Longform

Ginger Thompson is a Pulitzer Prize-winning senior reporter at ProPublica. Her most recent article is "How the U.S. Triggered a Massacre in Mexico." “How many times have I written the phrase ‘a town that was controlled by drug traffickers?' I had no idea what that really meant. What does it mean to live in a town that’s controlled by drug traffickers? And how does it get that way? One of the things I was hoping that we could do by having the people who actually lived through that explain it to us was that—to bring you close to that and say, ‘No, here’s what that means.’” Thanks to MailChimp, Casper, and Outside the Box for sponsoring this week's episode. @gingerthomp1 Thompson on Longform [01:30] "How the U.S. Triggered a Massacre in Mexico" (ProPublica / National Geographic • Jun 2017) [01:45] Thompson’s Archive at The New York Times [01:45] "Trafficking In Terror" (New Yorker • Dec 2015) [02:30] readthissummer.com [02:45] Patient H.M.: A Story of Memory, Madness, and Family Secrets (Luke Dittrich • Random House • 2016) [02:45] Luke Dittrich on the Longform Podcast [05:15] Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster (Svetlana Alexievich • Picador • 2006) [34:30] "A Drug Family in the Winner’s Circle" (New York Times • Jun 2012) [38:45] "Nafta to Open Foodgates, Engulfing Rural Mexico" (New York Times • Dec 2002) [38:45] Thompson’s “Fatal secretes in Honduras” series (with Gary Cohn • Baltimore Sun • 1995) [43:15] "Calderón Wins Narrow Victory in Mexico Election" (with James C. McKinley Jr. • New York Times • Jul 2006) [45:30] "Mexico City Journal; The Rich, Famous and Aghast: A Peep-Show Book" (New York Times • Sep 2002) [46:30] "Richest Mexican talks equity— Business International Herald Tribune" (New York Times • Jun 2006) [52:15] "Reaping What Was Sown On the Old Plantation; A Landowner Tells Her Family’s Truth. A Park Ranger Wants a Broader Truth." (New York Times • Jun 2000) [55:30] "‘There’s No Real Fight Against Drugs’" (Atlantic • Jul 2015) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Patricia Lockwood is a poet and essayist. Her new book is Priestdaddy: A Memoir. “[Prose writing is] strange to me as a poet. I’m like, ‘Well I guess I’ll tell you just what happened then.’ But the humor has to be there as well. Because in my family household…the absurdity or the surrealism that we have is in reaction to the craziness of the household. So something like your underwear-clad father with his hand in a vat of pickles, sitting in a room full of $10,000 guitars and telling you that he can’t afford to send you to college—that’s bad. That’s a sad scene. But it’s also totally a lunatic scene. It’s, just the very fact of it, all these accoutrements, all the elements of the scene—they are funny.” Thanks to Audible and MailChimp for sponsoring this week's episode. @TriciaLockwood Lockwood on Longform [00:00] Stoner [01:00] Priestdaddy: A Memoir (Riverhead Books • 2017) [02:00] readthissummer.com [02:30] How To Be a Person in the World (Heather Havrilesky • Doubleday • 2016) [02:30] Heather Havrilesky on the Longform Podcast [09:15] Balloon Pop Outlaw Black (Octopus Books • 2012) [10:00] Wave Books [10:00] Octopus Books [10:15] Black Ocean [11:30] "The Dark Mystery of Emily Dickinson’s ‘Master’ Letters" (Nicholas Rombes • The Rumpus • May 2011) [12:00] Motherland Fatherland Homelandsexuals (Penguin Poets • 2014) [20:15] Lockwood’s Jonathan Franzen Tweet [20:45] Lockwood’s Paris Review Tweet Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

John Grisham is the author of 38 books, including his latest novel, Camino Island. “A Time to Kill didn’t sell. It just didn’t sell. There was never any talk of going back for a second printing. No talk of paper back. No foreign deal. It was a flop. And I told my wife, I said, ‘Look, I’m gonna do it one more time. I’m gonna write one more book…hopefully something more commercial, more accessible, more popular. If this doesn’t work, forget this career. Forget this hobby. I’m just gonna be a lawyer and get on with it.” Thanks to Casper, Squarespace, and MailChimp for sponsoring this week's episode. @JohnGrisham jgrisham.com [00:30] The Firm (Dell • 2009) [00:30] The Pelican Brief: A Novel (Dell • 2010) [00:30] The Innocent Man: Murder and Injustice in a Small Town (Dell • 2012) [01:30] Wesley Lowery on the Longform Podcast [01:30] Heather Havrilesky on the Longform Podcast [01:30] Hua Hsu on the Longform Podcast [01:45] Luke Dittrich on the Longform Podcast [01:45] Krista Tippett on the Longform Podcast [02:15] readthissummer.com [08:00] A Time to Kill: A Novel (Dell • 2009) [15:15] The Great Gatsby (F. Scott Fitzgerald • Scribner • 2004) [15:15] The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck • Penguin Classics • 2006) [19:45] The Firm [23:00] Camino Island: A Novel (Doubleday • 