Best Of: A Writer Grapples With A Life-Changing Accident / The Post WWII 'Red Scare'

Summary

Fresh Air Weekend: Best Of – A Writer Grapples With A Life-Changing Accident & The Post WWII 'Red Scare'

Release Date: March 29, 2025

Hosts: Terry Gross and Tonya Mosley

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1. Hanif Qureshi: From Accomplished Writer to Life-Altering Accident

Overview: In this poignant segment, Terry Gross interviews Hanif Qureshi, an acclaimed screenwriter and novelist best known for his Oscar-nominated screenplay for My Beautiful Laundrette. Qureshi shares his harrowing experience following a catastrophic fall in 2020 that left him paralyzed from the neck down. His memoir, Shattered, delves deep into his year-long journey through hospitals, his struggle with newfound dependence, and his path to reclaiming his identity through writing.

Key Discussions:

• The Accident and Immediate Aftermath ([06:25]): Qureshi recounts the moment of his fall: "I felt absolutely flat bang on my face. And I broke my neck or damaged my spine very badly."

• Experiencing Disconnection from His Body ([07:41]): He describes the surreal sensation of seeing his hands without control: "I thought that they were... sort of live creatures. Curled live creatures."

• Emotional Turmoil and Dependence ([11:19]): Qureshi reflects on the emotional conflict of reliance on his partner, Isabella:

  "I became aware of that. In order to get anything done, I had to demand things. It was embarrassing to have to do that all the time."

• Rebuilding Through Writing ([08:46]): Writing became a lifeline for Qureshi, helping him maintain his sense of self:

  "The way that I could remind myself of who I was, a writer with a history, a person in the world, was to start writing again."

• Cultural and Racial Reflections ([18:25]): Qureshi discusses the stark contrast between predominantly white hospitals in Italy and the multicultural environment of London’s NHS:

  "It's an incredible stew and great multiracial, multicultural society."

• Immigration and Societal Dependence ([19:57]): He emphasizes Britain's reliance on immigrants within the NHS:

  "It's a terrible dilemma... we're entirely dependent on immigrants in order to look after a slowly aging population."

Notable Quotes:

• (04:39) "I'm thrashing my arm about a bit now as I speak to you, but I can't use my fingers, I can't grip."
• (11:25) "It's a big kind of emotional and intellectual turnaround. From being an independent person... to becoming this tyrannical baby that I am here now talking to you."

Insights and Conclusions: Qureshi’s narrative is a testament to resilience and the transformative power of writing. Despite immense physical and emotional challenges, he leverages his literary skills to navigate his altered reality, finding solace and purpose in storytelling. His reflections also shed light on broader societal issues, such as the indispensability of immigrant workers in healthcare and the cultural dynamics within different countries.

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2. David Biancooli Reviews BritBox’s "Ludwig"

Overview: TV critic David Biancooli provides an enthusiastic review of the new BritBox mystery series, Ludwig. He praises the show for its originality, charming characters, and clever plotlines, highlighting its refreshing departure from typical American murder mysteries.

Key Discussions:

• Series Premise and Characters ([26:41]): Ludwig centers on identical twins John and James. After John goes missing, his best friend Lucy enlists James to impersonate him and solve the mystery. David Mitchell stars as John, bringing a quirky charm to the role.

• Unique Approach to the Mystery Genre ([27:00]): Biancooli appreciates the show's inventive take on solving crimes, likening John’s analytical methods to puzzle-solving:

  "It's a logic puzzle. In this room, we have seven subjects or suspects. I will label you A to G for simplicity."

• Performance and Chemistry ([31:10]): The critic lauds the performances of David Mitchell and Anna Maxwell Martin, noting their chemistry and comedic timing:

  "David Mitchell and Anna Maxwell Martin are loads of fun, especially when they're together."

• Musical Integration ([31:59]): Ludwig incorporates Beethoven’s music, aligning with the show's title and enhancing its unique ambiance:

  "The series is called Ludwig for a reason, which it reveals in time, and that connection allows for plenty of music from the Beethoven canon."

• Future Prospects ([32:34]): With a second season already in the pipeline, Biancooli expresses optimism about the show's continued success:

  "Ludwig is a winner... the producers already have committed to a season two."

Notable Quotes:

• (29:59) "It's a logic puzzle... Can you follow?"
• (31:10) "The series is called Ludwig for a reason... it’s infectious and almost musical."

Insights and Conclusions: Biancooli's review positions Ludwig as a standout in the mystery genre, blending traditional elements with innovative storytelling and character development. The show's emphasis on intellectual puzzles and its engaging soundtrack set it apart, promising audiences a delightful and intellectually stimulating viewing experience.

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3. Clay Risen Explores the Legacy of the Red Scare in Modern America

Overview: Journalist and historian Clay Risen sits down with Terry Gross to discuss his latest book, Red Blacklists: McCarthyism and the Making of Modern America. He delves into the anti-communist fervor of the post-World War II era, drawing parallels between that period and contemporary political climates.

Key Discussions:

• Origins of the Red Scare ([35:43]): Risen explains how the Red Scare was fueled by cultural opposition to the New Deal and the rise of the Cold War:

  "There was a lot of cultural opposition, a lot of anger over the idea that America was moving away from a society that was rooted in... a white patriarchy."

