinary circumstances.
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SPEAKER_01: hopefully circumstances that are credible,
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SPEAKER_01: that are,
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SPEAKER_01: if not completely realistic,
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SPEAKER_01: at least credible.
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And I think I am not aiming for my books to be completely
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reflective of what
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SPEAKER_01: people's experiences of the real world are,
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SPEAKER_01: because that is almost always not enough to make it a good book.
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SPEAKER_01: that that's what diaries are for, and that's what memoirs are for.
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But I don't think most people come to novels,
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or I don't care about most people.
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I don't come to novels to be confronted with ordinary life in
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all its ordinariness.
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SPEAKER_01: I'm coming to novels for something more.
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And if it's ordinary life,
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but it's written in an extraordinary way,
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that can be enough for me.
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SPEAKER_01: But I also like things to happen.
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I don't agree with anybody who goes into a book thinking that
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the plot does not matter.
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SPEAKER_01: Maybe for some books,
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SPEAKER_01: plot matters less than others,
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SPEAKER_01: and a plot doesn't need to be much more than a family disintegrates,
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SPEAKER_01: but there needs to be some type of plot for me to enjoy it.
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SPEAKER_01: Have you heard the phrase eminently readable many times in your career?
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SPEAKER_01: I have,
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SPEAKER_01: and I used to work in publishing,
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SPEAKER_01: which I did for a couple of decades before I started writing.
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SPEAKER_01: And there are things, ways of speaking about books and authors.
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SPEAKER_01: Eminently readable was one of them.
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SPEAKER_01: Promotable was another.
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SPEAKER_00: That seems a bit cynical as well.
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SPEAKER_00: Promotable was code for good looking.
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SPEAKER_00: Well, you got that one down, man.
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SPEAKER_00: Look at you.
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SPEAKER_01: That's ludicrous.
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SPEAKER_01: But Promotable,
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SPEAKER_01: it was something that when people said it in a meeting,
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SPEAKER_01: an editorial meeting or a marketing meeting or a sales meeting.
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SPEAKER_00: That was code for she's beautiful.
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SPEAKER_01: It was code, and it always made me cringe.
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It never stops astounding me how much we reward physical
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attractiveness in our world.
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SPEAKER_01: I don't think it's limited to America.
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SPEAKER_01: But if you look at pop stars,
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SPEAKER_01: for example,
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like there should not really be a correlation between
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somebody's voice and how good
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SPEAKER_01: looking they are.
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SPEAKER_01: But I mean, look, it's Taylor Swift and Beyonce.
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SPEAKER_00: It's got even.
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worse with social media because,
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you know,
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I mean,
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it's all about the lizard brain.
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SPEAKER_00: And I'm not speaking from my algorithm,
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SPEAKER_00: but boobs seem to be a highly promotable asset on social media.
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And I'm sure the male equivalent works in its own ways that I'm
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not seeing.
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i agree and i in in hindsight um i admire tom petty so much
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even though i don't
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particularly like his music but for going out into the world
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and becoming a very
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successful rock and roll pop star despite being a very
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unattractive guy in a lot of
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ways i've uh if you've never seen the peter bogdanovich four
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hour four and a half
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hour documentary on tom petty i've meant i mentioned it
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probably every fifth
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SPEAKER_00: podcast
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SPEAKER_00: called Running Down a Dream.
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SPEAKER_00: It's fantastic.
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SPEAKER_00: All right.
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SPEAKER_00: Because he is so authentic as an artist.
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SPEAKER_00: He's not up there selling shampoo, even though he has lovely silky locks.
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SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
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SPEAKER_00: Okay, so you mentioned that you worked in publishing.
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What did working in publishing,
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how did that prepare you to be a very successful novelist?
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SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
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SPEAKER_01: I think the main way is I... It's a lot of different things.
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SPEAKER_01: One is I've never... Sorry.
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SPEAKER_01: In the stage of my life when I've been writing,
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I have always looked at books as products for readers and
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figuring out how to
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communicate about that product and what that product is and how
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to get that product
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into the world and how to talk about that product and who's the
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consumer for that
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SPEAKER_01: product
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SPEAKER_01: I don't even think of that as cynical really anymore.
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That's just baked into how I think about books that we create
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in capitalism.
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SPEAKER_01: And if you don't want to work in capitalism,
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SPEAKER_01: there are other ways to go about publishing in this world.
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And there are a lot of places that publish and don't care about
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selling books.
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SPEAKER_01: those places have not been my goal.
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And my goal has been to work at this commercial space where
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books are out there in
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SPEAKER_01: the world looking to find a substantial audience.
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Not necessarily the biggest possible audience,
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but a substantial audience.
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And thinking about that is also thinking about who the reader
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is and having the reader in mind.
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SPEAKER_01: And I think...
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SPEAKER_01: If you're writing solely for yourself, that is what a diary is for.
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SPEAKER_01: That's what a journal is for.
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If you're writing for publication,
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you are by definition writing for the public.
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And having the reader in mind and trying to deliver a certain
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type of experience
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SPEAKER_01: for the reader is always at the forefront of my mind when I'm writing.
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SPEAKER_01: what is it I'm trying to do here for the reader?
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SPEAKER_01: Not what am I trying to do for myself,
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not what am I trying to say to the world that I hope the world
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will listen to,
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SPEAKER_01: but what type of experience am I providing to the reader?
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SPEAKER_01: And why am I going to be good at this?
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SPEAKER_01: Why is this something I'm going to be good at as opposed to anybody else?
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And I think one of the things that I always had in mind working
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in a publishing
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house is looking at projects in terms of what does this author
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have to say
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SPEAKER_01: better or in a unique way that other people don't.
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SPEAKER_01: And whatever the subject is,
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SPEAKER_01: there are people who are coming to it with an interesting perspective or
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SPEAKER_01: unparalleled knowledge.
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SPEAKER_01: And those books, no matter what they're about, are great books.
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SPEAKER_01: And maybe they're not great writing, but they're great in its way.
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And maybe they're not for a tremendous audience,
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but the audience who wants it,
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wants it.
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SPEAKER_01: For a while, I worked at a publishing house
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SPEAKER_01: that specialized in books about fly fishing.
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And in particular,
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we even published books about fly fishing with a bamboo rod.
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SPEAKER_01: And the universe of people who care about this is very small.
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SPEAKER_01: But crazy loyal.
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I keep saying that if I had the same number of listeners to
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this podcast and they
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SPEAKER_00: were all anesthesiologists,
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SPEAKER_00: I'd make a million bucks a year on the podcast.
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SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
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Because you can figure out how to serve that audience very
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specifically as opposed
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SPEAKER_00: to a general audience of successful,
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SPEAKER_00: smart people.
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SPEAKER_00: I'm talking to you listeners.
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SPEAKER_00: You are successful and smart.
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SPEAKER_00: But you're not all into the same thing exactly.
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SPEAKER_00: Right.
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You don't serve that audience in the same way as you do a
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general audience.
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SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
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SPEAKER_01: I think one of the mistakes that people make when writing,
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SPEAKER_01: especially when writing fiction,
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SPEAKER_01: is presuming that your audience is everybody.
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SPEAKER_01: Your audience is not everybody.
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Your audience are people who like to read the type of book
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you're writing.
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SPEAKER_01: Right.
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And if you don't know what that type of book is and you don't
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know what type of
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SPEAKER_01: audience that is,
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SPEAKER_01: then you might not be doing a very good job of it.
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SPEAKER_00: You worked with both Pat Conroy and John Grisham,
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SPEAKER_00: which I didn't realize until after I'd listened to the book.
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I read the New York Times article about you were promoting
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another book in between.
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SPEAKER_00: And I was like, oh, that doesn't surprise me.
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SPEAKER_00: And it comes back to the readability of your work.
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SPEAKER_00: And those guys,
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SPEAKER_00: and Pat Conroy,
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SPEAKER_00: by the way,
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SPEAKER_00: the reason I love to read is because of The Lords of Discipline.
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SPEAKER_00: Oh, wonderful.
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SPEAKER_00: When I was in seventh grade.
13:47
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
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SPEAKER_00: And he eventually came from Atlanta.
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SPEAKER_00: He came to our high school.
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SPEAKER_00: He had a Catholic youth very much like, well, not very much.
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SPEAKER_00: My dad was not the great Santini.
13:55
SPEAKER_00: But I grew up in a Catholic home much like he did.
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SPEAKER_00: So Conroy resonated with me right out of the gates.
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And I'm like,
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oh,
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a story has to grab you if you're going to finish the book.
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SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
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SPEAKER_01: And it might not be James Joyce.
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SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
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SPEAKER_01: No.
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SPEAKER_01: And in truth, I didn't really work with John Grisham.
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SPEAKER_01: I worked on a few of his books in the early to mid-90s.
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SPEAKER_01: These were his early legal thrillers.
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SPEAKER_01: When I was a really young man,
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SPEAKER_01: I had a very,
14:22
very small job on these books of essentially merging a couple
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of different people's
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SPEAKER_01: sets of pages.
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One of them was his,
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and one of them was the proofreader's,
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and I would combine those pages
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SPEAKER_01: into a master set of pages and get some queries answered.
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SPEAKER_01: And then I'd take those pages,
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put them in a bag and get in the elevator and get in a taxi and
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go to the airport
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SPEAKER_01: and get on what was then the Delta Shuttle to Washington.
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SPEAKER_01: This was an airplane that you boarded with no ticket.
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SPEAKER_00: I remember.
14:52
SPEAKER_01: You bought your ticket from an empty seat.
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SPEAKER_01: You found an empty seat and you bought a ticket on the plane.
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SPEAKER_01: There were all the free magazines in the Delta Shuttle terminal.
