What's Wrong with True Crime?

Summary

Podcast Summary: On the Media – "What's Wrong with True Crime?"

Host: Brooke Gladstone
Guest: John J. Lennon, writer, incarcerated at Sing Sing
Date: October 8, 2025

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Episode Overview

This episode tackles the cultural phenomenon of true crime media—especially the new Netflix dramatization "Monster: The Ed Gein Story"—and interrogates the impacts of these narratives on the individuals involved and the public's view of crime and punishment. Guest John J. Lennon, journalist and author currently serving time for murder, shares how his experiences both as the subject of true crime and as a prison writer prompted his book The Tragedy of True: Four Guilty Men and the Stories that Define Us. Through deep and candid conversation, Lennon and Gladstone explore how true crime shapes, distorts, and sometimes commodifies the experiences of perpetrators, victims, and viewers.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Allure and Proliferation of True Crime

• Netflix’s Monster series (Dahmer, Menendez, Ed Gein) underscores America’s obsession, with true crime dominating the platform’s most-watched content.
• A recent YouGov poll shows 57% of Americans consume true crime content; Lennon connects this cultural appetite with attitudes towards incarceration and punishment.
  • “Many of these people going to sleep to murder, they wake up grateful for all the prisons. They're like, 'Woo, thank God them little lifes are in prison.'” —John J. Lennon [06:19]

Lennon’s Experience as a True Crime Subject

• Describes being featured on CNN’s “Inside Evil,” expecting a redemptive arc but encountering graphic reenactments of his crime.
  • “Doing the interview, you have this idea in your head of how the interview went. And then watching the show almost a year later...it would cut to these reenactments of somebody playing me killing my friend and slow motion of the AR15, the bullets coming out of it. It was a lot to process because it was quite different from the context of the conversation I had.” —John J. Lennon [03:25]
• The experience led him to examine whose stories get told, how, and for whose benefit—fueling his motivation to write a more nuanced narrative.

Critique of TV True Crime

• Lennon distinguishes between exploitative TV true crime (e.g., Dateline, Netflix series) and the more introspective literary genre.
  • “True crime is the antithesis of the notion that we're more than our crimes. It turns back the clock and replays the worst moments of someone's life, reconstructs, reenacts it all for entertainment, usually by exploiting the people most affected by the violence.” —Brooke Gladstone [06:35]
  • Literary examples (Capote’s In Cold Blood, Carrère’s The Adversary) are cited as models seeking complexity and empathy.

Telling a Different Kind of Crime Story

• Lennon explains his narrative approach: meeting men in prison, exploring their backstories, and contextualizing their crimes without excusing them.
  • “I do it as I meet them in prison instead of just like learning about them through their crime.” —John J. Lennon [08:37]
• He affirms the importance of accountability, context, and not skipping the harm done—contrasting with traditional “crime or punishment” binaries.

Case Studies from Lennon’s Book

Michael Shane Hale

• Abused as a child, struggled with identity and belonging; killed his lover and has since shown remorse and transformation within prison.
  • “Shane was the kindest man I’ve ever met in prison...he used to sort of prep guys for getting out. ...That shows character.” —John J. Lennon [09:42]
  • “Michael Shane Hale was remorseful from the gate. He killed somebody he loved. He killed somebody he resented.” —John J. Lennon [13:21]

Milton E. Jones

• Experienced mental health struggles (schizophrenia), ostracization, and a violent family background; as a young man, committed a double murder but has since taken accountability and sought higher education.
  • “He was always accountable. From the door he held the hands of Ray, the younger brother of one of the priests that Milton killed in his life and looked into their eyes and apologized for what he did.” —John J. Lennon [13:42]

Robert Chambers (“Preppy Killer”)