• Impact of McCarthyism ([37:39]): He details how Senator Joseph McCarthy capitalized on existing cultural tensions to amplify fears of communist infiltration:

  "McCarthy was willing to go after Democrats... but he was also a little afraid of him because if you turned against him, he would make an example out of you."

• Presidential Roles ([40:20]): Discussing President Truman and Eisenhower’s roles, Risen highlights their complex approaches to combating communism:

  "Truman implemented the loyalty oath largely because he thought it would be a sop to these folks and wouldn't do anything. He was wrong in that."

• Cultural Legacy and Modern Parallels ([49:53]): Risen draws connections between the Red Scare and today's political climate, emphasizing recurring patterns of fear and oppression:

  "We see a lot of the same animus toward ideas we don't like... it's a reminder that what happened during the Red Scare can be repeated."

• Consequences and Lessons ([51:23]): Reflecting on the enduring impact of the Red Scare, Risen warns against the dangers of political hysteria:

  "It's a nightmare, a dark chapter in American history that we must remember to prevent its repetition."

Notable Quotes:

• (36:19) "Roosevelt was enormously popular... but there was also a lot of cultural opposition."
• (42:18) "Howard Lawson... refused to answer on principled grounds."
• (49:53) "It's a reminder that what happened during the Red Scare can be repeated."

Insights and Conclusions: Risen's examination of the Red Scare illuminates the intricate interplay between cultural anxieties and political opportunism. By tracing the legacy of McCarthyism, he underscores the importance of vigilance in safeguarding democratic principles against the resurgence of unfounded fears and oppressive measures. His analysis serves as both a historical account and a cautionary tale relevant to contemporary societal challenges.

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Conclusion: This Fresh Air Weekend episode offers a compelling blend of personal resilience through Hanif Qureshi's story, engaging entertainment critique with David Biancooli's review of Ludwig, and a profound historical analysis by Clay Risen on the Red Scare's lasting effects. Each segment provides deep insights into human strength, the evolution of media, and the cyclical nature of political hysteria, making it a rich and enlightening listen for audiences seeking diverse and meaningful content.

Transcript

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[Terry Gross]

From why? Why? In Philadelphia, I'm Terry Gross with FRESH AIR Weekend Today, how life can change in a second. Hanif Qureshi's writing career got off to a remarkable start. After briefly writing porn to make a living, his first screenplay, my Beautiful Laundrette, was nominated for an Oscar in 2022. He fell, lost consciousness, and when he came to, he saw these objects he didn't recognize until he realized they were his hands.

[Hanif Qureshi]

But I had no agency over them. I thought that they were, you know, sort of live creatures. Curled live creatures.

[Terry Gross]

We'll talk about life before and after the fall. Also, journalist Clay Risen takes us back to the anti communist frenzy of the post World War II era. Risen sees a through line running from that era to our own. And TV critic David Biancooli reviews the new mystery series Ludwig that's coming up on FRESH AIR weekend.

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[Terry Gross]

AIR Weekend I'm Terry Gross. I first became aware of Hanif Qureshi when the 1985 film My Beautiful Laundrette was released. He was nominated for an Oscar for his screenplay about a side of contemporary England that had rarely been explored on screen, Pakistani immigrants and their children. The film was a lively romantic comedy about gay love, family racism and punk rock. It was directed by Stephen Frears and and co starred Daniel Day Lewis as a young man in a relationship with the son of a Pakistani immigrant. Qureshi has since written other screenplays and novels, including the Buddha of Suburbia. His new memoir called shattered, begins in 2020 after a fall that injured his spinal cord, leaving him unable to move his arms or legs. He describes being unrecognizable to himself, disconnected from his body towards totally dependent on others, feeling helpless and humiliated, dealing with rage, envying other people who could do even basic things like scratch an itch. While spending too much time on his back staring at the ceiling, he reflected on earlier periods of his life. He shares those reflections in his book. He spent a year in hospitals before he was able to return home with round the clock caregivers. He started writing the memoir just days after the accident by dictating to one of his sons. The book's narrative is occasionally interrupted by asides like, excuse me for a moment, I must have an enema now. Qureshi is the son of a British mother and a father who emigrated from Pakistan in the late 1940s. Hanif Qureshi, welcome back to FRESH AIR. We first spoke in 1990 on FRESH AIR, and you've been on two times since then. So welcome back. How are you now? Like, how much movement do you have now?

[Hanif Qureshi]

I'm thrashing my arm about a bit now as I speak to you, but I can't use my fingers, I can't grip. I couldn't pick up a pen or anything like that. I can move my shoulder, I can move my legs a bit. Obviously I'm in a wheelchair. I can't stand up but I can't actually use my hands. So I'm around the clock dependent, as you put it earlier. But I'm stronger than I was and I have physio every day. And so I'm stretched out, I move a bit, but I think this is pretty much where I'm going to remain from now on.

[Terry Gross]

And physio is physical therapy?

[Hanif Qureshi]

Yeah, I have the physio every every day someone comes to the house and I stand up in a standing machine and they stretch me out Manipulate my fingers and my feet and so on, so I don't deteriorate. That's. That's the main thing. I don't want to get worse. I'm doing a lot of stuff at the moment. This morning, I was writing Here My Kitchen Table with my son Carlo, doing my blog. We're writing a movie based on my memoir, Shattered. So, you know, it's a full working day for me.