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and i took that faster set of pages uh with me from the
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airplane into a car that's
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the printing plant had sent to collect me from the airport and
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drove two hours to
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berryville virginia where i handed the set of pages to the
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typesetter and waited
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around to read this third pass of the second pass of pages
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against the first pass
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and i would do all of that because it was faster than fedex and
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there was no such
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SPEAKER_01: thing as the internet
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at the time and or at least not for us and faxing wasn't
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something that people
15:31
really did and every minute counted when making these early
15:35
John Grisham books he
15:36
was the best-selling author in America and I never met him at
15:40
the time I met him
15:40
years later but those were the first best-selling commercial
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novels I'd ever read
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SPEAKER_01: And I think a lot of people,
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SPEAKER_01: when you're 22,
15:51
SPEAKER_01: 23 years old,
15:52
SPEAKER_01: you want to work in publishing maybe or something,
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SPEAKER_01: not because of the best-selling authors,
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but because of the prize winners and because of the
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literariness of it all.
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SPEAKER_01: Or I didn't get into it.
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SPEAKER_01: My friends didn't get into it.
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because we were all that avid readers of John Grisham or Judith
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Krantz or Daniel
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SPEAKER_01: Steele,
16:11
SPEAKER_01: but because we wanted to be in this world.
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And it wasn't necessarily automatic that people will have read
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the bestselling
16:18
SPEAKER_01: authors,
16:18
SPEAKER_01: even of your own house.
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SPEAKER_01: And I hadn't until I started working on these John Grisham books.
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SPEAKER_01: And they were a revelation to me.
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SPEAKER_01: And they were not at all what I expected.
16:28
And they taught me something very important about figuring out
16:32
how you can create
16:34
SPEAKER_01: something of real meaning that's also extremely commercially successful.
16:42
SPEAKER_01: And his early legal thrillers all shared this remarkable similarity.
16:46
SPEAKER_01: They were all about an important issue that we all care about.
16:52
SPEAKER_01: And that issue and the protagonist were inextricably intertwined.
16:57
And the plot and the character and the issue could not be
17:00
separated in any of these
17:01
SPEAKER_01: books,
17:01
SPEAKER_01: that they were one and the same thing.
17:03
It was as if the issue were foisted upon an otherwise character
17:08
who didn't have
17:09
SPEAKER_01: anything to do with it.
17:10
SPEAKER_01: And it was such a great way of constructing books with very high stakes,
17:15
SPEAKER_01: even if those stakes were really fundamentally about one person,
17:19
SPEAKER_01: they were also stakes about our entire
17:22
SPEAKER_01: civilization, really.
17:24
And I admired so much the ability to figure out how to do that
17:29
and to make these
17:29
SPEAKER_01: pages unputdownable,
17:32
SPEAKER_01: as they say.
17:33
It's a remarkable ability that he has and one that I've not
17:37
found in almost any
17:39
SPEAKER_01: other writers and not something that I think you can teach yourself.
17:43
I think a lot of people go out into the world trying to write a
17:46
book like The Firm
17:47
SPEAKER_01: or The Da Vinci Code,
17:49
SPEAKER_01: and you can't really do that unless that's you.
17:51
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
17:52
SPEAKER_00: Well,
17:53
that's a great entry point to talk about The Doorman because
17:56
you have created a
17:57
scenario that integrates characters and society and hierarchy
18:05
and politics.
18:08
SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, we're not going to break down what happens in the book.
18:10
We're going to set the plot and then influence the listener to
18:15
go buy the book so
18:15
SPEAKER_00: they can enjoy it themselves.
18:17
SPEAKER_00: But let's talk about the setting of the book, the building itself.
18:21
SPEAKER_00: is almost a character.
18:23
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
18:25
SPEAKER_00: So tell us about The Bohemia.
18:28
SPEAKER_01: The Bohemia is a stand-in for the building I live in.
18:32
It's a building,
18:34
one of these grand old New York apartment buildings that are-
18:40
The Dakota.
18:41
SPEAKER_01: The Dakota.
18:42
SPEAKER_01: Where John Lennon was shot.
18:43
SPEAKER_01: Yes, that are worlds unto themselves in a way.
18:48
SPEAKER_01: And different buildings have different characters,
18:54
SPEAKER_01: architectural and the people who live in them.
18:56
SPEAKER_01: And there are buildings on Park Avenue where everybody is a billionaire.
19:00
There are buildings downtown where everybody is a billionaire
19:03
who wants to pretend
19:04
SPEAKER_01: they're an artist.
19:06
SPEAKER_01: There are plenty of buildings that have no billionaires at all.
19:10
SPEAKER_01: That would be my building.
19:11
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that would be almost all buildings.
19:14
And when we moved into this building six years ago,
19:19
it was not with any expectation of service.
19:24
SPEAKER_01: That was not what we were moving for.
19:26
SPEAKER_01: We were moving,
19:27
SPEAKER_01: honestly,
19:28
SPEAKER_01: primarily for geographical reasons,
19:30
to be closer to my kids' then school in the Bronx and my wife's
19:33
then office in
19:34
SPEAKER_01: Chicago.
19:35
SPEAKER_01: Columbus Circle,
19:36
SPEAKER_01: and we'd been living downtown,
19:38
SPEAKER_01: which had become very,
19:39
SPEAKER_01: very inconvenient,
19:40
SPEAKER_01: especially for the children.
19:41
So it was my idea to move uptown and to move into a building on
19:47
Central Park West.
19:50
living on the park is great the building is great i was
19:54
immediately uncomfortable
19:56
with the staff and i've lived in new york city really my whole
20:00
life and i've lived
20:00
in some nice places and some not nice places and i've lived in
20:04
some buildings that
20:05
had people who were called doormen but they were not really
20:08
they were security
20:08
guards and this building is my first experience of having
20:12
doormen who are wearing
20:13
SPEAKER_01: uniforms and standing at the door and holding the door for you
20:17
and asking if they can get you a cab or carry a bag or other
20:21
guys in the building
20:22
SPEAKER_01: who want to know if they can change a light bulb.
20:24
SPEAKER_01: And all of this apparent servitude, really, made me deeply uncomfortable.
20:31
SPEAKER_01: And everybody who lives in the building calls the doormen
20:35
SPEAKER_01: by their first names and they call us by our last names or sir.
20:39
SPEAKER_01: And I really didn't like that.
20:41
SPEAKER_01: And I realized that if I was going to be happy living here,
20:44
I was going to need to come to terms with this type of
20:47
relationship in a way that I
20:49
SPEAKER_01: hadn't contemplated before.
20:51
And the main way I did that was by befriending the doorman who
20:54
I saw every day,
20:55
SPEAKER_01: the guy who worked
20:57
SPEAKER_01: during the day on weekdays.
21:00
SPEAKER_01: And his name was Johnny.
21:01
SPEAKER_01: And he was perfectly suited for this job.
21:04
SPEAKER_01: He had this really engaging,
21:07
SPEAKER_01: warm personality,
21:08
SPEAKER_01: always happy to talk to anybody walking by,
21:11
SPEAKER_01: the children,
21:13
SPEAKER_01: the dogs of the neighborhood,
21:14
SPEAKER_01: the tourists who never stop stopping by,
21:16
SPEAKER_01: and of course,
21:17
SPEAKER_01: the people who live there.
21:18
SPEAKER_01: And we talked about
21:19
sports and the weather and anti-inflammatories for our
21:23
middle-aged mammies and we'd
21:25
grown up a few miles apart in the same city at the same moment
21:29
but our lives had
21:31
would never have crossed if it were not for this building and
21:36
soon after we moved
21:37
into the building the super said to him Johnny you look
21:40
horrible you need to see a
21:41
SPEAKER_01: doctor
21:42
and he did not return to work for nearly a year and during that
21:45
time he spent most
21:46
of it in the hospital and the rest of it recuperating at home
21:50
and then he returned
21:50
to work while also definitely dying and this is what he wanted
21:56
to do with his last
21:57
months is work in our building and when he did die he had
22:02
plenty of time to think
22:02
about what he was going to do for his memorial service and what
22:05
he chose to do
22:06
was have it a couple of blocks from our apartment building
22:10
instead of in East
22:11
SPEAKER_01: Harlem,
22:12
SPEAKER_01: where he'd lived his entire life.
22:14
SPEAKER_01: He'd only had this one job in his whole life.
22:17
SPEAKER_01: This is the only job he ever did.
22:18
SPEAKER_01: He did it from the time he was 20 until he died doing it when he was 57.
22:22
SPEAKER_01: He was buried in his full doorman uniform with the cap on,
22:26
and the only non-regulation item was he had a New York Mets pin
22:30
on his necktie.
22:31
SPEAKER_01: And that absolutely broke my heart.
22:33
SPEAKER_01: And I was in the middle of writing this book.
22:36
SPEAKER_01: Oh, why?
22:37
SPEAKER_01: It is such a dedication to a job.
22:43
SPEAKER_01: to do this thing,
22:44
this one thing in this one spot for your whole life that you
22:48
are perfectly suited
22:49
SPEAKER_01: to,
22:50
SPEAKER_01: that is also this thing that at times has no dignity to it.
22:54
And to be treated badly by the people you work for is something
22:58
that lots of people experience.
23:00
SPEAKER_01: And I'm not saying that this happened to him,
23:02
SPEAKER_01: but there are definitely people who are rude to him sometimes.
23:07
SPEAKER_01: This idea that you do this one job your whole life.
23:11
SPEAKER_01: This is it.
23:11
SPEAKER_01: This is the thing.
23:12
SPEAKER_01: That's the thing, I guess, that breaks my heart.
23:15
SPEAKER_00: But it was his sense of identity.
23:16
I mean,
23:16
he was obviously proud to be associated with this legendary
23:19
building.