• Media narratives dubbed him a murderer—though he was convicted of manslaughter, not murder.
  • “People are fast and loose with calling people murderers... the jury couldn't convict Rob of murder.” —John J. Lennon [15:04]
• Life shaped by addiction, repeated media frenzy, and a struggle to find redemption or even self-forgiveness; Lennon offers a more empathetic, complex picture.
  • “From one addict to another? I understood why he did heroin. Heroin is a big drug in prison. It helps you, like, not feel, feels the fear.” —John J. Lennon [16:32]
  • On Chambers’ self-perception: “I guess at that point I felt maybe I'm the guy in the newspapers, maybe they're right, so just leave me alone, let me go back to prison, let me get high and die.” —Robert Chambers to Lennon [17:52, paraphrased by Gladstone]

Writing as Reckoning and Remorse

• Lennon describes his writing as a means to process guilt, understand himself, and mentor others—insisting that honesty is essential.
  • “Before you tell the stories of others... you have to figure out yourself because there’s no other way to come to terms with that in here.” —John J. Lennon [19:49]
  • Prison writing workshops encourage men to truly confront what they did, not just present sanitized narratives for outside consumption.

Media Stories & Identity

• Both host and guest consider how relentless and reductive media stories can trap people in their worst acts, complicating the struggle for rehabilitation or self-acceptance.
  • “There’s not a happy ending to every story. That’s not what this book is. ...Some of us can’t put words to remorse.” —John J. Lennon [19:06]

The Future and Ongoing Storytelling

• Lennon reflects on the potential challenge of writing post-prison, acknowledging that story-finding is a journalist’s essential skill, and his perspective will keep evolving with his life outside.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the distortion of crime by media:

  “True crime just corrupts our cultural understanding of crime and punishment.”
  —John J. Lennon [04:51]

• On accountability and truth in storytelling:

  “I'm going to go in there and I'm going to explain it. And I use my own crime to do that, but only in furtherance of their crime. It's illuminating the stark spots that most writers and storytellers can't go.”
  —John J. Lennon [12:28]

• On writing as personal reckoning:

  “What writing has done for me. It enables me to figure out myself.”
  —John J. Lennon [19:49]

• On the endlessness of stories:

  “The story that swirls around me, the real story is the one that swirls within me. So when I get out there, there's so much conflict that's going to be with these stories and these people that come into my life...The story starts within you.”
  —John J. Lennon [22:48]

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Key Timestamps

• 00:26–01:00 — Introduction by Gladstone to the TV true crime boom, Monster series, and introduction of guest John J. Lennon.
• 02:20–04:48 — Lennon’s entry into true crime media and his reflection on the experience being increasingly at odds with reality.
• 05:53–06:19 — Discussion of cultural obsession with true crime and its broader implications.
• 07:19–08:24 — Differences between literary and TV true crime; influence of Emmanuel Carrère.
• 09:42–13:16 — In-depth on Michael Shane Hale and Milton Jones, their crimes, backgrounds, and transformations.
• 14:13–17:52 — Robert Chambers: media myth versus reality, impact of addiction, and personal struggles.
• 19:49–22:48 — Power of writing for self-understanding and for mentoring others; Lennon’s thoughts on his future as a writer.

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Tone & Style

The conversation is deeply introspective, honest, and compassionate, often frank about violence and remorse while also rigorously interrogating the ethics and consequences of crime storytelling—both for the subjects and the consumers.

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For Listeners Who Haven't Tuned In

This episode is essential for anyone questioning the ethics of the true crime genre, offering insider perspectives on the harm and humanity lost in sensational retellings—while honoring the complexity of the people inside the stories. Lennon’s testimony urges us to see those convicted not as monsters, but as complicated individuals whose full humanity is rarely allowed to surface on screen.

Transcript

[Ira Flatow]

On the Media supported by Progressive Insurance. You chose to hit play on this podcast today. Smart Choice. Make another smart choice with Auto Quote Explorer to compare rates from multiple car insurance companies all at once. Try [e-mail] Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates not available in all states or situations. Prices vary based on how you buy.

