Brad Meltzer on The Viper, Witness Protection, and Starting Over

24:18And I think it's like quicksand and things we used to think hurt us more. Like, it doesn't work like that. You can't just get a nose job and no one knows who you are. All of us are thinking of that person who got the nose job, right? But what I love about witness protection is that we all think of mobsters. And that's what witness protection was designed for, was to take down the mob, find the snitch inside the mob, protect their lives so we can prosecute these mobsters and take down the mob. And guess what, guy? It worked. It actually worked. But it's not like the mob did go down. You don't see mob hits like the way you used to see mob hits.

24:51You don't see that crime. It's still obviously there. It exists, but not at the level it used to. But it doesn't mean crime stops. things fill that void. And so for a while, yes, mobsters were the number one thing that was in witness protection. But then after when the mob went down, guess who it was? It was who filled that vacuum. It was gang members and gang members became the ones who were in the mob. And then after 9-11, we weren't chasing gangs anymore. We were chasing terrorists. So the number one people who were in the witness protection were hidden terrorists who were snitching on other terrorists.

25:23And now if you want to know one of the biggest groups that's in witness protection, this is true, It's accountants, right? Accountants. And think about it, this world we live in, it's data. That's who knows where the bodies are buried. It's not Jimmy the Nose who's put someone in a trunk. It's a guy who runs a spreadsheet. And so when you read the Viper, you get to see this world and how it works. And to me, that's the thing that I become. So I want to know how something's so secretive and then no one can know about, I want to know what's really going on. Based on your little prodding by reading the book, I too did some research on the witness protection program.

25:59And the Department of Justice says that they have 100 % success rate, but with this caveat, for the people who follow the rules. That's the thing. That's the hardest part. That's well said. What I said to them, I said, when does it work? And they said, it always works as long as they listen to us. And I'm like, which is a great way to self-congratulate, but it makes sense. And here's the problem. You're exactly right. And when you talk to the people in witness protection, if you say you can start your life over, you just got to leave everyone behind. That means leave your mom, leave your mother-in-law, leave your best friend, sometimes leave your dog.

26:38Sometimes they won't let you take your dog if everyone knows your dog. And that works for six months. It may even work for a year. But what they call it is that kind of that pull of your past. And eventually you start missing your best friend and you miss your mother and you miss your dog and you miss your friends, you miss your old life. And then you say, you know what, I'm going to make a phone call. I just want to reach out and see how everyone's doing. And that is when the bomb spirals down. And that's over and over and over. They will tell you that's the failure of witness protection is when they just can't help themselves.

27:12And yes, it's a hundred percent of the time, but I can tell you a hundred percent of the people are not doing it that way. Well, yeah. The statistic that I found is that there have been about 30 people murdered since 1971 who are in the witness protection program, and obviously they didn't follow the rules, right? And I will contend that number is higher simply because they don't want you to know it. The reason witness protection works is because you have to believe you're going to be safe, and you are if you, again, follow all the rules. But if you don't think you're going to be safe. They're not going to get people into it either.

27:48When I read that caveat, I said, so this is like, I go to Weight Watchers and I said, does Weight Watchers work? And they say, we have a hundred percent success rate if you do everything we tell you. That's it. It's a great ad, man. Give credit where credit's due. What a sales job, right? If you just shut up and listen to me, I will give you all your dreams. And that's, I guess I can't argue with it. I'm going to try that on my kids. I just don't think it's going to work. So knowing all you know about the witness protection program and the rules and all that, if a lay person, not somebody who's an accountant or a terrorist or a mob person says, Brad, give me some advice.

28:29How can I disappear today in this world? What's your answer? It used to be the hard part of witness protection in the past that was so easy in the past. What used to not see our past walking around all the time. In fact, we didn't even see each other. So someone new moved to town when you were a little kid. There's someone new in the neighborhood. We'll go meet them or maybe we won't. But in today's era, you can see what they paid for their house on Zillow. You can go on their Facebook page and see where they moved from. You can see who they're friends with. You haven't even met these people yet.