23:20
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
23:20
SPEAKER_00: For people who haven't seen the Dakota, it looks like a castle.
23:23
SPEAKER_02: It does.
23:23
SPEAKER_00: And you even write about it.
23:24
SPEAKER_00: And this is what's interesting about it.
23:25
SPEAKER_00: It's...
23:27
And the changing nature of the building's inhabitants is a
23:32
commentary on the
23:33
SPEAKER_00: changing nature of inequality in our society as well.
23:37
SPEAKER_00: It used to be inhabited,
23:38
SPEAKER_00: and I apologize for reading your words back to you,
23:40
but it used to be inhabited by the famous much more than the
23:43
rich stage actors and
23:44
SPEAKER_00: opera singers,
23:45
SPEAKER_00: celebrated artists,
23:45
SPEAKER_00: prize-winning academics,
23:46
SPEAKER_00: European nobility,
23:48
SPEAKER_00: and old money public servants.
23:49
And as with everything else in New York,
23:51
the cultural class was being replaced with financiers.
23:55
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
23:55
And so within and with that,
23:57
you have a greater disparity of intra one percent disparity.
24:04
SPEAKER_00: I mean, like, you know, that's the crazy thing.
24:06
It's I think to be in the one percent of net worth in the
24:09
United States requires 14
24:10
SPEAKER_00: or 15 million dollars in net worth.
24:13
SPEAKER_00: But it also includes Elon Musk, who's worth.
24:16
SPEAKER_00: a trillion dollars or something like that.
24:19
And so the people on the first floor of the Dakota paid $4
24:22
million for their
24:23
SPEAKER_00: apartments,
24:23
and the people on the top floors with the park views might have
24:26
paid $40 million.
24:29
Yes,
24:30
except the nicest apartments at the Dakota are really on the
24:33
second floor.
24:33
SPEAKER_00: OK, well, I don't mean to say.
24:36
SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean.
24:38
SPEAKER_00: Rich is, I mean, and we'll talk about this when we talk about Emily.
24:45
SPEAKER_00: The idea that there is one kind of rich in America is completely wrong.
24:52
SPEAKER_00: Yes, absolutely.
24:53
SPEAKER_00: There are strata of rich.
24:56
SPEAKER_00: I couldn't clean.
24:57
SPEAKER_00: Elon Musk wouldn't let me.
24:58
SPEAKER_00: I've done quite well, but Elon Musk would not let me clean his pool.
25:02
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
25:03
SPEAKER_00: So that's the nature of what's happening.
25:08
SPEAKER_00: So within the Bohemia,
25:09
SPEAKER_00: you have the residents who are,
25:12
SPEAKER_00: you know,
25:14
SPEAKER_00: the lower class rich and the multi-billionaires.
25:17
SPEAKER_00: And then you have the staff who serves all of them and,
25:21
SPEAKER_00: you know,
25:23
SPEAKER_00: live paycheck to paycheck,
25:24
SPEAKER_00: presumably.
25:25
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
25:25
SPEAKER_01: And that's definitely something that I wanted this book to look at,
25:29
is the different gradations of rich as well as the different
25:34
gradations of liberal,
25:37
SPEAKER_01: which is something that I really wanted to focus on.
25:42
SPEAKER_01: Not because...
25:44
SPEAKER_01: Of its particular interest to me,
25:46
SPEAKER_01: but because I think these are things,
25:49
SPEAKER_01: especially in New York,
25:51
SPEAKER_01: that bear a lot of examination right now.
25:54
SPEAKER_01: I see that you're smiling.
25:56
SPEAKER_01: Do you want to get into the liberal?
25:57
I want you to tell me more because I was trying to figure out
26:00
I'd like to be able
26:01
SPEAKER_00: to pin your politics down,
26:02
SPEAKER_00: but I couldn't pin your politics down.
26:04
SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
26:06
SPEAKER_01: That was one of my goals.
26:07
SPEAKER_01: I don't want my politics to be what this book is about.
26:11
SPEAKER_01: I want this book to be about politics in a way, but not mine.
26:15
But tell me more about the politics that you sort of examine
26:19
because it is very interesting.
26:21
And I've got some quotes that are – and I've moved back to New
26:24
York City two years ago.
26:25
SPEAKER_00: My kids are in private schools.
26:27
SPEAKER_00: And so I'm like, oh.
26:28
SPEAKER_00: Your kids are in New York private schools?
26:29
SPEAKER_00: Yes, they are.
26:32
SPEAKER_00: Like the characters' kids.
26:34
And the observations,
26:35
as someone paying full tuition,
26:36
there you go,
26:37
that's interesting.
26:39
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
26:41
SPEAKER_01: I live in a very liberal bubble,
26:46
SPEAKER_01: not just in New York,
26:47
SPEAKER_01: but within New York,
26:49
my friends and acquaintances and the people I know from
26:53
publishing especially,
26:55
SPEAKER_01: but also my whole life are very liberal.
26:58
SPEAKER_01: And
27:00
SPEAKER_01: For most of my life,
27:01
it felt like we all knew or I knew what everybody meant when
27:07
they said that.
27:09
SPEAKER_01: And then a decade ago... By liberal.
27:11
SPEAKER_01: By liberal.
27:11
SPEAKER_01: You agreed on what liberal meant.
27:13
SPEAKER_00: And what was that traditional definition?
27:15
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
27:16
SPEAKER_01: That was a thing that we would call also progressive now,
27:19
SPEAKER_01: that in favor of the social safety net,
27:22
in favor of liberal in its original meaning of being open to
27:27
everybody else's
27:28
SPEAKER_01: ideas,
27:29
SPEAKER_01: among other things.
27:31
SPEAKER_01: Liberal in...
27:34
in a political viewpoint that was not narrowly defined by what
27:38
it is that you were thinking.
27:39
SPEAKER_01: And in fact,
27:41
that original definition of liberal is the thing that I think
27:45
the left has
27:46
SPEAKER_01: completely lost track of in the past decade.
27:49
And that has resulted in people who agree on 99% of the issues
27:54
hating each other
27:55
SPEAKER_01: over the 1% that they disagree on.
27:59
And that 1% is a fluctuating set of issues that I think are
28:07
really dividing the
28:08
left in the past decade and resulting in a very splintered left
28:13
that can't agree on
28:14
SPEAKER_01: what it is that the agenda should be and is then
28:18
SPEAKER_01: by definition,
28:19
SPEAKER_01: really,
28:20
leaving the agenda setting up to being reactive to what the
28:23
right is saying.
28:24
SPEAKER_01: And that's been a very bad place to be just politically.
28:29
SPEAKER_01: It's also been, I think, a bad place to be emotionally.
28:33
And a lot of this is playing out in places like schools where
28:37
people sit around and
28:39
talk about the things you are now not allowed to say in school
28:45
and call it liberal.
28:46
SPEAKER_01: Which is an amazing thing, if you think about it.
28:48
SPEAKER_01: And a liberal approach to being liberal.
28:51
SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
28:51
SPEAKER_01: I think liberal has become very illiberal in America right now.
28:55
And I think that's particularly been true in places like
29:00
private schools and in New
29:02
SPEAKER_01: York and in my life.
29:06
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
29:07
SPEAKER_00: You're right.
29:08
SPEAKER_00: And some of the character,
29:10
SPEAKER_00: the very wealthy characters,
29:11
children go to a school where one of the teachers wore a tax
29:14
the rich T-shirt to
29:16
Parents Day at a school where almost all the parents are rich
29:20
and the ones who
29:20
aren't rich have their tuition supplemented or mitigated by the
29:26
people paying full
29:27
SPEAKER_00: tuition.
29:28
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
29:29
SPEAKER_01: I think there's an awful lot of performance going on,
29:31
SPEAKER_01: and I myself don't wish to perform my politics.
29:36
SPEAKER_01: And I understand people who do,
29:39
and I understand that I have a platform in writing novels that
29:43
allows me to discuss
29:45
SPEAKER_01: political things that are not necessarily from my point of view,
29:48
but there's a way for me to go out into the world and
29:51
communicate to readers things
29:53
SPEAKER_01: that I want to communicate.
29:55
SPEAKER_01: And that's not available to most people.
29:57
SPEAKER_01: Most people have...
29:58
SPEAKER_01: Twitter or X or Instagram or yard signs or bumper stickers or T-shirts.
30:03
But I feel like there's a lot of yelling at each other that
30:06
we're doing right now.
30:07
SPEAKER_00: Well, those are 140 character messages.
30:07
SPEAKER_00: You've written an 80 or 100,000 word novel.
30:09
SPEAKER_00: You have the opportunity to
30:15
let's say nuance is more friendly to your medium than to those
30:20
people squawking on
30:21
SPEAKER_00: X.
30:21
SPEAKER_01: Yes,
30:22
SPEAKER_01: but I'm also not looking to fight with anybody,
30:25
which I think is one of the things that's going on in social
30:28
media right now is
30:29
SPEAKER_01: actively looking for fights.
30:31
SPEAKER_00: So your examination,
30:33
SPEAKER_00: the social satire here is speaking of,
30:36
SPEAKER_00: in addition to eminently readable,
30:38
there's also gotta be the inevitable comparison to Tom Wolfe in
30:41
the Bonfire of the
30:42
SPEAKER_00: Vanities.
30:43
SPEAKER_00: Do you like those comparisons or?
30:46
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
30:48
SPEAKER_01: I like those comparisons because that was my goal.
30:52
SPEAKER_01: I read Bonfire of the Vanities when it was a new book in the late 1980s.
30:56
SPEAKER_01: And it was revelatory at the time.
30:59
SPEAKER_01: And the writing style was bizarre.
31:02
SPEAKER_01: The characters were so compelling.
