← The Political Scene | The New Yorker
The Political Scene | The New Yorker
A Master Class with David Grann
00:33:21
The author of “Killers of the Flower Moon” and “The Wager” on his writing and reporting process, and adapting his work to the screen.
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- [00:00]
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- [01:17]
David Remnick
This is the political scene and I'm David Remn. There's my man.
- [01:27]
David Grann
Hey, how are you? How are you? I'm good. Good to see you.
- [01:31]
David Remnick
The New Yorker, over 99 years, has been privileged to publish a lot of astonishing writers of nonfiction, and David Grant is certainly among the best. And yet David's work lately has become as popular as it is great. Killers of the Flower Moon has held a spot on the bestseller list for almost two years running, and a film version directed by Martin Scorsese, opens in theaters next month. David's latest book, the Wager, also hit number one this summer, and it's been sold to the very same Martin Scorsese for a movie as well. And at the same time, I can report from long years together as friends and colleagues that success has not spoiled David Grann. No one I know is less complacent about his work less. And no one I know is less self satisfied. His urge to find unique stories and tell them with rigor and style is rare to the vanishing point. And David has worked like crazy to get where he is today.
- [02:33]
David Grann
I had been wanting to write for the New Yorker for a long time to write these kind of unusual narratives that I like to do. Eccentric topics, and in my usual style, I was terrified to do so. So it took me about 10 years to work up the courage to pitch a story. And I wanted to find a. That I couldn't fall on my face on. And so I kept looking. I kept looking, and eventually I found the story Old man and the Gun, which was about a serial bank robber who was also probably the greatest. Well, he robbed banks into his 70s, and then he was also probably the greatest prison escape artist in American history. Broke out of San Quentin in a kayak in which he painted on the side rub a dub dub. And I thought, you know. And he used a hearing aid when he robbed banks into his 70s. I was like, nobody can mess this story up.
- [03:15]
David Remnick
That story, the Old man and the Gun, was David Grant's first for the New Yorker, and it later became a film with Robert Redford. We'll talk about the movies a little later. But the foundation of David's success is his deep, almost obsessive writing process. So if you've ever wanted to write anything in nonfiction, get out your notepad, because in our conversation, David Grann delivers a kind of masterclass. So before coming to the New Yorker, you wrote for the New Republic, the Times magazine, even, if I remember right, a piece or two for the Atlantic.
- [03:49]
David Grann
That is correct, yes.
- [03:52]
David Remnick
What was the difference here? You seem to, if I remember correctly, and it's always been my impression the worst thing I could ever do to David Grann is go to you and say, could you do a profile of, I don't know, Donald Trump or Senator so and so who's in the news? That was just distinctly not your thing. But you had had a background in.
- [04:13]
David Grann
That was my background. You know, it's funny, you take the jobs you get as an aspiring writer, and my first job was at the Hill newspaper. I was actually hired as a copy editor. What they didn't realize is I'm not the best at grammar and I'm also partially blind. So the idea of me as a copy editor is a bit hysterical, but. And in that chaos as it is, I then quickly rose to executive editor there. But because of that first job, I just needed a paying job. I was always thought of as this political person and gotta cover campaigns.
- [04:47]
David Remnick
And you hated it.
- [04:49]
David Grann
Ish, ish, ish. I mean, I think that the truth is you need to love it so much to be able to penetrate the veil of consultancy and political speak and to get the inner story. And there are people who do it amazingly well. I didn't love it enough to want to spend all that time getting through press secretaries and consultants. You know, my idea or my dream of reporting is to spend hours with a subject, to disappear around them, to observe them in their job or their profession. They forget I'm even around. And the turning point really came when I was at the New Republic and I did a story on Congressman Traffickant. Probably many listeners will not remember him, but he had this crazy hairdo that stuck up on its head. He was a congressman from Ohio. We later learned that that was a toupee, but I never thought it was a toupee because nobody.
- [05:46]
David Remnick
That was the least of his problems.
- [05:48]
David Grann
Yeah, that was the least of his problems. And you never would think that anyone get a toupee that bad. So everybody assumed it was real because nobody would ever get a toupee. That just hard to believe.
