Jon Ronson on truth-telling and the culture wars

28:34Your second failure as you put it it's the perils of writing about your domestic life. Yes. Why did you choose this one? Let's go back to 2003 I'm writing the men who stare at goats and I'm constantly in America because it's not working it's it's my previous book them every time we flew to America it was just golden like every time I got off the plane something amazing happened and then Channel 4 said to me do more this was great because I wrote it was my book then but I also made a documentary series I loved them thank you so much and when I watched Succession it really reminded me of them and the scenes with the Bilderberg group.

29:17Right. Well, I wouldn't be surprised. Look, I can't speak for Jesse. Well, I was told one time that they had a couple of my books in the writers room. I bet. Yeah. Anyway, sorry, I interrupted. Okay. But yeah, the opposite happened with the Ministerian Goats. Like every time we got off a plane, we got nothing. It was awful. I was wasting all of Channel 4's money. We were just flailing around in the dark. Anyway, I was on the plane from Los Angeles to Hawaii. and just before I got on the plane I phoned my wife my son at the time was probably about five and she said that they just came out of the vets and my son fell over and got glass embedded in his hand and he was going to have to have an emergency operation while I was on the plane from LA to Hawaii and I just I was on this plane and everybody else it was like a party plane And everyone had like garlands and, you know, doing Hawaiian things and I guess eating pineapple.

30:16And I was just I was so miserable. I'd never felt so far away from home. And the travel was always my least favorite part of the thing anyway. For me, the travel and the dangerous situations that I put myself in are just so I'd have something to write about when I go back, when I get back home. And as it happens, that trip to Hawaii was amazing. It was when I discovered the whole story that became The Men Who Stare at Goats. So the happy ending is that I got to Hawaii and finally the story unlocked. And I met this soldier who was learning how to walk through walls and become invisible. And so I'd kill goats just by staring at them.

30:54And it was a great trip. But I thought, I can't do this. And I thought, I don't, you know, my son's young enough still that I can make a change. So I gave up traveling. Right. But then it was like, I've got to do something. I'm going to write about my domestic life. And I was really inspired by Nick Hornby and the way that he would make tiny human things so big and powerful. And I thought, well, I'll try and do that with nonfiction. I write about craziness and human absurdities. I'll just do that about my domestic life, neighbours, family, friends. and I thought this could be really interesting because most people are wrapped up in a bubble of human absurdity not about killing goats just by staring at them but by some stupid fight they have with their next door neighbor so so I'll write about that and it started off fine but the tyranny of the deadline this was a weekly column for the Guardian and it became so dysfunctional I can't tell you you got to the stage where you were desperate for something terrible to happen within your own family so you'd have something to write about and it was awful and my son was getting more and more annoyed by then he was like eight and he just didn't want to be in my columns and you know my god you know rightly so and my neighbors were getting annoyed some guy came up to me a neighbor and said um that column you wrote because sometimes i'd like disguise identities he said that column you wrote last week was that about me and I'd go you know yes but I'm the idiot in the story I'm the idiot not you and also to make things worse the Guardian loved the column but the letters page each week was filled with people who like hated the column and but then I'd do talks and when I was doing talks for them or the men of stare at goats my audience were by and large nervous looking men but when I started writing about my personal life my audience was suddenly open smiling women so people I knew people like the column but the letters page like okay abuse me you know I'd write the column and then in the letters page and I felt like you know I was turning into like a caricature or joke so I quit and eventually and I've never written about my personal life again although actually in the book I'm starting to write now, there's an element of personal life.

33:17But yeah, but everyone's much older now. And it's all fine. How do you feel about criticism? If it's factually accurate, I'm all for it. And I have no problem with it at all. And in fact, I think people should take criticism better. And I think a bit of humility is a good thing. Right? But when you say factually accurate, what if it's just I don't like you? That might be factually accurate for the person saying it. Yeah I don't really mind that. Don't you? That's amazing because as someone who survived being bullied I would have thought that you would mind that still. No I really don't. Have you just become inured to it?