31:05
The scenery of it all,
31:06
the invention of the phrase master of the universe,
31:10
SPEAKER_01: And social x-rays,
31:11
SPEAKER_01: but also this idea of a New York crime novel,
31:16
SPEAKER_01: which it absolutely was,
31:17
that looks at race and class and ambition and adultery and
31:22
marriage and betrayal.
31:26
SPEAKER_01: All of that.
31:27
SPEAKER_00: That's so juicy, man.
31:28
SPEAKER_01: So juicy.
31:29
SPEAKER_01: And I've always wanted to write a New York novel.
31:32
SPEAKER_01: I've been reading New York novels my whole life.
31:35
SPEAKER_01: And whether that was John Dos Passos or F.
31:38
SPEAKER_01: Scott Fitzgerald or Ralph Ellison and Toni Morrison,
31:41
SPEAKER_01: Jonathan Lethem,
31:42
SPEAKER_01: these are my favorite books.
31:44
SPEAKER_01: And I wanted to write one.
31:45
SPEAKER_01: And in fact, I wanted to write one like Bonfire of the Vanities.
31:48
SPEAKER_01: So I reread Bonfire of the Vanities five or six years ago.
31:53
SPEAKER_01: And it is still an amazing book in a lot of ways.
31:58
SPEAKER_01: It is also a book about racism that's arguably pretty racist itself.
32:02
And it is something that reading in this day and age is amazing
32:09
to think that
32:10
SPEAKER_01: nobody said,
32:11
SPEAKER_01: oh,
32:11
SPEAKER_01: my God,
32:11
SPEAKER_01: you can't do this or you shouldn't do this.
32:15
there are some really unflattering portraits of people and
32:20
situations that really
32:22
SPEAKER_01: don't,
32:22
SPEAKER_01: have not aged well.
32:24
And I decided I wanted to write a book similar to Bonfire of
32:28
the Vanities,
32:29
SPEAKER_01: a book that is also about racism,
32:32
SPEAKER_01: that is not,
32:32
SPEAKER_01: in fact,
32:33
SPEAKER_01: racist,
32:34
SPEAKER_01: but also a book that is about class.
32:37
SPEAKER_01: And I think in a lot of ways, we don't examine that enough in America.
32:40
SPEAKER_01: And I think what
32:41
people often are referring to when they're talking about racism
32:44
is in fact class.
32:47
SPEAKER_01: And that's the thing that I thought bears an update, shall we say.
32:54
SPEAKER_01: So it was very gratifying
32:56
To have people compare the book to Bonfire because that was
32:59
that was basically my
33:00
mission statement to myself is a Bonfire of the Vanities for
33:04
the Trump era.
33:05
I think you need to adopt more of the white suit Bon Vivant
33:10
Richmond Virginia
33:11
SPEAKER_00: attitude that Wolf carried himself with.
33:13
SPEAKER_01: Bonfire was Tom Wolfe's first novel.
33:16
SPEAKER_01: He'd written a lot.
33:16
SPEAKER_01: He'd published a lot.
33:18
But he published Bonfire of the Vanities when he was exactly
33:22
the same age as I was
33:23
SPEAKER_01: when I published The Doorman.
33:25
SPEAKER_01: Is that right?
33:26
I remember looking at that author photograph on the back of
33:29
Bonfire of the Vanities
33:30
SPEAKER_01: and thinking,
33:30
SPEAKER_01: oh my God,
33:31
SPEAKER_01: look at this old guy.
33:32
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
33:32
SPEAKER_01: And now...
33:34
SPEAKER_00: Well, age gives you some perspective.
33:37
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
33:38
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
33:38
SPEAKER_00: You know, you've seen a little bit.
33:40
SPEAKER_00: You're a grown up now.
33:41
SPEAKER_00: Sorry to say.
33:42
SPEAKER_00: I am.
33:42
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you're on the backside,
33:44
SPEAKER_00: as am I.
33:45
SPEAKER_00: But like,
33:45
SPEAKER_00: you know,
33:46
SPEAKER_00: you can see things because you've lived it.
33:49
SPEAKER_00: You've seen cycles.
33:50
SPEAKER_00: You've seen political.
33:50
SPEAKER_00: I mean, history repeats itself.
33:53
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
33:54
SPEAKER_01: Or it rhymes, anyway.
33:57
SPEAKER_01: And going into this book,
34:00
SPEAKER_01: I think I wouldn't call what I have maturity,
34:03
but the perspective I have is that I don't really care about
34:10
offending people or
34:12
SPEAKER_01: people not liking my books anymore.
34:14
SPEAKER_01: I care about writing books that some people will love.
34:18
SPEAKER_01: And if that means that some people will hate them,
34:21
SPEAKER_01: then that's fine with me.
34:23
I'm not in the business of trying to appeal to the broadest
34:25
possible audience.
34:27
I feel like I'm in the business of trying to appeal to the
34:29
types of people who want
34:30
SPEAKER_01: to read the types of books that I write and really love them.
34:33
SPEAKER_01: You don't need a half million three-star reviews on Goodreads.
34:37
No,
34:37
but I realize that I have to take the one-star reviews with the
34:40
five-star reviews.
34:45
SPEAKER_00: To the extent there is negative feedback, what is it saying?
34:48
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
34:48
SPEAKER_01: I don't go looking for it.
34:53
SPEAKER_01: There are a lot of ways to be an unhappy author.
34:56
SPEAKER_00: I think there's probably more than there are to be a happy author.
34:59
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
35:00
SPEAKER_01: It's not even close.
35:01
SPEAKER_01: I think even people who you would think are happy authors are.
35:03
SPEAKER_01: If you were happy, you'd be an accountant.
35:05
SPEAKER_01: You think that's true?
35:06
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
35:06
SPEAKER_01: But going into this as a writer in my early 40s,
35:11
SPEAKER_01: which is when I started writing The Expats,
35:14
SPEAKER_01: my first novel,
35:16
SPEAKER_00: I...
35:16
SPEAKER_00: Which I told you off air.
35:17
SPEAKER_00: I've just started reading.
35:18
SPEAKER_00: That's right.
35:19
SPEAKER_00: I went back to The Expats because I enjoyed The Doorman so much.
35:24
SPEAKER_01: I really made a promise to myself to try to not be an unhappy author.
35:31
SPEAKER_01: And I'd worked in publishing for a couple of decades,
35:34
SPEAKER_01: and I know that most authors are unhappy authors.
35:36
SPEAKER_01: And there are a lot of ways to be that, a lot of ways to be disappointed.
35:41
And I think one of the easiest ways to be disappointed in the
35:45
modern era is to
35:46
SPEAKER_01: spend time looking at your reviews on Amazon and Goodreads.
35:51
SPEAKER_01: I'm not saying they don't matter.
35:52
SPEAKER_01: Of course they matter,
35:53
but it doesn't do most people good to read about all the ways
35:59
that people don't
36:00
SPEAKER_01: like what you're writing.
36:01
SPEAKER_00: What would you want to know?
36:03
SPEAKER_00: How would you want to improve on...
36:07
SPEAKER_00: and you're, what, five or six novels in now?
36:10
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
36:10
SPEAKER_00: So hopefully,
36:11
SPEAKER_00: you know,
36:12
SPEAKER_00: this isn't your second go-round here,
36:14
SPEAKER_00: but,
36:14
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
36:15
is there feedback you would consider to be useful criticism
36:19
that could help you
36:20
SPEAKER_00: grow as an artist?
36:21
SPEAKER_01: Probably, but I get that feedback from professionals.
36:25
SPEAKER_01: Right.
36:26
SPEAKER_01: Including your wife, who was the CEO of Penguin Random House, right?
36:31
SPEAKER_01: Including my wife.
36:33
SPEAKER_01: And...
36:35
SPEAKER_01: It's giving constructive feedback on a manuscript is a hard thing to do.
36:42
It's very hard for the person giving it to say things that are
36:45
useful in a way that
36:47
SPEAKER_01: the author will hear.
36:49
SPEAKER_01: And it is essentially what being an editor is, is being able...
36:53
SPEAKER_01: to give feedback,
36:55
to make criticisms and suggestions in a way that does not make
36:59
the author feel
37:00
SPEAKER_01: defensive or like a failure,
37:03
but that makes somebody feel like they're excited to go in and
37:08
make this thing
37:09
SPEAKER_01: better.
37:11
And I don't think that's something that you get by reading two
37:16
or three sentence
37:17
SPEAKER_01: reviews on Amazon or Goodreads.
37:19
I think what you're getting there is people's individual
37:22
judgments about what they
37:24
SPEAKER_01: like or don't like in a book.
37:25
Or maybe they just want attention and want to scream about
37:28
something that day.
37:29
SPEAKER_00: And that's the avenue they've chosen to do it.
37:31
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
37:32
SPEAKER_01: And that's, I think, what a lot of people are doing in this world is
37:35
SPEAKER_01: And whether or not I think that's a good thing for the world or not,
37:40
I'm pretty sure it's a bad thing for figuring out how to be a
37:44
better writer.
37:45
SPEAKER_01: And I think to figure out how to be a better writer,
37:47
you read a lot and think a lot about what it is you're trying
37:50
to accomplish and
37:51
also get feedback from people who are good at giving feedback
37:55
and also have some
37:56
SPEAKER_01: skin in the game.
37:57
SPEAKER_01: That people who just want to sit on the sidelines
38:00
and yell at you that you're a bum,
38:01
those people are not really helping you.
38:03
SPEAKER_01: They're just hurting you.
38:04
SPEAKER_01: They're not in the arena.
38:08
I could talk about this book for a long time,
38:10
but let's do talk about it.
38:11
SPEAKER_00: So Chicky Diaz is the name of the protagonist and the eponymous doorman.
38:17
SPEAKER_00: He is $300,000 deep in medical debt.