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David Remnick
I'm wearing a toupee.
- [05:56]
David Grann
Yeah. And he was a congressman from Ohio. And I learned that he was being investigated by the Justice Department on allegations of corruption. And I made a trip out to Ohio to Youngstown, where he had been congressman. He was congressman of. And I went to a courthous and in the courthouse I found a transcript of a wiretap that was made by a mobster. And I'm reading this thing and suddenly, you know, the honorable gentleman from Ohio is talking about taking bribes from the mob, about people coming up swimming in the Mahoning River. He is dropping the F bomb every other word. And I'm just like, so there. I pierced the veil. I was just like, oh my God, this is not how you ordinarily hear the dialogue of D.C. and I thought, you know, these are the kind of stories I want to tell and these are the voices I want to get these real unvarnished voices. And it was also the first time I realized the power of archives. I really was like, oh my God. This transcript was just sitting around gathering dust in some box. Probably no one had looked at it for 25 years. And I was just astonished by what it said.
- [07:07]
David Remnick
I think it's hard to emphasized too much the degree to which it's become, if not impossible, but then impossibly difficult to write about anybody in American public life today who has a measure of fame, whether it's a pop star or athletes or politicians. And if I called you up and David, I'd really love you to do a profile Beyonce, I think all I Would hear at the other end of the line is click.
- [07:36]
David Grann
Yeah, it just wouldn't be for me because of that. I mean, if somebody was willing to really let you spend time with them to observe, I mean, then I would, you know, be happy to do it. Because it's not that these people aren't interesting often. I mean, sometimes fame doesn't correlate with interest too. I mean, that is, you know, when you cover athletes as you have, I mean, you know, one of the things you learn about athletes is, you know, the most, the best person is not necessarily the most talented, is not necessarily the most interesting on a team. They're not the most articulate or insightful about their craft. But there are people in these fields who are really interested. They're politicians or fascinating. But it's just penetrating. It is so difficult.
- [08:14]
David Remnick
Well, in the Devil and Sherlock Holmes, which is your collection of pieces largely from the New Yorker, there's a profile there of an athlete who was enormously, enormously famous in his time in the major leagues for the Oakland A's and the Yankees and so on. Rickey Henderson, a great base stealer. You were then seeing him, I think at the age of. He was in his 40s, late 40s, in not even a minor league team, but some off the radar something team. And at that point he comes before you in all his humanity.
- [08:50]
David Grann
Yes. And you know, it was interesting. Cause that was a story I had followed. Ricky Henderson, who is far past his prime, but was desperate to get into the major. And he was a very flamboyant player. He always used the third person, Ricky this, Ricky that.
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David Remnick
He wanted to get back into the.
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David Grann
Big league and he wanted to get back into the big league. And he'd been doing this for years. And I had actually, before I came to New Yorker, pitch this. And everyone was like, no, he's this moment's gone. Nobody cares about him anymore. And I thought, no, no, no, like this has such pathos. Like not only here, this pathos of somebody who had been at the very pinnacle of his career and is struggling with that great riddle of mortality which has just come so young for an athlete. I mean, 43 old for an athlete, but I mean, in his prime for most careers. And you know, what is that like psychologically? And he also, because there was no press, I mean, he was somebody who was surrounded by press in his career and we just blow them off. He suddenly was like, come on down. He let me sit on the dugout next to him because he was so lonely.
- [09:51]
David Remnick
So this always Struck me about you, David. You're getting better and better all the time. Who are you learning from? What are you learning from? What are you reading in nonfiction? That's that you said. Ah, ah, I need to pick up on that.
