After killers of the Flower Moon, I was really deeply interested in why some stories become part of our collective conscious and why some don't. And so when I was researching this story, I again saw illustrations of that in a very vivid way. We won't spoil what the ending is, but did you know when you were standing there that you had your ending? No. But then eventually I did. Yes.
David Grann is a staff writer for The New Yorker. His new book is The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder.
“I became very haunted by the stories that [nations] don't tell. Nations and empires preserve their powers not only by the stories they tell, but also by the stories they leave out. … Early in my career, if I came across the silences in a story, I might not have highlighted them, because I thought, Well, there's nothing to tell there. And now I try to let the silences speak.”
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