29:03You can find everything about them. You can see if they have a criminal record too. That's a computer click away. And I think that's what made it so hard for witness protection to figure out how when everyone has access to all this information, what do you do? And I think one of the answers is, it's not about getting a nose job. But it's about I think, really doing what they say, which is get rid of your old life, and truly leave it behind. I also think if I was trying to do it, I'd find a dead body, like I'd find some I don't want to just disappear. Because when if I disappear, someone's still going to look for me.

29:37Not me personally, anyone who disappears. That's now a podcast for your neighbors. They can go do something fun with it. I think if I were given the advice today, I would say fake your death. Fake your death and run. And I would say stay off phones, stay off computers. That's it. Lead a simple life. But people don't want to lead a simple life anymore. Yeah. I couldn't disappear. Yeah. Well, that's the thing. You think to yourself, there's someone listening right now that thinks I could disappear. And I would love to disappear and i'd love to have a brand new shot at life and that's again tantalizing but tell me that you can leave all your friends and everyone behind and you wouldn't miss anybody that's the hard part all right so now another my next brad melzer fascination for me is how the hell do you pull off so many different genres so it's not just a thriller it's non-fiction it's children It's documentaries.

30:37I'm like, how do you do all that? Just doing any one of those well is good enough, but you do five or six different kind of things. How do you pull that off? You're very kind. I personally just believe a good story is a good story. When I started writing, if you write thrillers, then you better write thrillers the rest of your life. I went to my publisher. I said, I want to write kids' books. I said, I know you always have these writers who then want to switch genres, and you feel like, oh, I got to publish this kid's book because he sells a lot of thrillers for me. So now I got to do that. So I said to him, don't take my kid's book unless you love my kid's book.

31:14I only want you to do it if you love it. And they said, oh, that's so kind of you. We don't love it. I'm like, what do you mean you don't love it? It's fantastic. And they rejected it. They literally rejected my kid's book. And here's the thing that I realized about myself, Guy, is when you tell me no, that's all I want to do. The struggle to me matters. If I can do something and do it again, I'm less interested because I already did it. But if you tell me I can't do it or it's impossible to do it, oh, forget it. That's going to be the next year of my life. And so the moment they rejected me and said, no, we don't want your kid's book.

31:46I put that kid's book. I found a different publisher. I went to a new publisher. I worked my heart out for it. And we did a book of heroes, of American heroes. And I can say, oh, I did it again, but it wasn't me. We put that book, I think we reached number two on the bestseller list. And they said, how'd you do it? And I said, it wasn't me at all. The only thing I realized is that I wanted to give better heroes to my kids. And I think there are millions of parents out there that want the exact same thing. We're all starving right now for good heroes. We're all starving right now for inspiration.

32:18So I did this whole line of kids books that gave inspiration to kids. And the only thing I knew the only thing that I think I'm truly good at is I know one thing I'm not that special and if I want that for my kids and there are going to be other parents out there who want it for theirs and that's what I've been doing so I did it in comic books I was like I like comic books I want to try that and I luckily got a shot and I did it with non-fiction history books and when I went to do television they were like novelists don't do television I fired that agent and I went to find an agent and said can I do a tv show and they said sure and then we got a tv show so I'm my goal is I'm not afraid of rejection.

32:53I don't mind being told no, but I will keep hacking at it until I get a shot. And if I get a shot, I'll pour myself into it. And to me, none of those stories are different. They're all the same thing. They're just stories. But some stories are better when they're fictional, like that detail about the orange, right? That may be a great detail that I can put in a nonfiction book, but I'm like, no, that's better for a fictional book. But I can find a story about George Washington that I can use in a fictional book, but I'm like, no, that should be a full history book for adults. And it's just me finding what is a story for?

33:22No, this story is for kids. I want to do a kid's book, but a good story is a good story. And as you live day to day, are you collecting these stories and snippets into one big database that someday you say, oh yeah, I can use that orange story in this book? Or is it? No, I didn't do it purposely or consciously. Some people are like, they're very conscious about the creativity, right? They build the habit and they make the list and they make the dream chart. I'm not like that. What I do notice is my best stories are the ones that I feel like I have to tell. So your favorite writers, when you read them and you always say, oh, I love their first book.