- [10:08]
David Grann
Well, I'm fortunate enough to work with so many great colleagues, whether it be, you know, Burkhardt, Bilger, Lawrence Wright. You know, you just pick up the magazine, you read these people who do it, and they do it so well. Larry's been doing it for a long time. Jane Mayer, as an investigative reporter, I also read a lot of fiction. You know, I tend to read more fiction for pleasure because I have to read so much nonfiction for work. And. And I'm, you know, just hopefully studying techniques of, you know, getting better with language and how to structure stories. And what I realized is, you know, as I did this more, is that you are an excavator. You know, you aren't imagining the story, you are excavating the story. The most profound revelation I had was when I was working on a story here for the magazine about a squid hunter. And that story came about in very funny circumstances. I was new to the New Yorker. I was, as I am wont to be, behind on my contract to produce a certain number of stories. I'm getting David Remnick looking at his watch when he walks by my office. And I'm frantically. At that stage, I had had a little boy, and, you know, you're worried. I knew you're worried about your job. Are you going to make it at this place you've wanted to be at? And so I was frantically calling around everybody I knew for a story ide. And I eventually called a friend of mine, and he said, well, why don't you look for the giant squid? That would make some news. And I really thought it was a myth. And then I got off the phone, I looked it up, and I said, well, sure enough, it was a real creature. And, you know, had this, you know, had eyes the size of a human head, had these tentacles that stretched as long as a school bus. And yet at that time, no scientist had ever documented one alive. And I thought, well, okay, well, that's interesting, but there's no story, right? How are you going to tell a narrative that would make a Wikipedia entry? But how are you going to tell a narrative based on that? Lo and behold, I then learned there were these giant squid hunters who had obsessively devoted their lives to trying to become the first to capture this creature. And then eventually I learned there was this Giant squid hunter in New Zealand named Steve Lusche, who was probably the most obsessed of all. And he had come up with this very novel idea. Rather than trying to capture the big calamari, as he called it, he was gonna try to capture the baby. It was only the size of a cricket. And then I went down to you, David, and to my longtime editor, Daniel Zaleski, and I may have committed that sin that report sometimes do in their desperation, which is to oversell a story. And I'm, like, talking about squid migration patterns. And I said, look, he's inviting me to go down to New Zealand, and he tells me, we're gonna make history. And look, I'll bring you back a photograph. No one's ever had a photograph. He's gonna capture this baby and grow it in captivity. We're gonna make history. And you looked at me and you said. And you said, all right, Godspeed. And so you sent me down to New Zealand. And the second I got to New Zealand, everything began to go wrong. I mean, just everything. I mean, you know, I got there, I took one look at the boat, and I really did think we were gonna be going in some Jacques Cousteau like vessel. And it turned out the boat was a skiff. I can't remember now. Maybe 16ft, maybe it was a little bigger. It had an outboard motor. He had basically. Steve o' Shea had basically bankrupted himself looking for the giant squid. And so this is all he had for this.
- [13:24]
David Remnick
I've flown all the way to New Zealand.
- [13:26]
David Grann
Yeah, to New Zealand and to capture this baby. And then his only crew was a graduate student who got seasick. And me. And then he turns to me and he says to me, I should warn you, mate, there's a wee bit of a cyclone coming our way. Great. And he wasn't exaggerating. There was a cyclone coming our way. There was a national emergency. The power soon went out, the hurricane. And I said, all right, well, we'll just wait it out. He said, oh, no, no, we can't wait it out, because apparently these are the things you learn on a journey like this. Giant squid only spawn at this period in New Zealand, so we gotta go now. So we head out in this little boat, and then he starts to aim towards the chute where all the oce ocean is funneling through, and he starts staying right towards it. I take my flashlight and I turn towards me. There's a mountain of water in front of us. I look behind me, there's a mountain of water, and the boat is Just sloshing about, jumping. And he turns to me and says, you won't find this in New York, will you, mate? I'm paraphrasing these quotes. And it was in that moment where I was truly wondering whether my captain was fully in command of all his faculties. But he manages to lead us out. And we start to drop these traps in the water. And we do this night after night, dropping these traps. He put me to work. You know, my favorite type of reporting is just to quietly observe. I'm the Joan Didion of a reporter. Just disappear. Instead, he put me to work. And so we're pulling these traps hour after all to no avail, again and again, all to no avail. And then about the fourth, I can't remember what night it was. But one night, about three in the morning, we pull up the trap, and the graduate student says, oh, my God, that's your dream squid. And Steve o' Shea puts his eye right up against the container and he's like, oh, my God, archae, which was the abbreviation for the scientific term for archaeuthis. And we have to transfer it into another container. Now, you gotta understand, we've been doing this for nights. We're exhausted. The cyclone has passed, but it's still rough. And as we're transferring it, suddenly Steve o' Shea says, oh, my God. Where the bloody hell did it go? And it had disappeared. We had seemingly lost it. And I looked at Steve o' Shea's face, a look of despair like I'd never seen before. And all I was thinking in that moment was a completely selfish slot was, I am dead. I persuaded my editors to fly me out to New Zealand. I'm behind on my contract. And what we. I've been out here for weeks. We had it and we lost it. There's no story. I was convinced through his actions, absolutely no story. And it was only later that it dawned on me. And it was such a. For me, it was such a learning experience. That was the story. I was staring right at it, and I swear to God, I could not even see it. That this was a story about an obsessed person who had devoted his life. He had his Grail, and then he lost it. And the pain and the anguish of that. The story wasn't this Hollywood fairy tale I concocted in my imagination, which is, oh, we get this, baby. We're so much less interesting. And so it just really taught me. It was such a funny, but it was such a profound experience to realize to always keep your eyes open to the stories you don't know how many of these stories, when they're unfolding in real time, are going to end. And it's often the most interesting ends are the ones we're not even looking for.