[Brooke Gladstone]

This is the on the Media Midweek podcast. I'm Brooke Gladstone. This week, Monster the Ed Gein Story is the most watched show on Netflix. It's a dramatized retelling of the life of the serial killer who inspired Psycho in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. There's something real dark about you, Eddie Keene. What did you do?

[John J. Lennon]

You're the one who can't look away.

[Brooke Gladstone]

The Monster franchise, which includes two earlier seasons about Jeffrey Dahmer and Lyle and Eric Menendez, is one of Netflix splashiest hits. The Dahmer season is still the fourth most watched English language show in the history of the platform. People love this stuff, and the obsession only grows each year on Netflix. Last year, 15 of the top 20 documentaries were true crime docs, compared to just six in 2020. But what does it mean for the subjects of these documentaries that Americans endlessly crave stories about murder and bloodshed? John J. Lennon is a contributing editor for Esquire and writes frequently for the New York Review of Books and the New York Times. This week he called me from Sing Sing Correctional Facility where He's serving the 24th year of of his 28 year to life sentence for murder, drug sales and gun possession. He recently wrote the book the Tragedy of True Four Guilty Men and the Stories that Define us. So how was it that he ended up being the focus of a true crime documentary in 2018 called Inside Evil with Chris Cuomo?

[John J. Lennon]

Well, actually, I had gotten a letter from the woman I knew at CNN and she had introduced me to her colleagues and I was telling my brother about this. He's like, Colombo, he's got that show on cnn and he's like, it's called Inside Evil. I was like, what? So when I went down to the visit, they were like, no, no, no. First season it was just called Inside. The second season is called Inside Evil. We're going a different route. We're telling stories of redemption. So a couple weeks after that, when they came up for the filming, that's not what it was. And to be fair to Chris Cuomo, he did level with me that this is the show. I had the governor's brother in front of me. What am I going to just like walk out and give him my back. So I told and look, he gave me a fair shake. For anybody on that show. I was introduced to the dark side of the media.

[Brooke Gladstone]

You saw your crime being reenacted on that show. There was definitely a dark side, another side to him. Alex was shot about 18 times.

[John J. Lennon]

He blew parts of his body off.

[Brooke Gladstone]

He's a killer.

[John J. Lennon]

Doing the interview, you have this idea in your head of how the interview went. And then watching the show almost a year later, it would cut to these reenactments of somebody playing me killing my friend and slow motion of the AR15, the bullets coming out of it. It was a lot to process because it was quite different from the context of the conversation I had, which was a vulnerable one I'd like to thank at times. Were you able to process it with regret? No, it wasn't regret yet. Regret comes when there's a possibility of getting caught.

[Brooke Gladstone]

He was captivated by the lure of the street.

[John J. Lennon]

He wanted to be a fuck. And then the tone, with certain answers that I would give, how proud I was of who I'd become and see those sort of juxtapose to the sister of the man I killed. Oftentimes she was understandably emotional. I just thought the editing was just wow. Just made me really emotional about what I'd done, the harm that I caused, thinking I was perhaps not as insightful about what I'd done, at least in the context in which it was rendered. The identity of who I was as a writer was put up against who I was as the killer. 18 years before that conflict was constant in that 40 minute show.

[Brooke Gladstone]

How did this experience lead you to this book?

[John J. Lennon]

First it was criticism. I just started thinking about the stories that others tell about us. I had an idea in my head that true crime just corrupts our cultural understanding of crime and punishment. And I wondered what I could bring to the genre. So I started getting the stories of the men around me. Not everyone is introspective about their crime, but some people are. There's not always a happy end. It's not always just grappling with remorse. But some people do. And what about them? I knew I had access to a lot of that. So I knew on one level I could tell a narrative story different from the stories that were told by traditional true crime tellers. And I knew I could be a trusted narrator for the reader because I was already doing that with my magazine writing. I say in the book, I didn't go out looking for true crime. I'm minding my business here, writing magazine features. About life in prison. True crime came looking for me, but they got the right one. And you did that with the right one because you saw me as a murderer. I'm talking to the producers, but you were talking to the journalists.