33:57And then it, I don't know, I don't like this other, this book. Like the reason you love that first book is because they had to tell that story. They weren't being paid for it. They weren't making money for it. They weren't famous for it, but they had to take time out every night, time away from their kids, time away from their family because they had to tell this story. And to me, that's what makes my books, for me, my best work is when I have to tell it. So I had a story. I remember I was doing thrillers and I found this story that was about a secret plot to kill George Washington, a real one, during the Revolutionary War.

34:30And George Washington found out they were trying to kill him. And this is true. He gathered 20 ,000 people and he hanged the person responsible in front of 20 ,000 people, the largest public execution in North American history. George Washington brought the hammer down, was like, don't mess with me. I am George Washington. I'm going to be on the money one day. That's a direct quote from him. But the truth was, is I put that in one of my novels. I told the story. One of the characters tells the story, hey, do you know there was a story about George Washington who was, they tried to kill him in the revolution where five years go by.

35:01And I'm still thinking about that story. On the weekends, I'd be Googling that story going, what happened there? And when five years, really for me, it's like two or three years go by. When two or three years go by and I still can't shake the story, I know that's supposed to be another project. And I couldn't shake that story of George Washington. And that became my first adult nonfiction book as I did the real actual story of that George Washington assassination. That became the first conspiracy. And it's because I couldn't shake it. And it's probably like I'm sure similar with an idea. Like when you find that idea that someone brings you and you can't stop thinking about it, to me, that's the sign you got to follow.

35:37Up next on Remarkable People. Pennsylvania band, I am Martin Luther King Jr. and I am Rosa Parks. It had nothing to do with the content of the book.

35:49Become a little more remarkable with each episode of Remarkable People. It's found on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Welcome back to Remarkable People with Guy Kawasaki.

36:27and then he staffs his cabinet. One person who's running the Department of Education used to run a wrestling entertainment center. The other one, you know, I got this guy from Fox and he's going to run the Department of Defense and rename it Department of War and he's going to shoot fishing ships out of Venezuela. And it's this whole story about this. And you basically told the story of what's happening now. Do you think a publisher would say, what the fuck are you talking about, Brad? Listen, man, if I went to my publisher, and I just even started with, there's a former reality TV show star who becomes president.

37:07My publisher would laugh me out of the office and say, no one will ever believe it. Like, I used to write about the White House. My thrillers used to be about the White House. I haven't written about the White House in 10 years. There's a reason. Because I can't top what is happening in reality anymore. But it is worth talking about, right? Because I think what we're seeing right now in reality, there's always things, guys, that we're going to disagree on, that both sides will argue about in terms of policy. But I think what we're seeing right now is a breakdown in common beliefs. And there are things you can't legislate.

37:37You can't legislate decency. But there are core beliefs we all have. When someone dies, you don't dance on their grave. We can disagree with someone politically but not attack them personally. You shouldn't be putting your name over JFK, right? On a building like you own it. And to me, that cruelty, that venom, that lack of humility that we're seeing right now, and this is, I think, both sides where it feels like an attack on the American dream. And to me, the American dream is not about money or power. The American dream is that when you see someone being picked on, you stand up and you use your voice and you say, enough already.

38:18My mother, may she rest in peace, taught me that you always make the best of yourself, but not by ripping apart other people and kicking them when they're down. And yes, I know I write fiction, but I think even in my fiction, I feel like we have to embrace the norms of society and realize that those norms and those values are breaking down right now. And that to me is something that's worth dealing with in my fiction, in my nonfiction, in my kids' books, in anything I work on is trying to give people back that inspiration was so desperately craving. Well, I am glad I asked that question. By the way, every thriller writer has gone to their editor with one of these ideas and every thriller I've been told, yeah, if you did it, they wouldn't believe it.

39:07It beats going to a movie producer saying, yeah, I'm going to cast Tom Cruise as Jack Reacher. Perfect physical match. So, you know, you're filled with conspiracies in all your books. So do you actually believe in these conspiracies? Are you a conspiracy kind of guy? Are you just making shit up? No, listen, when I started doing this, and we did our History Channel TV show, we did this conspiracy TV show called Decoded. And my goal was not to do a conspiracy show. My goal was to do a show about the truth. And when I got there, the History Channel said, on shows like this, the less facts you have, the more scary music you play.