- [16:45]
David Remnick
David Grann, author of Killers of the Flower Moon and the Wager. We'll continue our conversation with him in just a moment. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour.
- [17:10]
Mint Mobile Advertiser
America is changing and so is the world.
- [17:14]
David Grann
But what's happening in America isn't just the cause of global upheaval. It's also a symptom of disruption that's happening everywhere.
- [17:22]
Mint Mobile Advertiser
I'm Asma Khalid in Washington, D.C. i'm.
- [17:25]
David Grann
Tristan Redman in London, and this is the Global story.
- [17:29]
Mint Mobile Advertiser
Every weekday we'll bring you a story from this intersection where the world and America meet.
- [17:34]
David Grann
Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [17:45]
David Remnick
David Grann is a staff writer for the New Yorker and the author of two nonfiction books that have topped the bestseller list this summer. Killers of the Flower Moon is about a harrowing case of multiple murders in Oklahoma of Indians whose land had suddenly become valuable through oil rights. The book was adapted to film by Martin Scorsese and the movie comes out this fall. Scorsese is also adapting David Grann's newest book, the Wager, about a shipwreck and a mutiny in the 18th century. David spent years in archives and on the high seas to tell that story. Sometimes you undersell the degree to which you throw yourself into a story, and I mean undersell it in the telling of the story itself. So your new book, the Wager, which is a story about shipwreck and imperialism and mutiny and murder, you in the furtherance of your story, which was all there in the archives, seemingly, you made a three week trip to God knows where off the coast of Chile to find this island where the mutiny and the shipwreck occurs. And that barely shows up in the book. You barely tell us you went on this trip except maybe a little bit in the acknowledgments, which I think is the coolest move I've ever seen. It is such a cool move. Tell me about that trip and why you don't include it in any real way in any full way in the Wager.
- [19:16]
David Grann
Yeah, it's interesting. So, you know, I think as a reporter and a writer, you know, you're always gnawed by doubts. I mean, I am somebody by nature. You know, what I eat for breakfast provokes doubts. But when I'm working on a story, the doubts can be quite, quite large and the doubts are Always gnawing at you. What don't you know? What more could you learn? I also. Even when people are passed so in the wager, these people are long since dead. I mean, it takes place in the 1700s. You always feel a certain moral obligation, I think, not to be pretentious, but a certain obligation to try to understand what these people went through. Your job is not to exculpate them or to overly extol them, it's to understand them and narrate what happened as truth as possible.
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David Remnick
And these are British sailors who have gone off to fight the Spanish.
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David Grann
Yeah, got off to fight Spanish. To chase a Spanish galleon filled with treasure, known as the prize of all the ocean. And everything. Talk about everything going wrong. I mean, it made my squid trip look like a piece of cake. I mean, they faced scurvy and typhoons and tidal waves and then eventually the wager wrecks on this desolate island off the coast of Chile. And after about two years, I had been combing the archives, there was a remarkable reserve of these primary materials that I don't know how they survive, but some survive going around the world, some survive shipwreck. They're water stained, the bindings are disintegrating, but you can go there, you can read them. You might need a magnifying glass, but you could really vividly reconstruct what happened. And yet I kept wondering, well, what is that island really like? One officer, British officer, described it as a place where the soul of a man dies in him. Which probably should have told me not to go. But I'm thinking it might have been a hint. It might have been a hint.