[Terry Gross]

And your arm is strong enough to maneuver the controls of your. A motorized wheelchair.

[Hanif Qureshi]

Yeah. I buzz around my house. I can go out on the street, obviously, with somebody else, and I can go up and down the road into coffee shops and I have lunch and I can do stuff. So it's not as bad as it might have been.

[Terry Gross]

So I'm trying to figure out what happened. You were dizzy and then you woke up in a pool of blood?

[Hanif Qureshi]

Yeah, yeah, that's the story. I've been unwell with a stomach infection, and I've been taking a lot of painkillers and antibiotics and suppositories, all kinds of other stuff. So I was very weak. So I was at Isabella's apartment in Rome.

[Terry Gross]

Isabella's your partner now?

[Hanif Qureshi]

Wife, yeah. About to become wife, actually.

[Terry Gross]

Okay.

[Hanif Qureshi]

No one else wants me now, so. And then I felt fate. I put my head between my legs, as you're supposed to do, and then I blacked out. And I think what happened was I stood up at that moment and I took some steps across the room, and then I felt absolutely flat bang on my face. And I broke my neck or damaged my spine very badly. And when I woke up, I was in a pool of blood and I was unable to move my hands or any other part of my body. I could still speak.

[Terry Gross]

You write about how it initially felt to feel disconnected from your body, to see your hand and not feel connected to your hand. You write, I had become divorced from myself. Would it be okay to ask you to describe what that felt like, that sense of disconnection from your own body?

[Hanif Qureshi]

Well, at the beginning, it's very odd because you're upside down on your head, you're bleeding from your forehead. And then I saw these objects out of the corner of my eye, and I didn't know what they were. And then I began to realize that they were. It was my hands, but I had no agency over them. I thought that they were, you know, sort of live creatures. Curled. Live creatures. And then I became convinced that I was going to die, and eventually I would sort of suffocate.

[Terry Gross]

You started writing your memoir just Days after the accident by dictating it. Was writing especially important to you? I know you're a writer, I know you're very dedicated to writing. Your life has centered around writing and family. But was it helpful to distance yourself from kind of removing yourself from what was happening so you could look at what was happening, examine it and describe?

[Hanif Qureshi]

Was really because when I was in the ICU in Rome, I was just a body to the nurses, to the doctors. I was in the medical industrial complex and they were working on me and doing stuff to me and, you know, washing me and feeding me, and then I had an operation and so on. But I wasn't really a person. I'd lost myself, really. And the way that I could remind myself of who I was, a writer with a history, a person in the world, was to start writing again. So I started writing to my long suffering partner, Isabella, who would sit at the end of the bed, tapping into her phone. And I started to issue statements or blogs about exactly what was happening to me. And then Carlo, my son, he put the blogs on substack. Well, I had an account and then he started putting them on Twitter and so on, and they started to go around and people started paying attention and the figures went up and up and up. So I did one one day, then I did one the next day and one the next day. At that point, even though I was really ill and really, you know, bombed out of my head on painkillers and so on, I was writing a blog every single day about my condition. And it was very exciting that people were interested in what I had to say and what had happened to me. And then people started to write pieces about me in the New York Times and in Australia and India and so on. So it was a very strange period because, you know, I was completely done for, alone, lying in hospital for full of drugs and tubes. And my material was going very quickly around the world and in increasing numbers of people were interested in what I was saying. And that really cheered me up. You know, I had something to do, I had a platform. And I was back as a writer, which is what I am, which secures my identity.

[Terry Gross]

Your partner Isabella spent every day during visiting hours in the hospital with you, and you were hospitalized for about a year. And one time when she was brushing your teeth and you felt like a helpless baby and a tyrant. Two really conflicting. Maybe not so conflicting. Can you describe both of those feelings?

[Hanif Qureshi]

I think what you say is very interesting because a baby is a tyrant.

[Terry Gross]

Yeah, I was thinking that as I said it Yeah.

[Hanif Qureshi]

I remember a phrase from some writer or another who described. Who says the fascist face of the baby. I've had three babies, and I can tell you that there are times when they are like fascists, when they overwhelm you. And then suddenly I was in that situation again. I was helpless in bed. I couldn't feed myself, brush my teeth, or do anything. I was entirely dependent on other people. And I hated being so dependent. So I suddenly became aware of that. In order to get anything done, I had to demand things. I have to ask people to do things for me, and it's embarrassing to have to do that all the time. If I'm in my kitchen and Isabella is cooking, and then she does the shopping, and then she has to feed me, then she has to wash up, there's nothing I can do to help her. And it's shameful and embarrassing. And so the nature of our relationship was completely transformed by this accident where I am entirely depressed, dependent on. On other people, and also profoundly ashamed that I. That I'm not able to do what I. What I could do before. The only way to get around this is to enjoy it, you know, and enjoy the conversations you have with other people, to enjoy their generosity, to enjoy the. The love that they have for you and. And how they like to. To help you and just to serve you. So it's a big kind of emotional and intellectual turnaround. I'm just describing here from being an independent, you know, person with agency in the world who can do stuff to becoming this tyrannical baby that. That I am here now talking to you.

[Terry Gross]

You have paid caregivers too, right?

[Hanif Qureshi]

Yeah, I have one person, 24 7, who lives in the house, who looks after me, and then carers who come in one in the morning to wash me and get me dressed and ready for the street. And then in the evening, someone who helps put me to bed and cleans me and gets me ready for the night.