39:48And I was like, oh, man, I never want to make that show. And I remember the first script they gave me was like, it was about the Freemasons. And they were like, they had me saying things like the Freemasons are after the team and I'm worried about their safety. And what are we going to do? And I was like, I'm not worried about the team. They're surrounded by producers. Everyone's fine. And I'm not saying this. And to their credit, the History Channel said to me, well, what do you want to say then? I said, I want to tell people the truth. And so we would tell on our show all the kooky conspiracy theories that were out there.

40:16And then at the end, I would come in and say, this is a lie. This is a lie. This is a lie. Here's the actual truth. And guy, you know, it kind of broke my heart over the years is all these people will come up to me and some would thank me and say, I appreciated that show for what it did in the end. But I can't tell you how many people would just, they didn't care what I said at the end. They're like, I love that part in the beginning. People see what they want to see and they hear what they want to hear. And they like hearing that story. And I think it's because conspiracies are mirrors and they mirror our fears.

40:44So if you want to know who killed JFK as a perfect example, okay, If you look in the 60s, you want to know who killed JFK? We thought it was the Soviets. We thought it was the Cubans. It was our great enemies at the height of the Cold War, the communists, right? If you look in the 70s, as Watergate breaks and we stop trusting the government, who killed JFK? Well, now it was an inside job. The government did it. It was LBJ did it. The CIA did it. If you look in the 80s as the Godfather movies peak, who killed JFK? It was the mob. So if you want to know who killed JFK, it's just whoever decade by decade America is most afraid of at that moment in time.

41:20And that's all conspiracies ever are. So I don't do conspiracies. I do the truth. I like the truth. And even in my fiction, as you see when we're talking, I will always try and find that truth in there and give it to you. I think conspiracies are just ways to make people feel safe in a really unsafe time. And I think we owe it to each other to not breed them because it's so easy to. Wait, why does a conspiracy make people feel safe in an unsafe time? Here's why. Because, and again, let's just stay with JFK for a moment. The idea that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone, okay? Or just, and again, just for a moment, just pretend whatever else you believe.

42:03Let's just pretend for one moment to think this one guy acted alone. what is scarier to you the idea that it takes one person to undo the entire universe or that if you want to do the universe it's going to take a lot of people and a lot of planning and all these different groups and all this different money and all this different influence it's so much scarier the idea that the entire world can be taken down by one person who just is like having a bad day and that's terrifying to people that's a terrifying idea so we create these kind of giant, there must be everybody. I mean, listen, look at the government.

42:39The government in DC can barely handle a snow day, okay? Much less keeping a secret for 40 years. And are there lies that the government tells? Absolutely. But it's not the government, it's people. People lie. The government's us. And they lie for very selfish reasons, private reasons, sexual reasons, money, power reasons, all those reasons. But the idea that there's, you know, are there lies that are told and are there conspiracies that happen? Of course there are. But can everything be a conspiracy? It can't. You tell me your favorite conspiracy and I'll show you who you are. Because it will reveal what you're afraid of.

43:17That's the thing. And we just don't want to admit it. The thing that you're obsessed with, it tells me more about you than the conspiracy itself. I have come to believe that incompetence explains a lot more than conspiracies. Yeah. No, and especially when incompetence happens, and that's the cover-up, right? The cover-up is usually like, oh man, I screwed it up. And there's also human reasons. We found one story, and it was, this is true, and it's a conspiracy that people don't really know, but after JFK was killed, when the body came back from Texas, they actually took out his brain from his body.

43:54and his brain was put into a jar and it was put in the national archives. And then Bobby Kennedy had his secretary go and pick up the brain, put it in JFK's brain, just put it into Google. You'll see it all come up. And you think like, oh my gosh, who's, did I just say the words that they stole JFK's brain? It sounds like a terrible 1950s movie or 60s movie, but it all happened. Then you think like, oh, it must be a conspiracy or I must be trying experiments or the Russians wanted to take it. But in the end, what it looks like, and no one will ever know the truth because everyone there is dead, but what it really looks like is Bobby Kennedy took the brain back and had it dumped in the ocean because he was like, if I leave it there, then everyone's going to keep bothering and ruining my brother's memory and ruin my family's memory.