- [20:58]
David Remnick
It was Google Maps or something.
- [20:59]
David Grann
There were a couple. The other hint was that the place where the island is, where they wrecked is known as El Golfo de Peenas, which translates as the Gulf of Sorrows, or as some call it, the Gulf of Pain. That should have also told me. Another hint, another hint not to go. But in any case, I just kind of like, oh, I better go to Wager island if we gotta go. And then I look around and I start asking around and I find something. And eventually I find a captain who's in Chillaway island who has a boat. The captain slept by the whale of this boat, just on a cushion. The boat was heated by wood, even though it was winter. We had a wood stove. We had to chop wood to heat it. And Patagonia I had never been, which is partly why I felt the need to go. And if you go along the coastline, there are Actually, all these fragmented islands, it looks like someone almost smashed a plate. And if you stay between the islands and weave in those channels, you're actually shielded from the.
- [21:49]
David Remnick
As we learn from the book.
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David Grann
Yeah, from the brunt of the ocean. So this goes on for several days and my confidence is growing. And, you know, we would stop to chop down wood and then we would get water from glacial streams. We'd take a hose and we'd get. Coldest shower I ever had. It was like two seconds. And I did it just so I wouldn't stink. And I didn't do it every day. I was like, every three day I'll take a two second shower. But after about several days, as the captain turns to say, well, now if you want to get to Wager island, we're going to have to go out into the ocean. And we head out into the ocean. And that's when I got my first glimpse of these seas. And the boat was just rocking. It felt like a ping pong ball. And you were in the middle of it in the ocean. I was truly drunk on Dramamine. I was like. And the other thing which was kind of funny was you couldn't. You had to sit. You had to sit on the cabin floor because if you stood, you would, you know, you really would break a limb. I mean, you would just get chucked. So you had to just sit on the floor of the deck holding on. But you could. Obviously there was nothing to do for hours and hours. And so I had on my iPhone with me an audible recording. I was reading all of Melville back then. I had Moby Dick on my iPhone, which.
- [23:00]
David Remnick
So wait a minute. So some guy is reading Moby Dick.
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David Grann
To me while I'm sitting at a store? Yeah. And while I'm sitting at a store.
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David Remnick
Trying not to throw up and die.
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David Grann
The dumbest thing possible. Like I said, I'm not like, not very wise. I don't know why. But in any case, that was yet great novel in retrospect, not the smartest thing to do. And we get into the bay eventually and we were following in reverse, actually, the path that some of the castaways trying to get off the island had followed. And it was just really interesting. We passed some islands and the captain points to them and he says, that's Smith island, that's Hobbes island, that's Hurtle. They sounded very British to me. And I had some of the copies of the journals and I went and looked at them and sure enough, those were the names of these British castaways. Who, after one of the castaway boats had sank, they didn't have room for him in the other boat. And so they were abandoned on these islands. And so this was their epitaph. The captain didn't know why that was their names. He just knew that there was names. I just found that so interesting how history. We stand on history, and often we don't even know the history. But eventually we did. We got to Wager Island. We explored it. It remains this place of wild desolation, completely desolate. We found some wild celery on the island which the castaways had eaten, which had helped cure their scurvy, but there's virtually no other food. And, you know, being on that island, you know, it did actually really help me understand, you know, why that officer had described as a place where this old man dies in him. It really was. And so I don't describ this. I don't describe my own trip in the book because it didn't feel germane. My journey did not feel germane as a narrative unto itself. It felt distracting. And yet that trip and that experience did breathe life into my descriptions. My understanding of their journals, I mean, you want to describe the trees because in journals they describe things, but you can then see them yourselves. And you can see you can do.
- [25:00]
David Remnick
It with more confidence.