[Terry Gross]

So they're paid to do this. That's their job. That's what they're trained to do. Do you feel guilty or embarrassed or humiliated when they're helping you?

[Hanif Qureshi]

I felt all those things as you have to adjust to a new life. One day I was an ordinary, normal person walking about the world doing. Doing stuff. The next day. And this may happen to many of us, to all of us. You're entirely dependent on the kindness of strangers for your life. And it's a big adjustment. And at the beginning, it's very humiliating. You feel really embarrassed. You know, people touch you all the time. Strangers come into my house every single day and they touch me, they turn me over, they talk above me as if I'm not there. And my circumstances have entirely changed. But I have to say, you get over it.

[Terry Gross]

You once accused Isabella of going all Bette Davis on you, making it seem like she was the one being the tyrant. That's harsh. What brought that on?

[Hanif Qureshi]

Well, I think at the beginning there was a lot of, a lot of anger, you know, from me mostly. When you, you have your life, as it were, your normal life, your ordinary life, snatched away from you by an illness, as I say, as will happen to so many of us, you are absolutely furious, and you become furious with the people around you. You become furious with your life. You can't believe this horror has happened to you. It's a contingent, random thing that's happened to you just out of the blue, you know, I'll give you some examples. When I was in hospital in, in North London, in the, in the rehab, I was on a ward of accidents. Everybody on the ward had had an accident. One guy had dived into an empty swimming pool by mistake. Another guy had fallen down the stairs while drinking a glass of wine. Another guy had fallen over his rake in his garden and just tripped over it and fell down and broke his neck and was paralyzed. So we all had these random, rather contingent accidents which suddenly, in a moment, completely change your life forever, and there's no going back. That is absolutely enraging. You think, you know, why couldn't I have been doing something else at that moment? You know, why did that moment occur to me? Why have I been chosen? What have I done wrong? You go through all these terrible, awful thoughts about who has done this to you and why it's happened, and it makes you an angry person. So I think there are moments, quite rightly, where you deserve to feel angry, but it's tough on the people around you.

[Terry Gross]

If you're just joining us, my guest is screenwriter, novelist and playwright Hanif Qureshi. His new memoir is called Shattered. It's about the year he spent in hospitals after the fall that injured his spinal cord, leaving him unable to move his arms and legs. We'll be back after a short break. I'm Terry Gross, and this is FRESH air.

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[Terry Gross]

Your father was an immigrant, and I want to get into that a little bit later, but I just want to talk about the contrast between the racial ethnic aspects of the hospital in Italy where you had your accident and in London, the hospitals you eventually moved to. Because you're from London, your partner's from Italy. So in Italy, just about everybody who worked in the hospital was white. When you went to hospitals in London, all the therapists and nurses, they were all people of color, often immigrants. And you were the only person here who speaks standard Middle English, was you?

[Hanif Qureshi]

When I was in Rome, in the hospital, everyone was white. You never saw a person of color. It's the only monocultural country, Italy, really, in Europe. And Isabella says that I'm wrong about that, that it's beginning to change, but I didn't see any people of color in the hospitals in Italy, really. And then of course, you come to London around the corner from here, where I am in West London. And obviously the whole of our huge NHS is run by people from all over the world. And it's just incredible to lie in bed to be changed and washed by someone. And you have these incredible conversations with somebody from Africa, from the Philippines, from, from South Africa and India, Pakistan and so on. It's incredible stew and great multiracial, multicultural society. But one of the things you become aware of, certainly in these British hospitals, is our dependence in Britain on immigration on other races. That the place, the hospitals, none of it. It wouldn't function at all without immigration, even recent immigration, to be honest. There were a lot of people who had recently come from the Philippines, people who'd come from Africa and so on. And I began to realize that since we had Brexit, which was the breakup with Europe, that we were now importing people from other parts of the world in order to run the nhs.

[Terry Gross]

That's the National Health Service.

[Hanif Qureshi]

Yeah, that's indeed, yeah.

[Terry Gross]

And in America as well. You know, in the us, so many healthcare workers, including caregivers and aides, are recent immigrants or, you know, immigrants who've been here for, you know, a longer time. Oh, and so many people who take care of children are also immigrants. And yet there's this strong anti immigrant feeling in America, as I'm sure you know, and I think in England as well. Right.

[Hanif Qureshi]

It's a terrible dilemma, really, for Britain, because originally our country was almost entirely dependent on the Empire. Before 1945, Britain had this huge worldwide empire from which most of its wealth was derived. And now, as a smaller society, we're entirely dependent on immigrants in order to look after a slowly aging population. And if you saw the hospitals and the care homes and the transport system and so on here, you'd see it's entirely run by immigrants. But of course, it's hated, that dependency by people and they wish to end it, to go back to being an entirely Caucasian society. But that can't happen. And so there's a kind of deadlock in British society between those who want to hate immigrants and the rest of us who realize that without immigrants, the nhs, for instance, would break down. It just wouldn't work at all. And the NHS and our social system is understaffed as it is. The nurses and doctors in the hospitals in which I spent a year were complaining all the time about they didn't have enough people to work there. So this is a real deadlock and a real problem because it's really fun to hate on immigrants. You know, people really enjoy it. They're the, you know, one group of people in society that you can hate. And it's an absurdity because they're the one group in society in which you're entirely dependent and without whom your society would go down into a darkness.