44:40And my family will not have peace until this thing is gone. And if they did that, God forbid, to my sister, something happened like that to my sister, I'd be the first one to be like, you're not picking my sister apart like that. I'm taking my pieces back and I'm going to go home. And that answer is to me, what makes the most sense. I don't know if it's true or not, but it's what makes the most sense to me, but it will not stop thousands upon thousands of people saying, no, it was a gross science experiment or they were cloning him or they were got whatever you want to believe. But to me, sometimes the most obvious answer, again, well, how far we've come that now RFK Jr.

45:14believed as a conspiracy to get people to take vaccinations. I mean, again, you can't make it up. You can't make it up, man. It's like, it's not fair to Saturday Night Live and The Onion. You don't have to think creatively anymore. Just report. It's all being written for us, man. We live it every day. You wrote two books, Heroes for Sons and Heroes for Daughters. And I want to know what makes a hero qualify for either of those books. And second question on that is, why is a hero different for a son versus a daughter? That's a good question. So those are the first kids' books I ever wrote. It was Heroes for My Son.

45:57The day that I was born, my dad bought a bottle of champagne. And he said he wanted to open up on the day that I got married. And that was his plan. He was going to open this bottle of champagne. My dad lost his job when he was 39. and I remember we moved down from New York to Florida, and there's all this stuff you put in the moving truck, but I remember when we moved down, there's those things you don't trust the movers to take. You're going to keep for yourself, and it was my mom and dad sat in the front seat. My sister and I sat in the back seat, and behind the two headrests were two bottles of champagne that used to roll back and forth in the Florida sun, and my family didn't know anything about taking care of champagne, but we were their lives, and on the night my son was born, I didn't care about champagne.

46:38I will tell you on the night I got married, we did drink that bottle of champagne. We opened it. It was the foulest, nastiest glass of champagne I ever had. And the single greatest glass of champagne I ever had. And for me, when my son got what was born, I said, I don't care about champagne. I'm going to write a book for my father, write a book for my son and fill it with all the great heroes from To Live By. I'm going to fill it with Jackie Robinson and Benjamin Franklin and all these amazing heroes, Amelia Earhart. And I wrote that book and the book came out and I was I love the fact I got to do it.

47:09But then I had to do a book for my daughter. And I had to do Heroes for My Daughter. And I was like, wait a minute, what do I do now? What's the difference? And the answer is, there's no difference at all. Nothing. Nothing. The only thing that was funny is when I didn't know that when I wrote it. When my editor read Heroes for My Daughter, she said, there's one word you keep using in all the heroes that you're using in the daughter book that you didn't used in the sun book. I said, what was the word? And it was the word fight. I had everyone fighting. You had to fight back. You had to fight for what you need.

47:41I had the Dalai Lama in there and it said fight for the Dalai Lama, like for the peaceful one. And it was because what I was making the distinction unfairly is I was trying to inspire my sons unconsciously, but I was trying to protect my daughter. And then I re-edited the book and said, you know what? I got to make these things match and there is no difference. But what makes a hero? I can tell you that. And we've done a whole line of kids books. I'm Amelia Earhart. I am Abraham Lincoln. I am Rosa Parks, all these books. And the only thing they all have in common is you got to help someone. That's what makes a hero.

48:16And it's helping someone. And Amelia Earhart doesn't help. She just inspires us. She doesn't really help anyone. She just inspires us years later. Some people are on the front lines, like Jonas Salk, actually finding a cure to polio and helping people. Some people are Mother Teresa are right there on the front lines. But you got to help someone even if you're just inspiring. And that's to me what makes a hero. I would consider this an honor and flattery. Do you know if any of your I am books have been banned because it's too DEI or too woke or anything like that? They have been. We've had three of them banned.