38:22
SPEAKER_00: He, as you say, he addresses the tenants by Mr. Pavone, et cetera.
38:29
SPEAKER_00: And he actually has his daughters in Ivy League...
38:32
colleges,
38:33
but this does not make him a social peer to the people he
38:37
serves in that building.
38:40
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
38:40
SPEAKER_00: Which is interesting.
38:42
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
38:42
SPEAKER_00: There's also Emily Longworth,
38:44
SPEAKER_00: who I'm not going to say I fantasized about her,
38:47
SPEAKER_00: but she's an intriguing character.
38:49
SPEAKER_00: Excellent.
38:51
And one of the things I love about her and the distinction you
38:53
draw is that she
38:55
SPEAKER_00: grew up or at least exposed to what you call normal rich.
38:59
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
39:00
Law partner,
39:01
law firm partner rich,
39:02
country club rich,
39:04
four vacations per year rich.
39:06
SPEAKER_00: No real worries about day to day money,
39:08
SPEAKER_00: about housing,
39:08
SPEAKER_00: about food,
39:09
SPEAKER_00: about clothes or cars or health care or education or retirement rich.
39:14
SPEAKER_00: As opposed to the world that she married into,
39:17
SPEAKER_00: which is billionaire rich by marrying Whit Longworth,
39:24
SPEAKER_00: who is a very wealthy Philistine.
39:26
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
39:27
SPEAKER_01: I think when I first conceived of this book,
39:33
the conception was a woman who went out into the world looking
39:40
to marry a very rich
39:41
SPEAKER_01: man.
39:41
SPEAKER_00: Did she go out?
39:42
SPEAKER_00: No.
39:43
SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's what you started with.
39:44
And I realized that I hated this person and I didn't want to
39:48
write about that.
39:50
SPEAKER_01: And instead,
39:51
SPEAKER_01: I had this sort of converse idea,
39:54
which is a woman who went out into the world absolutely not
39:57
looking for that.
39:58
SPEAKER_01: But that was the choice that was put in front of her.
40:01
And I feel like so much of life is not about what your ideal
40:07
scenario is.
40:09
It's about the choices that are put in front of you and which
40:12
one of them you choose.
40:13
And none of them are necessarily the thing that you would sit
40:16
down and craft,
40:17
SPEAKER_01: this is what my life is going to look like.
40:19
SPEAKER_01: Because that doesn't really happen for almost anybody.
40:21
SPEAKER_01: What happens for most people is here's A or B. This is yes or no.
40:27
SPEAKER_01: Do you want this or do you not want this?
40:29
SPEAKER_01: Are you going to take this job?
40:30
SPEAKER_01: Are you going to marry this person?
40:32
SPEAKER_01: Are you going to whatever, take this vacation?
40:35
These are the choices that are put in front of you,
40:37
not what is the ideal.
40:39
SPEAKER_01: Here it is, A or B. Do you want this or do you not want this?
40:42
SPEAKER_01: And Emily did not go out into the world looking to marry.
40:47
SPEAKER_01: a rich, what turns out to be villain.
40:50
SPEAKER_01: She was educated to be maybe law firm partner wife.
40:53
SPEAKER_01: She was educated to be anything she wanted to be.
40:56
SPEAKER_01: And what she chose to be was to work in the art world.
40:59
SPEAKER_01: In the gallery.
41:00
SPEAKER_00: And she dated artists and had a bohemian early post-college experience.
41:05
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
41:07
SPEAKER_01: And then this choice was put in front of her.
41:09
SPEAKER_01: Do you want to marry this guy and become unimaginably rich?
41:14
SPEAKER_01: And what does that come with?
41:16
And it comes with things other than money and fancy places to
41:20
live and private airplanes.
41:22
It also comes with the ability to affect change in the world in
41:26
whatever way you
41:26
SPEAKER_01: want to and to have your children be able to do that too.
41:30
SPEAKER_01: And that's not nothing.
41:32
And I wanted to examine whether somebody like that who is a
41:35
good liberal could
41:37
still be a good liberal if she was married to a guy who's not
41:43
and benefiting from a
41:44
SPEAKER_01: business that is not.
41:46
SPEAKER_01: And what is the tension in her life then?
41:49
SPEAKER_01: And what does she choose to do with that?
41:51
SPEAKER_01: And one of the things that I tried to do,
41:53
and I think the most satisfying conversation I had about this
41:57
novel with any of the
41:59
SPEAKER_01: guys who live in the building
42:01
was when a doorman who'd read the book asked me,
42:05
how do you know what I'm thinking?
42:09
SPEAKER_01: And I admitted to him, I don't know what you're thinking.
42:13
SPEAKER_01: It wasn't my goal to try to figure out what you're thinking.
42:16
It was my goal to try to figure out,
42:18
if I were you,
42:20
what would I be thinking?
42:21
SPEAKER_01: Pat Conroy told you that in a walk in the park.
42:24
SPEAKER_01: That's what the New York Times reported.
42:27
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, Pat Conroy gave me some good advice in the park.
42:30
And I use that advice here is to try to figure out if I were
42:35
this character...
42:37
what would i want what would i do and that's what i'm asking
42:41
readers to do as well
42:43
in this book is to put the all these the main characters there
42:46
are three main
42:47
characters in this book and they are all put in a challenging
42:52
situation and i'm
42:54
asking you the reader to figure out if you were in this
42:57
situation what would you do
42:59
SPEAKER_01: if you were emily would you marry this guy
43:02
And one of the things I know that in the novel,
43:08
my response to that is,
43:10
are you kidding?
43:11
SPEAKER_01: Of course you would.
43:12
SPEAKER_01: Sure.
43:14
SPEAKER_00: How do the people you respect treat the doorman in your building?
43:19
SPEAKER_01: Almost everybody treats the doormen.
43:21
SPEAKER_01: I mean, everybody treats the doormen well.
43:24
I have rarely witnessed anybody not treat the doormen well
43:28
except visitors.
43:30
And there have been times when I feel like there are people who
43:34
walk through the
43:34
SPEAKER_01: door and they're on the phone and they don't nod at the doormen.
43:37
SPEAKER_01: And there's a certain way that if you've lived this way your whole life,
43:41
SPEAKER_01: you can begin to not see people.
43:43
SPEAKER_01: They're part of the furnishings.
43:45
SPEAKER_01: Yes,
43:46
SPEAKER_01: and I'm certain that I will never become one of those,
43:51
SPEAKER_01: if only for the fact that I have not lived this way my whole life,
43:54
SPEAKER_01: and these guys are not part of the furnishings.
43:56
SPEAKER_01: These are people who are holding the door for me,
43:59
SPEAKER_01: and they're standing out there in the cold,
44:01
SPEAKER_01: and the weather is important to them,
44:02
and I want to talk about the weather with them because the
44:04
weather is what they're
44:05
SPEAKER_01: in,
44:05
SPEAKER_01: among other things.
44:08
But I think one of the things that I love about the New York
44:12
City doorman experience is
44:14
that I didn't know I was going to enjoy is that the primary job
44:18
of being a doorman
44:19
in New York apartment buildings is not holding the door or
44:23
hailing a cab or
44:25
SPEAKER_01: carrying bags.
44:26
It is simply being a human who's out there all the time ready
44:31
to talk to you.
44:32
SPEAKER_01: And for a lot of people,
44:34
SPEAKER_01: especially older people in New York City,
44:36
SPEAKER_01: doormen become one of the main relationships they have in their lives.
44:40
SPEAKER_01: Right.
44:41
SPEAKER_01: That just being a person,
44:43
SPEAKER_01: being a human,
44:44
somebody to talk to and smile at and talk about the weather or
44:48
the Mets or the
44:49
SPEAKER_01: godforsaken jets or anything,
44:51
SPEAKER_01: that is a real,
44:53
SPEAKER_01: real job.
44:54
And even though it's not the job description,
44:57
it is actually what the job is fundamentally.
45:00
SPEAKER_01: But relevant to this story, it's also to keep chaos out.
45:03
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
45:03
SPEAKER_01: And secrets in.
45:04
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it is.
45:07
SPEAKER_01: But I don't I think that's that's on paper what the job is.
45:10
SPEAKER_01: But I think on paper, a lot of jobs are not what they appear to be.
45:14
SPEAKER_00: Their security is partially part of their job.
45:16
SPEAKER_00: But really,
45:16
SPEAKER_00: it's to have a relationship,
45:18
a cordial relationship and to make the lives of the residents
45:21
as pleasant as it can
45:22
SPEAKER_00: be.
45:22
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and that is, I think, what they're doing 99% of the time.
45:28
Even though the job might be security,
45:31
they don't spend almost any time being security.
45:34
They spend most of their time being just a person talking to
45:38
other people.
45:39
SPEAKER_00: They do in this book, though.
45:40
There are as many reasons in this book that they need to worry
45:43
about security,
45:45
SPEAKER_00: which we'll leave to you to find out on your own.
45:47
SPEAKER_00: There's a character, the superintendent, Olek, who is an outsider.
45:52
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
45:52
SPEAKER_00: He is a Ukrainian.
45:54
SPEAKER_00: There's other ways he's an outsider.
45:56
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
45:57
SPEAKER_00: And he says something that I found interesting.
46:00
SPEAKER_00: Very interesting.
46:01
That was certainly not a throwaway line,
46:03
I would imagine,
46:04
from the author's point of view.
46:05
SPEAKER_00: And he describes Americans as complacent.
46:09
SPEAKER_00: What do you mean by that?
46:11
SPEAKER_00: Oh, my God.
46:12
SPEAKER_00: Since you're the one who wrote Olek's words.
46:17
SPEAKER_01: I think complacent is another way of, I guess, me saying entitled.