[Brooke Gladstone]

So there's a YouGov poll from last year that found 57% of Americans consume true crime content. So, you know, if 57% watch True Crime about murder and go to sleep watching it on tv, you were convinced that more than anything you wrote, this is what's keeping me and not just you in prison. True crime. How so?

[John J. Lennon]

Well, I have a hunch that many of these people going to sleep to murder, they wake up grateful for all the prisons. They're like, woo, thank God them little lifes are in prison. You could see it when you flip to CNN and Fox. Both sides are in on this.

[Brooke Gladstone]

This is from the book. The stories we tell about the worst of humanity are a reflection on all of us. True crime is the antithesis of the notion that we're more than our crimes. It turns back the clock and replays the worst moments of someone's life, reconstructs, reenacts it all for entertainment, usually by exploiting the people most affected by the violence. Victims whose wounds haven't healed, perpetrators who haven't reckoned with their guilt. This is the tragedy of. Of true crime. What we mean here is true crime on TV shows like Dateline or Inside Evil or Netflix. Not so much the literary genre, like.

[John J. Lennon]

Truman Capote's In Cold Blood or Emmanuel Career's the Adversary. Right to go more contemporary. They called that work the French In Cold Blood. He's probably the most famous nonfiction writer in France. 1993. Jean Claude Ramon kills his whole family. He's like fronting as a doctor for the World Health Organization. He wasn't a doctor. He would drive around all day and do nothing. Emmanuel Career was a novelist at that point. He was circling the story about how to get into it and ultimately put himself in the story. One of his most famous lines is how he opened the book. He said, while Jean Claude Ramon was killing his children, I was at the student meeting with my wife, with my kids. He does this fascinating thing where he occupies his own position and tells the truth about himself and doesn't really judge him in the way a traditional journalist would and look down on him. He tries his best not to. And I wanted to adapt that style, but with a different agency. And what I did in my book about three men who've killed, I'm able to put myself beneath Them.

[Brooke Gladstone]

It is remarkable how you weave what you did in and among the chronicles of what your subjects in the book do.

[John J. Lennon]

Right. Well, thank you.

[Brooke Gladstone]

Structurally, it's very interesting.

[John J. Lennon]

Structurally, I was trying to do something different than what traditional true crime does, was. I think structurally. Most true crime stories start in media, in the middle of things, usually at the crime 911 calls, it's police tape. But with me, when I start getting into the three Men, first Michael Shingale, then Milton E. Jones, and then Robert Chambers, I do it as I meet them in prison instead of just like learning about them through their crime.

[Brooke Gladstone]

It's a profoundly compelling book. You write with a great directness and clarity. And your engagement with these people doesn't lead you to excuse or in any way whitewash the gruesomeness of what they did. It can be quite graphic in places, but it is so contextualized. Let's start with Michael Shane Hale and Milton E. Jones. The first two share certain elements. They were dealt a God awful hand, they committed gruesome murders. They're in prison and they've changed.

[John J. Lennon]

Sure. So I first meet Michael Shane Hale in 2017. I used to run the yard with him. Shane was the kindest man I've ever met in prison. I call Michael Shane Hale Shane. I didn't know what he was in prison for. Eventually you get sort of drips. I remember a guy in my ear said, he's got like one of those crimes you see on Snap. He killed his lover, he dismembered his lover. He's gay, he's this, he's that. The prison rumor mill is kind of a lot like Internet, you know, has some truths, some untruths. I used to work with him in a building. He used to sort of prep guys for getting out. I remember sitting, you know, his classes, showing guys how to use Narcan, and he's serving 50 to life. I was like, wow, that's an interesting job for a guy to do that's probably dying in prison. That shows character. And then this happened to me with the whole Chris Cuomo thing. And he had empathy. He liked my work and I sat with him, learned his story. He was abused growing up in Kentucky. There's a very dysfunctional household. He joins the army at 18, he gets rejected there, and then he runs to New York City and he gets rejected there too. He never quite finds himself. He's constantly being rejected. There is a lot of domestic abuse, primarily in the relationship that led to the crime. And then we get to the killings and then we see his life unfold in prison, which is pretty impressive. Milton Jones At 17, in 1987, he kills two priests with his co defendant, Theodore Simmons. I meet him also in sing Sing in 2019. He's a classmate of Chains.