[Terry Gross]

Your father emigrated to Britain in the late 1940s from Pakistan. Was he from a Muslim family? My understanding is he was relatively secular.

[Hanif Qureshi]

My dad came from Bombay in India. He came from a Muslim family, but they were a secular family then. They were an upper middle class, wealthy intellectual family. And my dad came to England to study law. So many, you know, members of the wealthy middle class from India, like Gandhi and Jinnah and so on, great figures from India, they all came to the west to be educated. And then normally they would return to India to, you know, to run the country. But my dad met my mum, he got married and he stayed in the UK and wanted to be British. He wanted to be an Englishman, in fact, and he liked. He loved England and He always wanted to stay here.

[Terry Gross]

No, I thought he came from Pakistan.

[Hanif Qureshi]

My family moved to Pakistan after partition. All my many uncles and aunts and cousins and so on, they moved from India to Pakistan to be safe in Pakistan, which is a Muslim state.

[Terry Gross]

Yeah. And partition happened in, was it 1947 when India basically divided into two with Pakistan becoming a new Muslim state?

[Hanif Qureshi]

Yep, that's the story. My dad came to the UK around that time. So he didn't go to Pakistan and he stayed in Britain, but he worked in the Pakistan Embassy and so became Pakistani even though he hadn't actually been to Pakistan. It sounds like an odd thing, but it's the case.

[Terry Gross]

I see. So what was it like for him and then for you as being his son, to be part of a new wave of immigrants? Is it fair to say England was largely white at the time?

[Hanif Qureshi]

England was largely white, but I think the immigrant ethic is probably like the immigrant ethic in the United States. You know, that you were coming to a new country and it would be a new start for you. It was a clean slate. You would get educated, you could bring up your kids. You know, Britain was a really civilized, well organized, law abiding country. And he just left the chaos of India, you remember, after partition. And my dad thought it was fantastic, you get a free education, you could go to the doctor, the dentist, you had the welfare state. There was a rising standard of living in the 1960s. There was the Beatles, there was pop. My dad saw it as a great opportunity for us, his kids, to do really well. Of course at that time in Britain, particularly where I was in South London, there was a lot of violence, there was a lot of racism. There were a lot of attacks on people like us of color. And we were terrified of that. And we used to run and have to hide and my father was frightened and so on. It was quite tough and rough. But on the whole, my father was really pleased that he had come to Britain and given us the chance as his kids to grow up in Britain and to do well. He thought it was a great opportunity for us and he believed that I, his son, could become a significant writer. You know, that the world was our oyster. There were opportunities in Britain and to be honest, he was right about that. I mean, when I was a young man, there were not many Asian artists in. In pop or photography or in the arts, people from South Asia at all. And there were certainly no writers really, apart from Vs Naipaul, writers of color who are successful in England. But we changed it all. You know other writers like Salman Rushdie and of course Zadie Smith and so on, and the whole scene has changed and open out now and there's been a huge unfurling of these really, really talented people from South Asia.

[Terry Gross]

Well, I want to thank you so much for talking with us and for sharing so much of your life.

[Hanif Qureshi]

Beautiful questions. I really enjoyed it. Thanks.

[Terry Gross]

Hanif Qureshi's new memoir is called Shattered. The streaming service Britbox has a new mystery series called Ludwig, starring David Mitchell as a very improbable yet effective investigator. Our TV critic David Biancooli says everything about this new series is charming, surprising and delightful and refreshingly lighthearted. Here's his review.

[David Biancooli]

In the us, murder mystery series built around eccentric but intrepid investigators have been around forever, and the best of them, from Columbo to Sherlock, have made an indelible mark on TV history. Currently we have such shows as Elsbeth Matlock and Only Murders in the Building, all of which playfully present crimes solved by people with unusual but ultimately lovable personalities. A new BritBox import, a mystery series called Ludwig, is even lighter and flat out fun to watch. Created and written by Mark Brotherhood, it arrives with one of the most original and captivating variations on the entire TV mystery genre. Here are the basics. Two very intelligent children, identical twins John and James, grow up sharing their youth with a best friend, Lucy. After the twins are traumatized by the sudden abandonment by their father, their lives take different paths. James becomes a police inspector and marries Lucy. John, who's got just as keen a mind but has become isolated and reclusive, ends up designing and publishing all sorts of puzzles. And then, after John goes missing while working on a case, Lucy contacts his twin brother, her old friend, and begs him to visit her. When he does, she hits him with a very bizarre request. John is played by David Mitchell from Peepshow. Lucy is played by Anna Maxwell Martin from Good Omens.

[Character from Ludwig]

Which brings me to the big favor, Lucy.

I'm not sure.

Just okay, so I went into his home office looking for clues as to what he might have been working on, and there's nothing. He's been hidden in there for two months now. Nothing to show for it. Now, either he took his files and tatty orange notebook with him, or it's in his other office, the one at the police station. Now, I can't access that. In fact, the only person that can is James or somebody who looks remarkably like him. No, it's nothing. It's easy. It is in and out.

Are you.

No, absolutely not.

I've been there. I know the layout. You won't have to talk to anybody, really.

And if they talk to me, just.

Stick to small talk. Just keep walking.

What small talk? Have you heard my small talk? This, right now is about as good as it gets.