33:56I don't know I'm just a little bit more rational about things. Season two of Things Fell Apart has had you know millions of listens and some of those people just statistically aren't going to like me so I just say okay well fine I'll just do this for the people who do. And do you choose not to seek it out? Do you choose to insulate yourself from the response to your work? It's not a big issue like if I read a really positive review I'm happy for probably five seconds and then I completely forget about it and never think about it again. So, you know, some years ago, I thought, well, if that's my response to very positive reviews, I should have the same response to negative reviews.

34:41I should be unhappy for five seconds and never think about it again, because otherwise it's dysfunctional. Connected question then, how do you feel about success? So you mentioned there that things fall apart, that second season has had millions of downloads. It was at the top of the chart, above your mate slash rival Louis Theroux. Well, actually, then he went from 191 to number one. I was in hospital with my blood clot and I looked on Charitable to see how I was doing. And I noticed I was number two. I'd gone from number one to number two and Louis had gone from 191 to number one. Irritating.

35:15Yeah, I know. So do you, I know we're joking about it, but do you care? Because I am very competitive. I wish I wasn't, but I am. And so I do check things like that. And it does seem to matter to me and my psyche. I strive to be enlightened and not let it matter. But how do you feel about it? I'm glad to say I don't feel that way. For me, it's all about the story and making the story as good as possible. And caring hugely. I go over my sentences, you know, 100 times, 200 times. The Things Fell Apart episodes, you know, we edit over and over and over again. We're like dollhouse makers, you know, these tiny minutiae.

35:56And when it's done, I think it's kind of done. If something that I think should be a success is less successful than I would have hoped, I'm a little saddened, but that's all. My job is to tell the story as well as possible. and anything that happens afterwards is just, you know, for the fates. That's so wise. Well, I really do believe it. And also, you just, you can never anticipate. And often it's very, it just seems very scattershot. Something that I don't think is that great that I've done. I mean, I think everything that I do by the time I bring it out is good. But something I think is a little less good than something else sometimes does a lot better.

36:38Some things that I think are like, this is the most amazing thing, doesn't do that well. and I've given up kind of caring or anticipating. I'm only interested in making the story as good as possible. How important is truth to you? Oh, hugely. And in fact, when you said, does criticism upset you? The only time I ever feel upset is if it's untrue. And then I get really upset for some reason. I don't know why truth matters to me that much, but it really does. And when you get upset, what happens? I mean, nothing. Nothing. Nothing on the accent. I don't like have a meltdown or anything. Well, maybe a little, maybe I'll angrily say to my wife, would you believe this?

37:20Yeah. And she will try and change the subject as quickly as possible. But truth telling is very important to me as well. Have you always been like that? Yeah, I'd say so. But definitely more now. And you feel a bit like King Canute these days because of disinterest in truth. seems to be pervading the media in so many ways. In fact, season two of Things Fell Apart is very much about that. It's about the different ways that people lie. So the right lie in these big Baroque sort of balls out ways, these big mythological lies about, you know, Pizzagate or whatever. And then the left, you know, journalist activists on the left, I think lie in slightly more subtle, different ways.

38:07But it's all a kind of form of lying. And by that, I mean, I suppose, I've seen this happen. This isn't just me imagining it, that if you're an activist, left-wing journalist, and you're telling a story about a heroic woman, for instance, and then you see that there's aspects about this woman that isn't quite so heroic, I've noticed them filtering that stuff out, you know, flattening the moral complexity because they want to have a more simplistic ideological story. which is a different kind of lying, but it's still a kind of lying. And how do you find your stories? Are you a sort of 3am YouTube rabbit holer?

38:51Not 3am. I always start work around 6am, but I always finish around 3pm and then I won't do any more work. But yeah, I do a lot of good on a lot of rabbit holes. I'm sort of looking, I listen to a lot of academic books and boring audiobooks and read a lot of academic papers. And I'm just sort of looking for the little gleam of a jewel in the mud. Just something where you just think, huh, I didn't expect that. Or I don't know what that means, those words. Episode one of season two of Things Fell Apart is about this. Will I very quickly recount it? Please do, yes. Okay, so Miami in the 1980s, 32 women are found dead in mysterious circumstances.