46:22
We have come to expect that it is everybody's right to live a
46:28
life of ease.
46:30
SPEAKER_01: And if we don't,
46:31
it might be somebody else's fault instead of the fault of the
46:36
reality that almost
46:37
SPEAKER_01: nobody gets to live a life of ease.
46:40
SPEAKER_01: Including not having our beliefs threatened.
46:43
SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
46:43
SPEAKER_01: I mean, including everything.
46:44
I think there's no aspect of America right now that is living
46:52
up to either its
46:53
SPEAKER_01: ideals or the thing that we pretend is there.
46:57
SPEAKER_01: And if you spend time watching television commercials,
47:04
SPEAKER_01: you're confronted with Americans being promised universally
47:09
SPEAKER_01: an easy life and a life of luxury.
47:12
SPEAKER_01: And...
47:15
As you pointed out,
47:17
the top 1% of this country is a very high number to get into.
47:22
And the fact that there are people going around and posing on
47:27
fake private jets to
47:31
take photos of themselves drinking fake champagne on a fake
47:34
private jet to then
47:35
tell all of Instagram that they have made it when in fact they
47:40
have made nothing
47:41
The only thing more offensive is people who are on real private
47:44
jets who take
47:45
SPEAKER_00: pictures of themselves and post them to Instagram.
47:49
SPEAKER_01: One feeds the other.
47:50
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
47:52
SPEAKER_01: It normalizes it.
47:54
I think in a lot of the world,
47:56
living a life of luxury is not something anybody does.
48:00
SPEAKER_01: expects or thinks is a remote possibility.
48:03
SPEAKER_01: It's living a life of not luxury with dignity that should be the goal.
48:08
SPEAKER_01: And that for almost nobody is going to end up in the 1%.
48:11
And to spend all of our collective energy trying to convince
48:15
ourselves that this is
48:16
SPEAKER_01: going to happen for everybody is offensive to me.
48:19
And it's offensive to Olek,
48:20
who comes from a place where I was writing this book well
48:24
before
48:25
SPEAKER_01: this war in Ukraine.
48:29
SPEAKER_01: And the reason I was writing it was,
48:31
SPEAKER_01: in fact,
48:32
SPEAKER_01: that there was a time,
48:34
SPEAKER_01: I don't remember when it was,
48:36
SPEAKER_01: a decade ago,
48:36
SPEAKER_01: 15 years ago,
48:38
when there was a very public mention in American media of the
48:44
fact that there were
48:44
SPEAKER_01: neo-Nazis in Ukraine.
48:46
SPEAKER_01: And for a while there, we...
48:49
SPEAKER_01: we were very anti-Ukrainian because they were all neo-Nazis.
48:52
SPEAKER_01: And then, of course, they were not all neo-Nazis.
48:54
SPEAKER_01: And then the Russian belligerence began,
48:58
SPEAKER_01: and we immediately stopped thinking that they were neo-Nazis,
49:00
SPEAKER_01: and we were all on their side because of something that,
49:03
SPEAKER_01: again,
49:04
SPEAKER_01: had nothing to do with who the actual people of Ukraine are.
49:07
I think that's the thing that I wanted to examine about Oleg,
49:10
that people are not
49:15
Individuals are not the people who we read about necessarily in
49:19
the news.
49:20
SPEAKER_01: They are all people who've had their own unique experiences.
49:23
SPEAKER_01: And Olex, I think, is singular in this way.
49:26
SPEAKER_01: And his experiences have been very different.
49:28
And what we're thinking about Ukrainians right now is very
49:32
different from what we
49:32
SPEAKER_01: may have been thinking about Ukrainians a decade ago,
49:35
SPEAKER_01: which are all prejudices.
49:37
SPEAKER_01: Right.
49:38
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
49:39
SPEAKER_00: Okay,
49:40
SPEAKER_00: this is a little inside baseball,
49:41
but I love this distinction between the Upper West and the
49:44
Upper East Side.
49:46
You write that if an East Side dad came to drop off at school
49:50
in his pajamas,
49:52
SPEAKER_00: moms would bombard his wife with questions about his mental health,
49:55
SPEAKER_00: while other dads would stand around in their barbers and burberries,
49:59
SPEAKER_00: shaking their heads.
50:00
SPEAKER_00: Pity what happened to that guy.
50:02
SPEAKER_00: He used to be such an animal.
50:03
SPEAKER_00: When we moved here,
50:05
SPEAKER_00: our friend and realtor said,
50:07
SPEAKER_00: we were talking about living on the Upper East or the Upper West Side.
50:09
He said to my wife,
50:10
do you want to put your lipstick on before you walk the dog?
50:14
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
50:14
SPEAKER_00: And we picked the Upper West Side.
50:16
SPEAKER_01: Because she did not or because you did not.
50:18
SPEAKER_00: Because she did not.
50:18
SPEAKER_00: That would have been the villagers.
50:21
SPEAKER_00: Chelsea.
50:21
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
50:24
SPEAKER_01: Neighborhoods obviously have their own characters.
50:28
And the Upper West Side is distinctly less buttoned up than the
50:33
East Side.
50:35
SPEAKER_01: That's very inside baseball.
50:36
SPEAKER_01: That was pretty funny.
50:37
SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
50:38
SPEAKER_00: All right, let's do a quiz real quick.
50:40
SPEAKER_00: Random questions.
50:41
SPEAKER_00: What's the best baseball game you've ever been to?
50:43
SPEAKER_00: I understand you go to a lot.
50:47
SPEAKER_01: I think I have been to a lot.
50:50
SPEAKER_01: I saw a Yankees playoff game with my kids maybe a decade ago,
50:57
SPEAKER_01: eight years ago,
50:58
SPEAKER_01: something like that,
50:59
SPEAKER_01: in which the Yankees were losing very early.
51:02
SPEAKER_01: And then the shortstop, Didi Gregorius, hit a grand slam.
51:05
SPEAKER_01: And I have never been in a place that had that type of energy in it.
51:09
SPEAKER_01: Everybody was jumping up and down.
51:11
SPEAKER_01: It was great.
51:11
SPEAKER_01: It turned out to not be...
51:13
SPEAKER_01: They were playing Minnesota.
51:14
SPEAKER_01: It was not a great game or Cleveland, one or the other.
51:17
SPEAKER_01: It turned out to not be a great game, but it was a great moment.
51:20
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
51:21
SPEAKER_00: True or false, New York is the greatest city in the world.
51:24
SPEAKER_00: Oh, it's absolutely true.
51:27
SPEAKER_00: Who has the best bagels on the Upper West Side?
51:33
SPEAKER_00: Tell me you're gluten-free.
51:34
SPEAKER_00: Please tell me.
51:35
SPEAKER_01: No, I think it's Zucker's.
51:36
SPEAKER_01: Zucker's.
51:37
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
51:37
SPEAKER_01: How do you feel about pop-up bagels?
51:39
SPEAKER_01: I feel pretty negatively about pop-up bagels.
51:41
SPEAKER_01: Tell me why.
51:42
SPEAKER_01: Because I do not like things that are Instagram famous.
51:46
SPEAKER_01: I do not wait online.
51:47
SPEAKER_01: And there are these fads going on right now,
51:50
SPEAKER_01: especially in New York,
51:51
of bagels and pizza and cookies where at any given moment there
51:56
are 50 people
51:57
waiting online to buy a something to take a picture of it with
52:01
their mouth open,
52:02
about to take a fake bite of it so that they could post it so
52:05
that everybody could
52:06
SPEAKER_01: see,
52:06
SPEAKER_01: oh my God,
52:07
SPEAKER_01: you like pop-up bagels too.
52:08
SPEAKER_01: So you don't like mama's too either.
52:10
SPEAKER_01: No, and I— Their pizza's pretty damn good.
52:13
SPEAKER_01: Well, and Papa Bagel's bagels are not bad also.
52:15
Just the experience and the pizza,
52:18
especially the pizza downtown,
52:20
is really an insane situation.
52:22
SPEAKER_01: And I was—I walked through this last week on Bleecker Street.
52:28
SPEAKER_01: there were two pizza shops and a coffee shop,
52:30
SPEAKER_01: three pizza shops and a coffee shop,
52:32
SPEAKER_01: all within two blocks of each other,
52:34
SPEAKER_01: that all had,
52:35
SPEAKER_01: no kidding,
52:36
SPEAKER_01: more than 50 people waiting on them.
52:37
And it was that beautiful day last weekend,
52:39
last Saturday,
52:40
when everybody was out.
52:41
SPEAKER_01: We called that spring that day.
52:43
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we did call that spring.
52:45
SPEAKER_01: But it's such a part of life that I will not participate in.
52:51
SPEAKER_01: And maybe it's because I'm too old or too cynical, but yeah.
52:55
SPEAKER_00: I don't like pop-up bagels,
52:56
SPEAKER_00: which by the way,
52:56
SPEAKER_00: my wife and daughter,
52:57
SPEAKER_00: that's the only bagels they'll get,
52:58
is that they have this scam where you have to buy schmears and
53:02
there's a limited
53:02
SPEAKER_00: number of bagels you can get with the schmears.
53:05
SPEAKER_00: So we have like extra,
53:06
we have like six schmears in our refrigerator that haven't been
53:10
consumed and we're
53:11
SPEAKER_00: out of bagels.
53:12
SPEAKER_00: What are you going to do?
53:13
SPEAKER_00: Go buy more bagels and more schmears?
53:16
SPEAKER_00: It's a problem.
53:17
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening.
53:18
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
53:18
SPEAKER_00: The struggle is real.
53:19
SPEAKER_00: I'm really just trying to get this off my chest.
53:22
SPEAKER_00: All right.
53:22
These are these are demographic questions about I live 10
53:27
blocks north of you.