But I've met most of his colleagues. I mean, I can brief you on all of them. Certainly enough to get you through a piddly little visit to the office. Just there and back.

Lucy, stop. That would be illegal.

[David Biancooli]

Reluctantly, John goes to the police station, pretending to be his brother. But before he can look for clues there, he's taken to a nearby office building, the scene of a freshly committed murder. The only possible suspects, the ones still on site, are isolated in a conference room. And John, whom his colleagues think is James, is expected to crack the case. At first he freaks, but then he imagines it as a type of puzzle, his specialty, and starts writing things enthusiastically on a whiteboard, running down the variables.

[Character from Ludwig]

Okay, so what we're looking at here is a concatenation of syllogisms, obviously a series of statements and propositions, one of which will be false, but which we can weed out via a process of cross reference and deductive reason. It's a logic puzzle. In this room, we have seven subjects or suspects. I will label you A to G for simplicity. Three definitive facts presumably connected the fire door alarm, the phone call, and the murder itself. I'll label then one to three. Plus, of course, the alleged movements of everyone in this column within the time scale of the factual events contained in this one, which we'll put into a third column of seven T to Z. So C was exiting the elevator in the foyer at the same time as D was leaving by the front. Both statements confirm the other, which means that neither C nor D could have been present at factual events one and two. So we can cross those off, which naturally means we can also put crosses here and here and here, since this dictates that A and E could not have been present at at that location at that time, or else they would have crossed with C or D. Do you follow?

[Hanif Qureshi]

No.

[David Biancooli]

The first season of Ludwig contains six episodes which show John continuing to impersonate his brother while trying to solve his disappearance. He's also faced with a different murder case or different puzzle each week, which he tackles while working with and fooling his colleagues. It's a strong ensemble, led by Dipo Ola as his new partner, and Garen Howell, who plays Dennis Whitaker on the pit as a young member of his team. And the guest stars are valuable, too, especially the great Derek Jacoby in a later episode. For Ludwig to work, the mysteries have to be clever, the clues have to be credible but not obvious, and their performances have to be enjoyable. Check, check, check. As John and Lucy, David Mitchell and Anna Maxwell Martin are loads of fun, especially when they're together, and the style of the show is infectious and almost musical. The series is called Ludwig for a reason, which it reveals in time, and that connection allows for plenty of music from the Beethoven canon, which is heard often and winningly from start to finish. Ludwig is a winner, and I'm happy to report it's not really finished yet. The producers already have committed to a season two, which makes me smile almost as much as watching Ludwig.

[Terry Gross]

David Biancooli is a professor of television studies at Rowan University. He reviewed Ludwig, which is now streaming on BritBox. Coming up, New York Times reporter Clay Risen talks about his new book, red blacklists, McCarthyism and the making of Modern America, and he describes the through line from that era to our own Terry I'm Terry Gross, and this is FRESH AIR Weekend.

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[Terry Gross]

This is FRESH AIR weekend. I'm Terry Gross. Dave Davies has our next interview.

[Character from Ludwig]

Here's Dave In 1949, a Republican activist named Suzanne Stevenson formed an organization called the Minute Women of the USA to fight what she perceived as the creep of Soviet communism in America. The group would attract tens of thousands of members, and they were told to meet in small cells and appear as individual concerned citizens when they wrote letters or heckled liberal speakers or packed a city council meeting to oppose public housing. The story of the Minute Women is one of many told in a new book by our guest journalist and historian Clay Risen. Risen examines the frenzy of anti communist activity that swept the nation after the Second World War, most often associated with the Hollywood blacklist and the relentless and mostly unfounded charges of communist infiltration leveled by Wisconsin Senator Joe McCarthy. Risen describes the red baiting hysteria of the period in colorful detail, and he writes that there's a through line to be found from that era up to our current political moment. Clay Risen is currently a reporter and editor at the New York Times, now assigned to the obituary's desk. And he's the author of eight books, some about American history and some about whiskey. Before writing obituaries, Risen was a senior editor on the Times 2020 politics coverage and before that an editor on the Opinion desk. His new book is red blacklists, McCarthyism and the making of Modern America. Clay Risen, welcome to FRESH air.

[Clay Risen]

Thanks for having me.

[Character from Ludwig]

There's a lot of detail in this book, but there's also a big picture sense of what was really happening with this outbreak of anti communist fervor. And one of the strands you say was a culture war, a long simmering resentment among conservatives about the changes that had taken place in the nation with the New Deal, you know, new rights for organized labor, the beginnings of the Social Security system, et cetera. Roosevelt was enormously popular really, as the result of these programs. What were the greatest objections to those changes and what form did the opposition take?

[Clay Risen]

Yeah, I think it's important to remember that the New Deal was more than just a set of policies. It was a whole culture that was ushered in in the 1930s, one that was broadly progressive, cosmopolitan, pluralist. You saw rights advances for all sorts of people who up until then really hadn't had a chance. And, you know, the opposition was economic. There were certainly a lot of people who criticized Roosevelt on, you know, tax policy, regulation. You know, this tended to come from the usual suspects. But there was also a lot of cultural opposition, a lot of anger over the idea that America was moving away from a society that was rooted in they didn't say it this way, but a white patriarchy in a kind of vision of a small town America in a fundamentally religious, Christian, Protestant worldview. And this was all linked together for a lot of people, for a lot of critics, that it was both. There was this culture, but there was also this economic change and government assertion going on through the New Deal. And so it became exacerbated or sort of blown up into, for some people, a monster that was taking over all of America.