39:36They're all black sex workers. They've all got low levels of cocaine in their system. And their bodies are all in very similar positions. And they're all naked from the waist down. But there was no obvious cause of death. So the deputy chief medical examiner announced that he'd solved the mystery. and these women had all spontaneously dropped dead as a result of a combination of cocaine and sex. And he gave it a name, Excited Delirium. And he said, this is how women die and men just go berserk. They rip off their clothes if they take too much cocaine, go running through traffic and then they spontaneously drop dead.

40:17Anyway, it turned out that it was a serial killer. Like, of course it was. But that didn't daunt him. He went around continuing to postulate his theory of Excited Delirium It gets taught in police training schools. The man who put his knee on George Floyd's neck learned all about excited delirium and that you had to restrain them or else they're going to be a danger to themselves and a danger to other people. As they were standing around George Floyd's body, they talked about excited delirium, this entirely fictitious, made-up diagnosis that proliferated in really powerful, important places, courtrooms, police training, and so on.

41:00Anyway, I discovered that because I was listening to a very good audiobook called His Name is George Floyd. And there was just a very brief mention of excited delirium. And I was hiking upstate. And I just thought, huh. and it didn't really explain what it was in the book but I went down a rabbit hole and that's how I found that story that I just told you Fascinating and terrifying in equal measure. Do you ever worry that you're becoming close to believing in a conspiracy in the way that you report conspiracy theories because sometimes it can feel like that when you're disappearing down a rabbit hole that you want to see this thing Yes, but I don't see it as a bad thing.

41:40I think going back to what I said before about how non-fiction writers should have all the ambition of novelists I think you know if you're reading a novel you kind of want the protagonist to go through a big life life change and so if I'm investigating something in my book them I was trying to sneak into this powerful club called the Bilderberg group and I got chased away by men in dark glasses and a car chase ensued and I got really paranoid that the Bilderberg group were following me everywhere and eventually I realized that this paranoia was a gift because what great writing this this would make so as long so I think if you can really succumb to a conspiracy theory fall down the rabbit hole change see the world in a completely new way but also have the ability to to come back out of it yes with your rationality back then that's a that's a gift for for this kind writing.

42:39That's an amazing way of expressing it. Thank you. What does Elaine, your wife, make of it all? We don't really talk much about my stories or anything like that. I remember when I was being chased by the Bilderberg group that time. She's a bit like John. What have you done now? Go back to writing about our domestic life. The opposite. I phoned her up very upset. I said, I'm in Portugal. I'm being chased by these shadowy henchmen of the Bilderberg group. I'm really out of my depth. Things have gotten too far now. I'm scared. And Elaine went, oh, you're loving it.

43:19That's what you need. I know, I know.

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45:05I gobbled up your psychopath book and was fascinated that psychopath and sociopath are basically the same thing. Yes. Never knew that. Yeah, I didn't either. Until I read your book. But you're taking it on tour, aren't you? Yes, October, November, I'm doing a big psychopath night. 27 shows in places, including places I've never spoken before in like Southend and Ipswich and Tunbridge Wells and lots of places where I have spoken in before, like London and Glasgow and Edinburgh. So yeah, it's like bringing the psychopath test to life. Can you tell us anything about the content? I have mystery guests with incredible stories to tell and film clips that have never been seen before and funny stories and like a kind of 3D version of the book.

45:52And people should feel very welcome to come. We'll put a link in the show notes. Okay. Your final failure is screenwriting and Hollywood in general, as you put it. Talking of what you like to write, but this deals more with what other people have drawn you into writing. So tell us why you consider this a failure. Well, I was listening to your fantastic interview with the very great Kazuo Ishiguro, who I adore. And I thought you did a brilliant job with him. And I think he's just one of our greatest people. he's an incredible person and he has that um the intelligent person's gift of not making you feel stupid like he's so he's so clever and makes all of his brilliant ideas accessible so it was a privilege to interview him so good i mean wow i mean two or three of his books you know never let me go the remains of the day i mean these are the great some of the greatest books of our lifetime And Clara and the Sun, have you read?