[Brooke Gladstone]

What do you mean, a classmate?

[John J. Lennon]

There's a master's degree program in Think thinkology. And by 2019, Shane was in it and so was Milton. One of the clerks told me there's a guy here that killed two priests, like years ago. Things like studying for theology. I was like, really? I want to know more.

[Brooke Gladstone]

You said he was ostracized too.

[John J. Lennon]

Well, he was ostracized too, because he suffered from schizophrenia. It was very difficult in this environment. And he had already earned, you know, a bachelor's degree, going to classes every day. He had his vices, but he also spoke truth and his sentences were declarative. And I was just like, wow, this is a character. This is an interesting guy. So I do the same thing with him. We meet in the cell block and take you to the scenes of talking to him. But then I drop back and I tell the story of his younger, more vulnerable years. He grew up in the rough side of Buffalo. His mother was 14 when she had him. He had some uncles that were criminals. One of his uncles got murdered when he was younger. I remember talking to him about getting beatings when we were younger. And he told me about his incident. I told him about an incident of my mom whipping me. And we both laughed because what do you do? You can't cry in prison. But, you know, the ones closest to us are the ones that introduce us to violence. Then we get to the killings, too. And I don't hold back with the killing because I think what happens in a lot of criminal justice writing is, is it's the opposite of the true crime. So the true crime, it's all about that. And then the criminal justice is all about the punishment. And it obscures the accountability and it obscures the harm we do to families. And I won't do that. I'm going to go in there and I'm going to explain it. And I use my own crime to do that, but only in furtherance of their crime. It's illuminating the stark spots that most writers and most storytellers can't go. None of these true crime producers can do that. And sometimes the criminal justice journalists, they won't do that. They don't think it's relevant sometimes to even talk about that. I disagree.

[Brooke Gladstone]

Can you tell me how they view their crimes now and how they feel about them.

[John J. Lennon]

Michael Shane Hale was remorseful from the gate. He killed somebody he loved. He killed somebody he resented. I'm talking about somebody who was 63 years old.

[Brooke Gladstone]

His lover when he was in his 20s.

[John J. Lennon]

Yeah, at the time his lover was.

[Brooke Gladstone]

Also abusive, but physically abusive as well as mentally abusive.

[John J. Lennon]

There's documentation that shows that.

[Brooke Gladstone]

What about Milton Jones?

[John J. Lennon]

Milton served much of his years at the beginning in attica in the 90s and that was tough. Attica's a tough joint. He killed two white priests and he's a black man. And Attica is almost an all white staff. Most of the prisoners are people of color. I mean, Milton had it tough and he was always accountable. From the door he held the hands of Ray, the younger brother of one of the priests that Milton killed in his life and look into their eyes and apologize for what he did.

[Brooke Gladstone]

So the person who stands apart from Shannon Jones is Robert Chambers, the famous one. He murdered an 18 year old, Jennifer Levin in 1986, was surrounded by an instant media frenzy, was dubbed the Preppy Killer Central Park Strangler by the press. As recently as 2019, three decades after he killed her, there was a five part docuseries called the Preppy Murder. So what kind of narrative did this true crime coverage superimpose on Chambers life on his character? How does it differ from the one you learned about?

[John J. Lennon]

Well, just your introduction right there. You said he murdered and then you reference the documentary Preppy Murder. Right. He was never convicted of murder. He was convicted of manslaughter.

[Brooke Gladstone]

Ah, right.