[Character from Ludwig]

Right. So you had that thing going on. There's this people who were angry, felt that they had been pushed aside, left out, that their way of life was ignored and replaced with something alien. The second strand you cite, of course, is the emergence of the Cold War and the fear of the Soviet Union. And that was connected to a communist presence in the United States. And we should note that, you know, while Soviet style communism is discredited among Americans today, it was different in the 30s and 40s, right?

[Clay Risen]

Yeah, absolutely. And another aspect of the 1930s that was both motivating for a lot of people, but also ceding a backlash was that the left was very fluid. So that you had people toward the center as well as people on the far left, on the Communist Party and other radicals who saw themselves as part of a united front, a popular front. And whether that was in foreign policy, domestic policy, there was a sense that we're all working on this together. And so there was a lot of cross mixing. And that became a problem for the people who then went into government jobs. And after the war, when communism started to be seen as this threat, suddenly any affiliation that they may have had a decade earlier became this scarlet letter that could be used as a way of targeting them and blacklisting them, whether they were in the government or education or in Hollywood. I mean, name an industry or a sector. And there was an element of the Red Scare going on. But also to your point, I mean, one of the reasons why the Red Scare happened when it did was that as much as there was a sentiment against New Deal America, New Deal culture in the 30s, it really didn't find a purchase. Roosevelt was very popular. The Depression was on, then the war was on. And it was really only after that, when a lot of people wanted to get back to normal. There was a lot of fear over not being able to do that because of the communist threat abroad. And so it was sort of a ripe moment for opportunists and ideologues to pick up that culture conflict of the 30s and give it this injection of real fear of another world war.

[Character from Ludwig]

You know, I often think of the excesses of, you know, the Red Scare as being driven by, you know, congressional hearings, people demanding loyalty statements and the like. But Harry Truman, the Democratic president who followed Franklin Delano Roosevelt, was actually pretty active on this front as well. Tell us why he embraced this idea of, you know, asking citizens to commit to loyalty oaths and the like, yeah.

[Clay Risen]

Truman, when he came into office, it was at the tail end of World War II. One of the first things he had to do was decide to drop the atomic bomb and then deal with Stalin. I mean, he was thrown right into the deep end. And there was an immediately obvious need to reinforce Europe, to commit billions of dollars to shoring up their economies and societies so that the Soviet Union couldn't continue its press westward and take over more countries than it had. And there was a pivotal meeting with key State Department officials, key Senate leaders, in which Senator Arthur Vandenberg famously told Truman that, hey, I'll do what I can. I'm gonna help you out, but you have to scare the hell out of him, right? And essentially make Communism out to be the biggest baddie. And, you know, there was obviously strong case for that. And so Truman gave a speech to a joint session of Congress where he explained what was ahead and made out a very strong case for a maximalist assertion of US Effort abroad. But part of that was also talking about the limitless threat of Communism. And so then it became incumbent on him to. To do something about communists domestically. And here he was sort of in a trap because he didn't really believe there was much of a threat. But there were particularly Republicans and conservative Democrats in Congress who did say there was a domestic threat, and J. Edgar Hoover said there was a threat. And truth be told, there was very good evidence that there had been espionage in the US Government. Turned out to be true, that the Soviets were funneling money through the Communist Party. So Truman implemented the loyalty oath largely because he thought it would be a sop to these folks and wouldn't do anything. It wasn't a big deal. He was wrong in that.

[Character from Ludwig]

You know, some of the most memorable sounds and images of the Red Scare comes from hearings on the movie industry. You know, these hearings were extensively covered by the media. And, you know, you can see the film of this and, like, reporters jammed all around the witness table, you know, right in the faces of the witnesses. And, you know, TV coverage wasn't really a thing yet. But back then, movies in theaters would often, before the movie is shown, open with newsreels of, you know, stuff going on. And hearings of the House UN American Activities Committee appeared in them, which is why some of this film footage is preserved. And I thought we would listen to a little clip here. This is a piece of testimony from Hollywood screenwriter Howard Lawson. Let's listen.

[J]

Are you a member of the Communist Party, or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party? The Question of Communism is in no way related to this enquiry, which is an attempt to get control of the screen and to invade the basic rights of Americans. The question here relates not only to the question of my membership in any political organization, but this committee is attempting to establish the right which is historically denied to any committee of this sort. We're going to get the answer to that question if we have to stay.

[Character from Ludwig]

Here for a week.

[J]

Are you a member of the Communist Party or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party? It's unfortunate and tragic that I have to teach this committee the basic principles of Americanism. That's not the question. The question is, have you ever been a member of the Communist Party? I am framing my answer in the only way in which any American citizen can frame his. Then you denied his. Absolutely invades. Then you deny to you. You refuse to answer that question. Is that correct? I have told you that I will offer my beliefs, my affiliations to the American public and they will know where I stand, as they do from what I have written. Stand away from the stand for Americanism for many years, and I stand away from the stand for the Bill of Rights, which.

[Character from Ludwig]

And with about 35 raps of the gavel there. Boy, intense stuff. This is the House UN American Activities Committee. Howard Lawson, who himself was actually a member of the Communist Party, right?