46:49Clara and the Sun, I loved that. Yeah, yeah. The heron of Clara and the Sun is a woman called Josie. And my dog is called Josie. So it was slightly odd to be listening to the audiobook of Clara and the Sun while giving Josie walks. Because it's like, you know, Josie, Josie, stop sniffing that. And then in my ears, it's like, you know, Josie, no. Yeah. But he said something similar about screenwriting. he has problems with screenwriting too and I wish I understood it and I don't really that if you're if you're adept at non-fiction narrative storytelling you'd think you'd be adept at screenwriting but I found it very hard to transfer the skill from one to the other if I'm being completely honest and it made me realize that we should stick you know I'm at a time in my life now where I could actually get commissioned to write more screenplays if I wanted to.

47:47And it means I'd get the Writers Guild health fund. Lots of good things would come from it. But I just came to realise that I want to spend my remaining years doing what I really know how to do and know how to do well. If I'm on a Zoom and it's about one of my books or podcasts, I have super confidence. I'm like the king of the Zoom. If I'm on a Hollywood Zoom about screenwriting, If it's about one of my things that are being adapted, then I think I can still contribute. But if it's screenwriting, I just realise I'm a novice. And for me, it's as alien a skill as landscape gardening. So I think kind of a good realisation from all of this is stick to what you do well.

48:35Why not? How old are you now? 56. I do think there comes a stage where we want to lean into, as you say, what we're expert in, what we've built up the 10 ,000 hours doing, rather than having to learn a whole new skill. And I've recently written my first script, which... I heard you say that actually in one of the interviews. Yeah. Oh, my goodness. I mean, worked with lovely people, but it's such a long process. And I felt like such a dunce. I was constantly having these notes and having this feedback, which was all really good. But it puts you in that position again of feeling like, oh, I've got to learn this whole new skill and I've got to learn how to belong again almost.

49:24Yeah. And I was like, I'm too old for this. Well, I think it's okay to sort of realize that. For me, I think it's fiction. It's the fact that it's fiction. You know, if I go into a room as a piece of journalism, I feel confident enough to know that I could tell the story of what's happening in this room in the best way that it could be told. But if I go into a room in fiction, there's no room. Like, I don't know what color the walls are. I don't know who's in the room. I don't know anything. So that fundamental source material thing, I just don't think my brain works with fiction and I think it works really well with nonfiction and I don't know why.

50:07It should be similar, but it just isn't. And you say Hollywood in general. Was there something about Hollywood itself that felt rather alien to you? Well, I love LA. So do I. Hardly anyone loves LA. What do you like about it? I love that it feels as though things are possible. I love the low flat horizon, the endless sky, the fact that you can hike. People don't know that the mountains are right there. You hike in the city, yeah. Yes, it's incredible. I like the fact that there are different parts of LA, so it's sort of lots of villages in one sporting city. And as long as you find out which village you like, you can have the most wonderful time there.

50:45And you can ride outdoors whilst getting a tan. And you haven't mentioned a couple of other things that I really love. the colors you have these pale colors that you don't get in britain when a brit goes to new york it's amazing but you kind of understand but when a brit goes to la it's like going to mars you know different colors different plants it's just and yeah the hiking i mean runyon canyon griffith park yeah those are my favorite places on earth but when you look closely in griffith park a lot of your fellow hikers are these spectral figures who came to LA in their 20s that have probably made a living writing screenplays that never got made and they'll have meetings where people will tell them you know keep at it you're the greatest voice of your generation and then nothing ever happens and 30 years go by and you've written and written and written and nobody's ever read or watched any any of your stuff and that's something so bleak and depressing about that and the other thing is i i think it's a very weirdly it's a very i mean i guess because such big amounts of money are involved it's a very alpha male industry when you're actually making films to get by you have to be pretty aggressive and and i'm i'm just not i'm just not that way having said all of that you have had two things made three three well wait tell me what Well, The Men Who Stoic Goats, which I didn't write.

52:16That's the thing. Sorry, that's why it wasn't me being incorrect. But you are played by Ewan McGregor in that movie. I am. And then in Frank, which I co-wrote with the brilliant Peter Strawn, Donald Gleeson plays me, another Star Wars person. I just want to point out that the two times I've been played by actors, it's both like Jedis. Because you were in Frank Sybottom's band. Yes, I was his keyboard player. and then Okja which I co-wrote with Bong Joon-ho who then wrote and directed Parasite. So that sounds quite successful for someone who... It does, it really does and each time is a miracle.