53:28
SPEAKER_00: Not the same zip code, but pretty damn close.
53:31
SPEAKER_00: According to 2019 Experian data,
53:34
SPEAKER_00: what is within 30 points the average credit score in the zip code 10023?
53:38
SPEAKER_00: I will admit.
53:43
SPEAKER_01: I am barely allowed to have an ATM car.
53:45
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
53:46
SPEAKER_01: I don't know what a good credit score is.
53:47
SPEAKER_00: You don't know what a good credit score is?
53:49
SPEAKER_00: Not really, no.
53:50
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
53:51
SPEAKER_00: 746, which is a pretty good credit score.
53:53
And it's 43 points higher than the national average and 34
53:56
points higher than the
53:57
SPEAKER_00: New York State average.
53:58
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
53:58
SPEAKER_00: You can also claim ignorance to this question.
54:02
SPEAKER_00: Well, to the rest of them.
54:03
In January of this year,
54:04
an apartment in Dakota sold that had been listed for $24
54:07
million.
54:08
SPEAKER_00: What would that translate to in terms of cost per square foot?
54:13
SPEAKER_00: And I know this is a guess.
54:15
SPEAKER_00: We're just playing a game here.
54:20
SPEAKER_01: Somewhere like $5,000?
54:25
SPEAKER_00: That's very close.
54:27
SPEAKER_00: $4,781.
54:29
SPEAKER_00: Five grand a square foot.
54:30
SPEAKER_00: That's a lot of money.
54:31
SPEAKER_00: That's a lot.
54:32
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
54:33
SPEAKER_00: It's probably a very nice apartment.
54:35
SPEAKER_00: I would imagine it is.
54:35
SPEAKER_00: Actually, I looked at one online.
54:37
SPEAKER_00: It's very nice,
54:38
SPEAKER_00: but it's like the – and I looked at a couple of the old listings,
54:41
SPEAKER_00: and the decor is just very old world.
54:43
SPEAKER_01: Yeah,
54:45
which is the case for a lot of apartments in a building like
54:50
mine where people
54:51
SPEAKER_01: settle in for 40,
54:53
SPEAKER_01: 50 years.
54:53
SPEAKER_01: And when they move out,
54:58
SPEAKER_01: people who bought the apartment think,
54:59
SPEAKER_01: oh,
54:59
SPEAKER_01: my God,
55:00
SPEAKER_01: what millennium was this?
55:02
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
55:03
Well,
55:03
the decoration,
55:03
when the Whitworths buy,
55:05
it's the Whitworths,
55:06
right?
55:06
SPEAKER_00: I got that right.
55:06
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
55:07
SPEAKER_00: They buy their apartment and they have a- Oh, Longworth.
55:08
SPEAKER_00: The Longworth.
55:09
SPEAKER_00: Sorry.
55:10
SPEAKER_00: Whit Longworth.
55:11
They have an argument about who the designer is going to be and
55:14
he wants to go
55:15
SPEAKER_00: super modern,
55:16
SPEAKER_00: which doesn't work in that building.
55:18
SPEAKER_00: No.
55:20
SPEAKER_00: All right.
55:20
Lastly,
55:21
according to census.gov,
55:22
what is the median household income in that same zip code?
55:27
SPEAKER_01: Do you remember Chevy Chase's impersonation of Gerald Ford?
55:31
SPEAKER_00: Where he falls down all the time.
55:33
SPEAKER_01: He falls down all the time, but he's also, it's a debate.
55:40
And the debate,
55:41
the moderator is asking him questions that have a lot of
55:44
numbers.
55:45
SPEAKER_01: And his response is, I was told there would be no math.
55:48
SPEAKER_00: Right.
55:49
SPEAKER_01: And that's the way I feel right now.
55:50
SPEAKER_00: That's hilarious.
55:51
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
55:52
SPEAKER_00: So what was that question?
55:54
SPEAKER_00: No, it's fine.
55:57
SPEAKER_00: The median household income in that zip code is $158,000.
56:00
SPEAKER_00: But the point is there's also an 8.4% poverty rate in that same zip code.
56:05
SPEAKER_00: And that's my zip code?
56:07
SPEAKER_00: That's 10023.
56:07
SPEAKER_00: Uh-huh.
56:07
SPEAKER_00: Right.
56:09
SPEAKER_01: Wow, that's surprising.
56:11
SPEAKER_01: That seems like a high poverty rate in that zip code, doesn't it?
56:14
SPEAKER_01: It does, yeah.
56:17
But I think – and that's one of the things that I wanted to
56:20
examine in this book,
56:21
that there – to the extent that there's such a thing as a gated
56:25
community in New
56:25
SPEAKER_01: York City,
56:26
SPEAKER_01: I live in one.
56:27
SPEAKER_01: Right.
56:28
SPEAKER_01: But it is absolutely not.
56:29
SPEAKER_00: And that the thing –
56:31
You still take the subway with everybody else in Manhattan or
56:35
in the entire
56:35
SPEAKER_00: tri-state area almost.
56:37
SPEAKER_00: It's not just the subway.
56:38
SPEAKER_01: It is every time I step out the door, it is all of humanity out there.
56:44
SPEAKER_01: And that is true almost everywhere in New York City all the time.
56:48
SPEAKER_01: And every single subway car...
56:51
SPEAKER_01: Every crowded subway car is a miracle of human diversity in every way.
56:56
And I think that's one of the great things about New York City
56:59
is that we are all
57:00
SPEAKER_01: pushed up against each other,
57:02
SPEAKER_01: elbow to elbow,
57:03
SPEAKER_01: in tight quarters all the time,
57:05
SPEAKER_01: and that these issues that this thriller really examines
57:09
SPEAKER_01: of race and class and ambition and money,
57:13
these are not things that we could separate ourselves from on a
57:17
daily basis in New
57:18
SPEAKER_01: York City.
57:18
SPEAKER_01: These are things that are in our faces all the time,
57:21
that there's no way to not confront the rest of humanity when
57:25
you live in New York
57:25
SPEAKER_01: City.
57:26
You're not driving around in your car in and out of gated
57:29
communities and high
57:30
SPEAKER_01: rises,
57:30
SPEAKER_01: that even if you live in the fanciest building in New York City,
57:33
SPEAKER_01: you are still out in the rest of New York City all the time.
57:37
SPEAKER_01: It's 100% true.
57:39
SPEAKER_00: I love this book.
57:40
SPEAKER_00: I think you've written a great,
57:42
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if it's the great,
57:43
SPEAKER_00: but it is a great New York novel.
57:46
SPEAKER_00: And it was a tremendous read.
57:47
Is there anywhere you would like to direct our listeners to
57:49
find out more about you?
57:51
SPEAKER_00: About me?
57:52
SPEAKER_00: Oh my god, no.
57:53
SPEAKER_00: You're not on social media, I take it?
57:55
Oh,
57:56
I'm on social media in the way that everybody needs to be on
57:58
social media.
58:00
I have a newsletter that I've been publishing on Substack
58:05
recently.
58:05
In fact,
58:05
I've been writing a newsletter for 20 years now,
58:08
and it has changed over the years.
58:10
SPEAKER_01: And last year,
58:11
looking at my life and the fact that my children are away at
58:14
college and I am no
58:15
SPEAKER_01: longer really a parent in a lot of ways,
58:18
SPEAKER_01: looking for ways for me to be useful
58:21
I decided that I could be useful writing a newsletter about
58:25
being a writer.
58:26
SPEAKER_01: And not about writing.
58:27
SPEAKER_01: I don't write about writing.
58:29
SPEAKER_01: I write about the job of being a writer.
58:32
SPEAKER_01: And that newsletter has brought me a lot of joy recently.
58:38
SPEAKER_01: And I think that it's an interesting thing if people are interested.
58:43
SPEAKER_01: Wow, that was horrible.
58:46
SPEAKER_01: An interesting thing if people are interested.
58:47
SPEAKER_00: Nice word choice, writer.
58:48
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
58:48
SPEAKER_00: I'm a professional writer.
58:51
If you are a writer,
58:55
the thing that I'm creating on Substack is for you.
58:58
SPEAKER_01: And it is about the job and the business of being a writer,
59:02
SPEAKER_01: which is only partially about writing.
59:04
SPEAKER_01: And the writing part is not what I'm examining there.
59:07
SPEAKER_00: And it's substack.com slash.
59:09
SPEAKER_00: My name.
59:10
SPEAKER_00: Chris Pavone.
59:11
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
59:11
SPEAKER_00: C-H-R-I-S-P-A-V-O-N-E.
59:13
SPEAKER_00: There's a link to it in the show notes.
59:15
SPEAKER_00: This has been a lot of fun.
59:17
SPEAKER_00: For me as well.
59:17
SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much.
59:19
SPEAKER_00: All right, I really enjoyed that conversation with Chris Pavone.
59:21
One of the privileges of doing the podcast is the opportunity
59:24
to meet some people
59:25
SPEAKER_00: who create some great art,
59:26
SPEAKER_00: and Chris certainly fits that description.
59:28
SPEAKER_00: If you're watching this on YouTube,
59:30
SPEAKER_00: by the way,
59:30
SPEAKER_00: you should check out our YouTube channel just for fun.
59:33
SPEAKER_00: It's Paul Olinger slash YouTube.
59:36
SPEAKER_00: No, not Claire.
59:37
SPEAKER_00: It's YouTube slash Paul Olinger.
59:40
SPEAKER_00: That's where you can find this here.
59:41
SPEAKER_00: YouTube channel if you want to watch me in the flesh.
59:45
Also,
59:46
well,
59:46
not,
59:46
you know,
59:47
anyway,
59:48
I've also moved the podcast to Substack.
59:51
If you're not following me on Substack,
59:53
sure would love to connect with you there.
