Keen On America Running Away From America: The Rhodes Scholar Who Ran a Male Brothel in Bali
Jan 30, 2026
Nicholas Thompson, CEO of The Atlantic and bestselling author of The Running Ground, shares a family memoir tangled with competitive running. He recounts his Rhodes Scholar father's dramatic rise and fall, how running bonded them, and the fraught balance between love, dysfunction, and discipline. Short, candid stories explore running’s meditative power, parenting trade-offs, and cultural shifts in marathon life.
AI Snips
Chapters
Books
Transcript
Episode notes
A Promising Career That Unraveled
- Nicholas Thompson describes his father's dramatic fall from a promising Rhodes Scholar to a man struggling with sexuality and addiction.
- He recounts intimate family impacts like bankruptcy, blackmail, and emotional support that shaped their relationship.
Running As Life's Stabilizer
- Thompson sees running as a stabilizing discipline that reduced his father's drinking and chaos.
- The presence or absence of running correlated directly with order or disorder in his father's life.
Love Amid Complicated Parenting
- Thompson describes a close but complicated father-son relationship maintained through daily emails and emotional support.
- He says his father loved him every day despite behaviors that made parenting difficult.