52:55I mean my god you have to, once you're on the inside of it you realise why almost no films ever get made. I remember I made this documentary called Stanley Kubrick's Boxes and I interviewed, I was the first person to look through Stanley Kubrick's Boxes And I interviewed his lawyer, Rick Sennett And afterwards, when the interview was over He told a really funny story about a beach holiday It's on Vimeo if people want to watch it But afterwards, I said to him Oh yeah, I've got this book, The Men Who Stare at Goats That they're trying to turn into a movie And Rick Sennett said to me This is what you have to know about movies No film ever gets made And I see what he means now The three occasions when something I've done has got made, it's just felt like an unbelievable miracle.

53:43Like you're a juggler juggling 30 things and not dropping it. It's the number of things that have to fall into place. I just can't believe that anything ever gets made. And do you think that's partly why it doesn't feel right for you? Because there's so many other people involved. It's sort of an extroverted take on an introverted profession. I think you have to be egoless. I won't say who it is, but a friend of mine who's a very successful novelist wrote a screenplay. And he told me that he was at Sundance when the screenplay was being made. And they were backstage and ready to go out for the audience for the big premiere.

54:24And the director goes out and then the actors go out and then he was about to go out. And the PR person put her arm in front of him and said, talent only. that is savage i know you have to the one thing i can tell you that anybody listening to this who wants to be involved as a writer in hollywood leave your ego at the door like don't don't bring any ego or any expectation either so if something happens if something gets made it's a wonderful miracle but don't put any stock in it don't hold and and keep your ego out of it because even if your thing gets made you're still the person in the wings saying sorry being told sorry talent only What's it like seeing yourself portrayed on screen?

55:11I wish I could say oh it was amazing but to be honest it's so part of a construction that you're on set I visited the set so I see a couple of scenes getting filmed and then with Frank the director was nice enough to send rough cuts all the time to me and to Peter and ask for notes. So it feels like it's a machine. You know what? I remember saying to somebody, I can't remember which film it was, but I said to somebody, so what's the moment when this is all magical? It's not the premiere, because at the premiere you're just nervous as hell about whether people are going to like it or not. It's not when you see the film because you've seen the film in different iterations like over and over again.

55:58it's definitely not like the interviews the magical moment you suddenly realize oh my god the magical moment was actually the writing of the screenplay like when it was working wow so the thing that you're thinking okay i'm going to do this because then it's going to everything's going to be so glamorous actually the thing that you're doing is the best part that is such a metaphor for life and such a brilliant note to end on because it goes back to that idea of the joy and the purpose being in the telling of the story and that is separate from how it's received yes absolutely there was a moment when I was writing Frank where I got confident enough that I would open up my laptop and it would feel like the characters Maggie Gyllenhaal's character Clara were like there it's like holograms on my keyboard waiting to be told what to do and that that's the moment that's the moment that it's all for take joy in the doing and thank you so much john ronson for being an un norfolk based on baggy trouser wearing storyteller we are so lucky to have you and thank you for coming on how to fail elizabeth it was an absolute joy thank you i hope i didn't overshare there's no such thing in my book if anything you Wondershared.

57:18There's another failure. No, I'm kidding. You were perfect. Thank you. I just want to remind you that we continue our conversation with the wonderful John Ronson over at Failing With Friends. It's an amazing community of subscribers where we chat through your failures and questions. So for fun, I only ever listen to celebrity memoirs. I love celebrity memoirs on audiobook. Right. Have you listened to Britney's? Oh, yeah. Oh, so good. If you're not yet a subscriber, I'd love for you to join us. Just visit the How to Fail show page on Apple Podcasts and click Start Free at the top of the page to begin your free trial and start listening today.

58:00And remember to follow us. Press the plus button on the top right to get new episodes of How to Fail as soon as they drop on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts. And please tell all your friends. This is an Elizabeth Day and Sony Music Entertainment original podcast. Thank you so much for listening.

58:44Always my mistake.