- [25:01]
David Grann
You could do with more confidence. And, you know, are they exaggerating or aren't they exaggerating? That was part of the thing. When they're always saying they were hungry, there's no food. I'm like, really? No food? You're starving. Can't you find any food? And I was like, oh, yeah. No, there's really. Yeah.
- [25:12]
David Remnick
And that celery is.
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David Grann
Yeah, the celery ain't much.
- [25:14]
David Remnick
One of the things that's been very striking to me in recent years is that not only are you seeking, it seems to me, as a reader, stories, but stories that have greater, you'll forgive me, political meaning. If I look at Killers of the Flower movies and I look at the Lost City of Z and the Wager in particular, they're telling me something about power, about imperialism, about the strong and the weak. And I wonder how much these sort of grander themes, these political themes.
- [25:56]
David Grann
Are.
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David Remnick
Part of your search.
- [25:58]
David Grann
Very much so, I think in a way, they're. I don't want to say the most important, but I don't want to do a story if it's just interesting or fascinating or even gripping. You really want it to illuminate something larger and tell you something larger about the world in which we live and where we come from. I'll just tell you quickly about, for example, about the wager, because I think that really illuminates that and why I chose to tell that One of the reasons I chose to write that book. I first came across a journal by the 16 year old midshipman on the wager. A man named, he's a boy then John Byron, who would go on to become the grandfather of the poet Lord Byron. I read this account, it was written in this old stilted English and I had just kind of stumbled upon it. And the more I read, the more I was held by it, the more I realized that this journal held the clues to really one of the more extraordinary sagas of survival, resilience and mayhem I had come across. That would not have been enough for me to then want to go write that book. But as I was doing research and going to these archives, I realized that what happened when many of the castaways got back to England, they were summoned to face a court martial for their alleged crimes. And they all begin to tell their story or manipulate their stories or shade their stories. And I was, you know, they'd be talking about disinformation and misinformation and I swear to God, allegations of fake journals. And then I was coming home and I was flipping on the news and we are living in a post truth world right now with people screaming about alternate facts and fake news and whatnot. And then I would go back to these archives. 18th century, dusty, weird, and they're having a battle over history. Who would get to tell the history? Who had the right to tell the history? If you weren't an aristocrat, could you tell the history? And also the empire didn't want to tell the true story. It wanted to whitewash that history. And of course I'm coming home and we're having battles over history. I mean, Killers of the Flower Moon, for example. There was a teacher in Oklahoma who was afraid to teach the book. So I just felt like, okay, this story has all these other dimensions. I'll find other dimensions along the journey, but it has these other dimensions. It begins to really reveal something and it feels deeply. I mean, I had no intention, it wasn't like I'm a naval historian to say, oh, I really want to tell a story in the 18th century. It was like the last place I wanted to end up in a way. And I didn't know anything about ships. I mean, naval ships, naval life. The story took me there and I Just followed the story. And the story felt larger than just its particulars.
- [28:43]
David Remnick
David, you've now become involved in a form that the story comes out of your hands. In other words, when you're writing your book, it's you. You are in control of the source materials. You're in control of the writing. If your editor makes a suggestion, you are, I presume, free to say, I think I'll stick with what I have, or not. You're in control. It is by David Grant now. Killers of the Flower Moon is coming out as a film by Martin Scorsese. And the Wager will one day as well. The Old man and the Gun became a film. You've had good fortune with this. And those aren't the only ones. How does it feel to have your book land in someone else's hands, even hands as capable as Scorsese's? And you're not quite in control?
- [29:33]
David Grann
Yeah, no. And you're not. I mean, you really have to accept that. I would say it's a learning curve, because I've never been in the world of Hollywood. I've never tried to write a screenplay. It's not a place that I've been drawn to, to do any kind of work. I really like what I do, and it kind of consumes me.
- [29:51]
David Remnick
What's your role on these films?
- [29:54]
David Grann
You know, it will depend on each production. Usually your role is as a resource. I mean, you're kind of a historical resource or archival resource, and it will vary. Some people will want you more, draw on you more. Some actors want to draw on you more in their methodologies and learning. Did this person walk with a limp? Oh, I want to hear his voice. Do you have anything in his voice? You can help me. Sometimes they might want to talk out a plot point to make sure it's factually accurate or to better understand it. So it's usually that.