48:50In fact, so they banned our I am Rosa Parks. I am Martin Luther King Jr. And on the top 10 list of kids books banned last year as I am Billie Jean King. We have fought back successfully against every time they banned us, we have fought back every single time. And it was interesting. Pennsylvania banned I am Martin Luther King Jr. and I am Rosa Parks. It had nothing to do with the content of the book. What happened was, is there was a list of books that were considered good for talking to kids about racism. And what they wanted was the school board said they wanted to read the books before they allowed the kids to have them, which to me, that's a fair thing.

49:27You should be checking those books out before you give them to kids. But here was the fast one they were pulling. A year went by and they hadn't read any of the books. It was our books. It was everything from Sonia Sotomayor to the women from Hidden Figures to Malala's book. They didn't read any of them. So what started as a freeze on the books until we can read them became a ban. And they asked me to go speak at the school board meeting. They were like, we need you to come speak. And I went there and I said, I gave this impassioned speech. I said, I read my favorite line from I Am Rosa Parks, which says, I am not a famous politician.

50:01I am not a successful business person. I'm just an ordinary person. But I'm also proof there's no such thing as an ordinary person. And I gave this speech and thought I'd saved democracy itself. And then all the kids from the school districts started speaking saying, how dare you ban these books we love so much with people who have skin that is brown and looks like me. They owe you ban all the books of people that look like me. They give speeches that are so impassioned. It was like the end of Braveheart. And I realized, of course, they didn't need me at all, at all. It was these kids who saved the day.

50:32They banned our Billy G King book in Florida over and over. We fought back every ban and we've cleared the ban every time. So we in fact started sending so many copies of I Am Rosa Parks to Pennsylvania that they started teaching the book in the schools. We started just using the lessons of Dr. King and Rosa Parks and basically making them eat those bands. And that's really what we've done with all the bands as we've fought back and thankfully have been able to overcome each of them. Wow, that is a great story. I dream about the day, Brad, when one of my books is banned. I can't believe that. You say that every time it happens, it's so depressing.

51:09It's so disheartening, right? The Billie Jean King book is literally banned because it has the word gay in it. And some mother's like, I don't want my kids seeing the word gay. And oh my gosh, the fact that we're still living in this world and still fighting this. And I don't care what anyone, if you are cheering while books are being pulled off the shelf, you will eventually be revealed as the bad guy in the story. You will. I think this is a good place to end this podcast, talking about banned books and First Amendment freedom of speech and things like that. I got to tell you, Brad, you're like a really deep kind of guy, man.

51:48You're not just so... No, man, I got to tell you, let's just talk about Remarkable People. It overlaps so much with what my core belief is and my true core belief. I believe ordinary people change the world. I don't care where you went to school. I don't care how much money you make. I believe in regular people and their ability to affect change in this world. And it's why I believe in every story we talked about today, whether it was my mom or my dad or Rosa Parks or Dr. King, like they all are filled with power. They all have moments where they're scared, where they're terrified, where they don't know they can go on and they all do.

52:19And to me, that's what is a remarkable person. What's a remarkable person is the people who are absolutely terrified and afraid and still do the thing despite it. It's not about the fame. It's not about the money. It's not about any of that nonsense. So my belief in what is remarkable, I think, very much overlaps with what you're questing for on this beautiful podcast. Wow. You are the personification of Carol Dweck's theory of the growth mindset and Angela Duckworth's theory of grit. You are Mr. Grit and Mr. Growth. Listen, we'll save that for the next time we talk. That's my Make Magic book.

52:57My commencement address at Michigan was all about how you have to keep transforming in life. That'll be our cliffhanger for this one. Well, thank you so much for doing this. I believe in that group. Thank you so much. And everybody go out and buy Viper if you want to learn about disappearing and about morticians and Dover. I truly love your thrillers. And, yeah, I was so, so flattered that your PR person reached out to me because it's not like I'm Joe Rogan or some big time podcaster. But this has been a great episode, Brad. Thank you so much. Good luck with your book. I just want to thank my staff, which is Madison Nismar co-producer, Jeff C.

53:40co-producer, Shannon Hernandez, sound design engineer, Tessa Nismar in research. So that's our team, Brad. And we're constantly hunting for people like you to inspire and inform our audience. I appreciate it. Alrighty. Thank you very much.

54:00This is Remarkable People.