[John J. Lennon]

People are fast and loose with calling people murderers. They're so used to calling people murderers, the jury couldn't convict rob of murder. But I just corrected as a matter of fact, right I'm. Because they call it mens Rey. It's like I intended and I had that on my mind. And I knew what I was going to do when I killed the man I killed. That was unequivocal. I do not believe walking out of the bar that night that Robert Chambers had murder on his mind. He had his coat back at the bar. But something happened obviously where he did kill her, he did strangle her. And it was in the moment. And when I meet him, I moved to Sullivan, I landed in his cell block and we started living together. And eventually I asked him if he'd be open to sort of participating in this book. I shared my work with him and he said, I'd rather have you tell my story than whatever's out there. And if you want to tell the same story, Then that's just going to be the same thing that's out there. I assured him I was looking to tell something different. And what I was looking to tell. To answer your question, what does it mean to sort of live a life with the media telling you who you are? I had one instance where the media treated me, perhaps unkindly with this Inside Evil episode. And I was pretty bent out of shape about it. I mean, how do you really overcome who people say you are?

[Brooke Gladstone]

So how did your narrative differ from the tabloids and the documentaries? What did you tell the reader about him that true crime would have missed.

[John J. Lennon]

From one addict to another? I understood why he did heroin. Heroin is a big drug in prison. It helps you, like not feel, feels the fear. Prison is fearful. And what happens is if you don't eventually get sober, you don't grow. Ultimately, that's what Rob's biggest problem was. He could not really get sober. And that's what I observed with him. I was trying to show what this looked like on a day to day level with Rob. Look, it's a difficult character. When we think of story, we think of a sympathetic character trying to overcome a complicated situation, which is prison. You know, may not want to pick Robert Chambers. I mean, I had colleagues, women, tell me, like, be very careful.

[Brooke Gladstone]

Yeah, I mean, he sounds like a journalist's nightmare. He was both a willing and an unwilling subject, sometimes entirely unresponsive. Do you think you were able to fill for readers some of the missing pieces of his character, like what he did in prison?

[John J. Lennon]

So along the way he had learned sign language. I see him helping men that were hearing impaired, were deaf, they were always going to rob. I wanted to capture those moments too, because I think that's part of the story. I'm also tough with him with questions when reflecting back on what happened that night with Jennifer. And I wasn't satisfied with his answers.

[Brooke Gladstone]

He had trouble expressing remorse. You've said that one of the heartbreaking moments in the book is when he goes back to prison with a 19 year sentence for drugs in 2008. He's surrounded by another media frenzy. And he told you. I guess at that point I felt maybe I'm the guy in the newspapers, maybe they're right, so just leave me alone, let me go back to prison, let me get high and die.

[John J. Lennon]

That is heartbreaking. You see that exasperation on him. Part of me was like, am I doing what everybody else is doing? What is the point of telling this guy's story? Even right now, as the book comes out. I'm thinking, like, who am I to drill this guy? I hoped that he would be vulnerable with me, maybe put some clarity to what happened that night. But that's not what happened. At the end. I see a guy that's broken from some of the themes that I've explored in the overarching theme of the book. Maybe in part, this is what happens when the media sort of tells you who you are. I just sort of end in this idea of how Rob hasn't been too kind to himself his whole life.

[Brooke Gladstone]

Are you projecting remorse onto him?

[John J. Lennon]

Perhaps? Some of us can't put words to remorse. There's not a happy ending to every story. That's not what this book is. I think that's the complexities of these characters. Right.

[Brooke Gladstone]

You told my producer, Candace, that writing for you is everything. It's the major conflict of this book and in your life, it's what brings you pride, brings the family that I hurt pain. It's what brings you shame. Am I the murderer or am I the writer? Perhaps I'm both. What is the most important thing for you, the writer? What do you want to accomplish?

[John J. Lennon]

Well, what writing has done for me. It enables me to figure out myself, I think, before you tell the stories of others, as a first person narrative journalist, you have to figure out yourself because there's no other way to come to terms with that in here. In 24 years, nobody that's worked for corrections has ever asked me, john, what do you do with what you did? Murdering a man? That's not what goes on in here. But it is what goes on on the page. It is what goes on between my editors. It is what goes on between men that I mentor.