59:55
SPEAKER_00: The URL for that, the place, the web address is words.paulolinger.com.
1:00:03
And so what this does is puts my writing and my podcast all in
1:00:06
the same place.
1:00:07
SPEAKER_00: You know, Substack's kind of replacing people's websites and
1:00:10
SPEAKER_00: And over time, I probably won't even have a website.
1:00:12
SPEAKER_00: I'll just have the Substack.
1:00:13
SPEAKER_00: All right, let's talk about Chris Pavone and The Doorman.
1:00:17
I maybe got a little too fanboy on him there,
1:00:19
but I really did like that book.
1:00:20
SPEAKER_00: It was a great read.
1:00:21
SPEAKER_00: Very interesting.
1:00:22
I live very close to the Dakota,
1:00:27
and I suppose I exist on the periphery of
1:00:30
SPEAKER_00: of society here in new york city i feel more like an observer than i do a
1:00:34
participant sometimes uh because we're sort of i've lived here
1:00:38
three different
1:00:39
times and we've been back almost two years now and so it's sort
1:00:43
of like we're we're
1:00:44
part of it you know we're doing it our kids are at schools here
1:00:47
we're you know
1:00:48
SPEAKER_00: we're participating i work at some interesting comedy clubs
1:00:51
SPEAKER_00: I've met a lot of great people.
1:00:52
I just don't feel like we're totally integrated into the
1:00:57
environment here.
1:00:58
SPEAKER_00: We're newcomers in our mid-50s,
1:00:59
SPEAKER_00: and it's hard to get integrated quite like we were in Atlanta,
1:01:05
SPEAKER_00: where we were at the same school for a lot of years,
1:01:07
SPEAKER_00: went to the same club,
1:01:08
SPEAKER_00: and lived in the same neighborhood as a lot of people around us.
1:01:11
SPEAKER_00: I find New York to be fascinating though.
1:01:14
SPEAKER_00: Here's one takeaway.
1:01:15
I didn't get to this question in the interview because I had
1:01:19
two pages of notes for
1:01:21
SPEAKER_00: him and I didn't get to all the questions.
1:01:22
SPEAKER_00: There is a quote in the book.
1:01:24
SPEAKER_00: I can't remember who said it,
1:01:25
SPEAKER_00: but he said,
1:01:25
the corrosive thing about New York City is that there's always
1:01:28
someone with more,
1:01:30
SPEAKER_00: more money,
1:01:31
SPEAKER_00: more fame,
1:01:32
SPEAKER_00: more power,
1:01:33
SPEAKER_00: and more respect.
1:01:34
SPEAKER_00: And I think that's absolutely true.
1:01:36
SPEAKER_00: I mean, New York is just like every other place, just more so.
1:01:39
SPEAKER_00: It's Atlanta squared.
1:01:42
SPEAKER_00: It's Birmingham cubed.
1:01:45
SPEAKER_00: Do the math however you want it.
1:01:47
SPEAKER_00: The rich here are just that much richer.
1:01:50
SPEAKER_00: There's just that many more of them.
1:01:52
SPEAKER_00: For comedy, I say, I tell the joke.
1:01:54
SPEAKER_00: I don't tell a joke.
1:01:55
SPEAKER_00: It's not a joke.
1:01:56
SPEAKER_00: The observation is,
1:01:57
SPEAKER_00: yes,
1:01:57
SPEAKER_00: there are 10 times as many comedy clubs in New York City,
1:02:00
SPEAKER_00: and there's 20 times as many comics.
1:02:02
And I'm good,
1:02:04
might even say very good,
1:02:05
but it's not good enough to be very good.
1:02:07
SPEAKER_00: You've got to be great.
1:02:08
SPEAKER_00: You've got to be outstanding.
1:02:09
SPEAKER_00: You have to have leverage in this city.
1:02:11
SPEAKER_00: That's a word that keeps coming up in my mind.
1:02:14
SPEAKER_00: The more I'm here is leverage.
1:02:15
SPEAKER_00: If you want to break through, you need some leverage, brah.
1:02:19
SPEAKER_00: So find some leverage.
1:02:20
There's always someone with more,
1:02:22
more money,
1:02:23
more fame,
1:02:23
more power,
1:02:24
more respect.
1:02:24
SPEAKER_00: And that's a big theme in this show is that
1:02:27
SPEAKER_00: This is true about life.
1:02:30
SPEAKER_00: And in New York City, it's a little bit more in your face.
1:02:32
And if you're gonna let that bother you,
1:02:34
you're not gonna be terribly happy.
1:02:36
SPEAKER_00: It can motivate you.
1:02:37
SPEAKER_00: It does motivate me.
1:02:38
SPEAKER_00: I wanna be the best at what I do.
1:02:40
SPEAKER_00: I wanna be very, very good.
1:02:42
SPEAKER_00: I wanna be great at what I do.
1:02:44
SPEAKER_00: But,
1:02:45
SPEAKER_00: you know,
1:02:45
if you sit there and compare yourself with somebody that has
1:02:47
more listeners,
1:02:49
SPEAKER_00: more fame,
1:02:50
SPEAKER_00: more followers,
1:02:51
SPEAKER_00: more money,
1:02:52
SPEAKER_00: we all know who has more money than we do,
1:02:54
SPEAKER_00: don't we?
1:02:55
SPEAKER_00: We know exactly who has more money than we do.
1:02:57
SPEAKER_00: And it drives us crazy.
1:02:59
SPEAKER_00: Can't do it.
1:02:59
SPEAKER_00: Can't do it.
1:03:00
SPEAKER_00: Don't play that game.
1:03:02
SPEAKER_00: And that's why there's a lot of kind of unhappy people here,
1:03:04
SPEAKER_00: even though they're very,
1:03:05
SPEAKER_00: very successful.
1:03:06
I knew people in Silicon Valley who had $100 million and they
1:03:09
felt like losers,
1:03:10
right?
1:03:11
SPEAKER_00: And that's not cool.
1:03:12
SPEAKER_00: That's not cool at all.
1:03:14
SPEAKER_00: What else?
1:03:15
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I think he accurately captures the era we're in.
1:03:19
SPEAKER_00: I want to go back and read Bonfire of the Vanities.
1:03:22
SPEAKER_00: I won't because I have to read 40 plus books this year for the podcast.
1:03:26
SPEAKER_00: I don't have to.
1:03:27
SPEAKER_00: I get to.
1:03:27
SPEAKER_00: I get to read 40 plus books, which is wonderful.
1:03:32
SPEAKER_00: But it does consume a great deal of my free time,
1:03:35
SPEAKER_00: however you want to define that,
1:03:36
SPEAKER_00: my reading time.
1:03:37
He actually accurately captures the time we're in extreme
1:03:40
wealth and extremely
1:03:41
SPEAKER_00: polarized and performative politics.
1:03:43
To compare this book to Bonfire would be very interesting,
1:03:46
I think,
1:03:47
in terms of understanding –
1:03:49
SPEAKER_00: Like what was driving us crazy in the 80s?
1:03:51
You know,
1:03:52
somebody who had 10x more than you had in the 80s was probably
1:03:55
a big deal.
1:03:56
SPEAKER_00: Now it's not like that.
1:03:57
SPEAKER_00: I've done very, very well.
1:03:58
SPEAKER_00: Like I said, and Elon Musk wouldn't let me clean his pool.
1:04:01
SPEAKER_00: He's got thousands times more money than I have.
1:04:05
SPEAKER_00: It's not even, can't play that comparison game.
1:04:09
SPEAKER_00: You'll never be happy.
1:04:11
SPEAKER_00: Lastly, I wanna talk about complacency as Americans.
1:04:14
SPEAKER_00: His character,
1:04:16
SPEAKER_00: Olek,
1:04:18
who's an interesting character and sort of an observer of both
1:04:22
the doorman and the
1:04:24
SPEAKER_00: residents and American society as a whole,
1:04:27
SPEAKER_00: he says we're complacent.
1:04:29
SPEAKER_00: I think we might in 20 years look back at this period,
1:04:34
SPEAKER_00: maybe 50,
1:04:35
SPEAKER_00: we're gonna look back at this period and we're gonna find,
1:04:38
SPEAKER_00: we will consider those of us
1:04:41
who lived at this time to be complacent,
1:04:44
entitled,
1:04:46
and unaware of how good we have it.
1:04:50
We are not aware of the importance of our freedom and the dire
1:04:57
need to protect it.
1:04:59
SPEAKER_00: We are allowing ourselves to be
1:05:05
infiltrated from a philosophical standpoint from both sides of
1:05:10
the political aisle.
1:05:12
And it is leading to a much weaker society,
1:05:15
both in the United States and around the world.
1:05:18
But especially in the United States,
1:05:19
where we have the best gig anybody's got.
1:05:21
SPEAKER_00: I'm not one of these people that says,
1:05:23
SPEAKER_00: America is the greatest country to ever exist in the world.
1:05:25
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it is, maybe it's not.
1:05:27
SPEAKER_00: Certainly isn't perfect.
1:05:29
SPEAKER_00: But man, am I grateful that I get to live here.
1:05:32
SPEAKER_00: And I think we're being complacent about what's happening to society.
1:05:38
SPEAKER_00: And you can interpret that any way you want to interpret it.
1:05:43
SPEAKER_00: Don't be lazy.
1:05:44
SPEAKER_00: Don't be complacent.
1:05:45
SPEAKER_00: I'm trying not to be.
1:05:47
SPEAKER_00: Go buy this book.
1:05:50
SPEAKER_00: Read The Doorman.
1:05:51
SPEAKER_00: Whether you're complacent or not, you'll enjoy it.
1:05:55
SPEAKER_00: Have a great week.
1:05:55
SPEAKER_00: See you next time.