- [30:31]
David Remnick
But what were your interactions with people like Scorsese and DiCaprio?
- [30:37]
David Grann
Working with them was pretty wonderful. They're artists, and it's not like these are people I spend time with, but in a lot of ways, it was like talking with an editor, because they're just, like, really just curious. They just want to know more. The production team would call me a lot with endless questions for research or material which I would send them. I remember once they asked me a question like, can you help us? What was the lighting here in the room? And I was like, I always thought about it for a long time. I was like, you know what? That's something I would not need to know. Writing a book. I have no idea what the lighting was like in this house in the 1920s. I know they had lights, but was it electric? But, you know, they're figuring that out visually. And, you know, with DiCaprio, you know, questions about just, you know, he was a voracious, just learner, wanting to know everything about the party, the person, the real person he was gonna play. To get back to your original question, you have to let go. I try my best, and I have been incredibly fortunate to get in the hands of people who actually know what they're doing. I have no idea how to make a film, and I don't pretend to know how to make a film. And I'm not actually interested in making a film. I'm really interested in these stories. And so I love that somebody else with their own vision and intellect is gonna draw on this story and add to our understanding of whatever this work is. And with something like Killers of the Flower Moon, I would say each project is different. Killers of the Flower Moon, you know, the challenge was so high. But one of the amazing things with a project like Killers of the Flower Moon was Scorsese. And everybody from the actors, you know, worked so closely with members of the Osage nation to develop the story, to shape the story. The Osage were involved in every element of that, from there are actors to those age. Language is spoken to bring that world into life. And so, to me, that was the most important thing in the project. It's not how they really adapt my work. It's how they're going to develop this piece of history and the Osage story that matters to me.
- [32:59]
David Remnick
You are now, David. How old are you?
- [33:01]
David Grann
I am 56.
- [33:03]
David Remnick
And when you look at the future as a writer for yourself, what do you see?
- [33:09]
David Grann
You know, it's interesting. It gets harder. Two things get harder, I think. Well, one, writing has never been easy for me. I've watched the way you write. You're a very fast writer. I know people are much more fast with this than I am. It's always hard for me. I think the hardest thing for me is stamina, you know, because these projects do take a lot out of me because I do these trips and because you want to do it and meet a certain standard. And so I think the biggest challenge, in a way, is I just. I'm happy to keep doing what I'm doing. It's just a level of kind of stamina.
- [33:44]
David Remnick
Do you see yourself like Robert caro in your mid-80s?
- [33:47]
David Grann
No. Dealing with Moby Dick Absolutely not. I know people don't believe it, but. No, I don't.
- [33:52]
David Remnick
You see yourself at a certain point going, you know what? Time to retire to the Caribbean islands.
- [33:57]
David Grann
I don't think I could keep up at a certain level, at a certain point. And there are things I love. Like, I mean, I love to read, you know, and so, you know, so, no, I don't think I will. I mean, people insist I'm completely lying, and maybe I'm lying to myself, you know, you never know yourself. That's the other great riddle. When you report, you're not only reporting about others, you're actually learning about yourself, and you often don't. And just as other people, your subjects don't know who. Who exactly they often are or the way they present themselves, you often don't know exactly who you are. So I say that, and I actually, genuinely believe it. But whether it's true or not, we'll find out. Many other people around me say it's not true, that my compulsions will continue.
- [34:36]
David Remnick
I'm hoping they will continue for a very long time. David Grant, thank you so much.
- [34:40]
David Grann
Oh, it's my pleasure.
- [34:45]
David Remnick
David Grant is a staff writer for the New York Killers of the Flower Moon. The film based on his book opens early October. Right now, we are living through some of the most tumultuous political times our country has ever known. I'm David Remnick, and each week on the New Yorker Radio Hour, I'll try to make sense of what's happening alongside politicians and thinkers like Cory Booker, Nancy Pelosi, Liz Cheney, Tim Waltz, Ketanji Brown Jackson, Newt Gingrich, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Charlemagne, tha God, and so many more. That's all on the New Yorker Radio Hour, wherever you listen to podcasts.
- [35:38]
David Grann
From prx.