[Brooke Gladstone]

Tell me about that.

[John J. Lennon]

Over the years, sometimes you come to people with a story idea and they don't want to be your subject, but they may want to tell their own story. Last year, I hosted a workshop at Sullivan. Nine guys attended. Seven of the men were published. One of the prerequisites is coming to terms with what you did on the page. Readers are not going to want to read what you have to say about prison if you don' sort of like, level with them.

[Brooke Gladstone]

And that helps them come to terms with what they did. That process.

[John J. Lennon]

I'd like to think, yes, there is that back and forth with, like, the first thing you put on the page that may not be how you feel. Scrap that. That sucks. That's not how you feel, right? Is that. No, let's go back and forth. Let's. Let's talk about this. Like, I killed a man too. Like, what do we do with that? Like, I do this with them because my editor has done this with me. I remember when I was working on my first piece for the New York Review of Books and I was writing about Jack Henry Abbot and had a phone to take with him.

[Brooke Gladstone]

He is the man who was profiled by Norman Mailer, which is said to have helped get him out of prison.

[John J. Lennon]

Well, he was mentored by Norman Mailer. He had went back and forth writing him letters. And that's what Jack Abbott's book was about, the belly of the beast. And Norman Mailer helped, sort of advocated for him to get out in 81. And six weeks later, Jack Abbott killed a night manager in lower Manhattan. I stabbed him. So this is like an albatross on the neck of prison writers. My first draft was just. It was angry. I was so bothered by this guy. And I remember my editor saying, john, I want you to rewrite this with poised ambivalence.

[Brooke Gladstone]

Poised ambivalence?

[John J. Lennon]

Yeah. Like don't come to him thinking you got all the answers and have a little grace with him. Drop your resentment and just take another whack at it. Right? You haven't dealt with reentry. He made some good points. It's these sort of back and forths that help me grow in that essay, get to my own reckoning with my crime, how I feel about it. These are the back and forth duelists, the men I mentor. So that's what writing does.

[Brooke Gladstone]

This just occurred to me, John, you're eligible for parole in 2029, correct? If you get it. Do you worry that to use a business word, that your value added special insight will no longer be applicable? What will you write about?

[John J. Lennon]

Oh, I hate that question.

[Brooke Gladstone]

Oh, well, you don't have to answer it. You really don't.

[John J. Lennon]

I want to answer it because the ability to find story is the most important thing for any journalist. And I look at the world as a story arc. I look at my experience and it's before prison and I've been in the total institution for much of my life. To your point, I'm institutioned out. Then there's the reentry part, right? And there's a lot of conflict. Look what we just talked about. With habit, he couldn't figure it out. But the story that swirls around me, the real story is the one that swirls within me. So when I get out there, there's so much conflict that's going to be with these stories and these people that come into my life and I lean into that. What is it like to experience a true Crime Cruise with CrimeCon? And the stories are endless. They don't stop. The story starts within you.

[Brooke Gladstone]

John, thank you so much.

[John J. Lennon]

Oh, thank you.

[Brooke Gladstone]

John J. Lennon authored the recent book the Tragedy of True Four Guilty Men and the Stories that Define Us. He's also a contributing editor for Esquire and writes regularly for the New York Review of Books and the New York Times. He's currently incarcerated at Sing Sing Correctional Facility, eligible for parole in 2029.

[Ira Flatow]

I'm Ira Plato, host of Science Friday. For over 30 years, our team has been reporting and high quality news about science, technology and medicine. News you won't get anywhere else. And now that political news is 24 7, our audience is turning to us to know about the really important stuff in their lives. Cancer, climate change, genetic engineering, childhood diseases. Our sponsors know the value of science and health news. For more sponsorship information, visit sponsorship.wnyc.org.