[Clay Risen]

He was, he was. And that's why. Well, I mean, I think he stood on principle, but everyone knew what the answer was. He wasn't a secret Communist. Everyone knew that he was in charge of the Communist Party in Hollywood, but he refused to answer on principled grounds.

[Character from Ludwig]

Right. We haven't talked about Joe McCarthy. He was certainly the shining knight of the anti Communist crusade. A senator from Wisconsin who made many speeches beginning in 1950, claiming to have lists of Communists in the State Department or the Defense Department or whatever, but never really seemed to come up with much credible evidence. That run lasted until about 1954 when he was embarrassed in a. In a really dramatic Senate hearing and was then censured by his colleagues at the Senate. It struck me when I read, particularly the way he interacted with Republicans, that this in some ways reminds me of Donald Trump. Not completely, but, you know, the firing from the hip with accusations that he couldn't prove, and the fact that a lot of Republicans in Congress didn't particularly respect him, didn't think he was credible, but wouldn't challenge him.

[Clay Risen]

Right, Yeah. I think for two reasons. I mean, first of all, he was useful. He was willing to go after Democrats in a way that they didn't quite feel comfortable doing. There was still a real order of decorum in the Senate that he violated very clearly. And so you have someone like Robert Taft, who was the Senate majority leader, the Mr. Republican in the Senate. He would never do something like what McCarthy did, but he very openly defended McCarthy and coached McCarthy on how to perform. And, you know, he was just that guy who was willing to say things that no one else did and land punches. But at the same time, they were also a little afraid of him because if you turned against him, he would make an example out of you. You know, the best example of that is Margaret Chase Smith, who was a senator from Maine. And relatively early on this is in the summer of 1950, she gave a speech on the floor of the Senate and said, look, what he's doing is un American. This is unacceptable. And she got a few people to sign on. Ultimately, they all dropped out. And as soon as he could, McCarthy, I mean, McCarthy went after her immediately. But as soon as he got a committee position after 1952, she happened to be on his committee and he demoted her and sort of exiled her from any position of power. And, you know, that became a cautionary tale for a lot of other senators. And it took a long time before anyone was willing to stand up and say, this man is unacceptable.

[Character from Ludwig]

You know, it's a fascinating story that you tell here, and it did kind of have an end, right? It lasted about a decade, I guess. And there are really two things that seemed to help close the door on this frenzy of anti Communism. One was Republican President Dwight Eisenhower. What did he do?

[Clay Risen]

You know, Eisenhower is an interesting character in this story because he definitely, I think, drew a line and said, anything beyond this is unacceptable in terms of anti communist activity. And certainly McCarthy was in that beyond the pale category. But there were a lot of things that he did allow. And he had his own version of a much more aggressive loyalty test than Truman did. He also oversaw and reinforced what today is called the Lavender scare, in which anti Communism or fear allegations of subversion were used to fire hundreds of gay men from the federal government, mostly in the State Department. And so Eisenhower tolerated a lot of stuff that today we would look at and say, that's disgusting, that he would be for that. But he should get some credit for saying, and I believe that, you know, there was a point at which this wasn't going to go further. And I think, at least I make the argument that for him, he was trying to essentially just dry out the red scare and run it out. And that he believed, like Truman believed, that fundamentally the American people were not radicals. The American people are pragmatic, centrist, and that they would come to their senses with good, strong hand at the tiller, very straight and narrow leadership that he would provide. That was his idea. And he also, behind the scenes went after McCarthy. It took him a while, probably too long, but he ultimately did go after McCarthy and really cut his legs out from under him.

[Character from Ludwig]

We're going through a remarkable transition in national policy now with the Trump administration. And you write in the book that you think you see a through line from the events in the Red Scare to our current political moment. What do you see as the relevance of these events for us understanding what's happening now?

[Clay Risen]

Yeah, well, I think first of all, it's just basic parallels. We see a lot of the same animus toward ideas we don't like or that some people don't like. We see the same willingness to use oppressive measures to silence those views or to silence those organizations or people that we disagree with. And so it's a reminder that what happened during the Red Scare can be repeated. So I think there's that, but I think there's also something more causal in the sense that after McCarthy fell and after Warren pared back the tools of the Red Scare, there's a hard kernel of people who continued to believe in the cause. And these were people who funneled into groups like the John Birch Society and other sort of similar very far right organizations who believed that McCarthy was a martyr and that there was this cabal of anti American elites running the government. And that didn't stop just because the Red Scare did. And it pops up here and there throughout subsequent American history. And there's a through line you can even, you know, you can chart organizational relationships, intellectual influences through the Goldwater movement, through the Buchananite populist movement of the 90s. And I think very clearly you can see it today.

[Character from Ludwig]

Clay Risen, thanks so much for speaking with us.

[Clay Risen]

Thank you very much, Dave.

[Terry Gross]

Journalist Clay Risen spoke with FRESH air's Dave Davies. Risen is a reporter and editor for the New York Times and author of the new book red scare blacklists, McCarthyism and the making of Modern America. This episode of FRESH AIR weekend was produced by Thea Chaloner. FRESH air's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our managing producer is Sam Brigger. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Anne Marie Boldonado, Lauren Krenzel, Teresa Madden, Susan Yakundi and Anna Bauman. Our digital media producer is Molly CV Nesper. Roberta Shorrock directs the show. Our co host is Tanya Mosley. I'm Terry Gross.

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