2017) [28:45] "The Law-School Scam" (Paul Campos • Atlantic • Sep 2014) [36:45] Book Tour with John Grisham [49:30] Stoner Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Erin Lee Carr is a documentary filmmaker and writer. Her new film is Mommy Dead and Dearest. “I feel like I’ve always had the story down—that’s not been really difficult for me. So the difficult thing, I think, for me, has always been access. Can I get the access? Can I withstand the pressure? You know, there’s been so many times where I wasn’t being paid to do the job, and I had to wait on the access. And it’s not for the faint of heart. You know, I could have spent a year and a half of my life doing [Mommy Dead and Dearest] and I could’ve not gotten the access to Gypsy, and it kind of would’ve been a wash.” Thanks to MailChimp, Kindle, Squarespace, V by Viacom, and HelloFresh for sponsoring this week's episode. @erinleecarr erinleecarr.com [02:00] Mommy Dead and Dearest [02:00] Thought Crimes: The Case of the Cannibal Cop [02:30] "Dee Dee Wanted Her Daughter To Be Sick, Gypsy Wanted Her Mom To Be Murdered" (Michelle Dean • BuzzFeed • Aug 2016) [04:30] Carr’s Vice archive [05:15] Girls [05:45] Capturing the Friedmans [11:15] "First Animal to Survive in Space" (Motherboard • Sep 2012) [12:45] David Carr’s Archive at The New York Times [13:45] "David Carr: The News Diet of a Media Omnivore" (Fresh Air • Oct 2011) [14:15] Click, Print, Gun: The Inside story of the 3D-Printed Gun Movement [25:00] Raw Deal: The Untold Story of NYPD’s “Cannibal Cop” (Gil Valle • WildBlue Press • 2017) [32:00] Nick Bilton on the Longform Podcast [32:00] American Kingpin: The Epic Hunt for the Criminal Mastermind Behind the Silk Road (Nick Bilton • Portfolio • 2017) [42:45] Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills [47:00] "Erin Lee Carr’s New True-Crime Documentary to Air on HBO (Exclusive)" (Gregg Kilday • Hollywood Reporter • Oct 2016) [50:30] "Laura Poitras, Glen Greenwald and Edward Snowden with David Carr" (Times Talks • Feb 2015) [52:15] "Still Rendering" (Medium • Feb 2016) [55:00] The Night of the Gun: A reporter investigates the darkest story of his life. His own. (David Carr • Simon & Schuster • 2009) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Ariel Levy, a New Yorker staff writer, is the author of The Rules Do Not Apply. “I don’t believe in ‘would this’ and ‘would that.’ There’s no ‘everything happens for a reason.’ Everything happens, and then you just fucking deal. I mean we could play that game with everything, but time only moves in one direction. That’s a bad game. You shouldn’t play that game—you’ll break your own heart.” Thanks to MailChimp, Kindle, V by Viacom, and 2U for sponsoring this week's episode. @avlskies ariellevy.net Levy on Longform [00:45] The Front Row [01:00] Outside the Box [02:15] Levy’s New Yorker archive [02:30] Ariel Levy on the Longform Podcast [02:30] The Rules Do Not Apply: A Memoir (Random House • 2017) [13:00] Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture (Free Press • 2005) [20:00] Fan Club [24:15] "Thanksgiving in Mongolia" (New Yorker • Nov 2013) [25:30] "Trial by Twitter" (New Yorker • Aug 2013) [25:30] "The Perfect Wife" (New Yorker • Sep 2013) [25:45] "Breaking the Waves" (New Yorker • Feb 2014) [25:45] "Living-Room Leopards" (New Yorker • May 2013) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Jeffrey Gettleman is the East Africa Bureau Chief for the New York Times and the author of Love, Africa: A Memoir of Romance, War, and Survival. “I’m not an adventure-seeking adrenaline junky. I like to explore new worlds, but I’m not one of these chain-smoking, hard-drinking, partying types that just wants thrills all the time. And unfortunately that’s an aspect of the job. And as I get older and I’ve been through more and more, the question gets louder. Which is: Why do you keep doing this? Because you feel like you only have so many points, and eventually the points are going to run out.” Thanks to MailChimp, V by Viacom, 2U, and Kindle for sponsoring this week's episode. @gettleman Gettleman on Longform [01:15] Gettleman’s Archive at The New York Times [01:30] Gettleman’s Pulitzer Prize-winning work [01:30] Love, Africa: A Memoir of Romance, War, and Survival (Harper • 2017) [08:30] Tampa Bay Times (Previously St. Petersburg Times) [11:30] Fan Club [12:30] The Front Row [18:00] "Into the Heart of Falluja" (New York Times Magazine • May 2004) [22:00] "The World’s Worst War" (New York Times • Dec 2012) [30:00] "Rape Epidemic Raises Trauma of Congo War" (New York Times • Oct 2007) [30:30] "Elephants Dying in Epic Frenzy as Ivory Fuels Wars and Profits" (New York Times • Sep 2012) [35:45] Heart of Darkness (Joseph Conrad • Dover Publications • 1990) [38:45] "Ominous Signs, Then a Cruel Attack" (New York Times • Sep 2013) [45:45] "Jeffrey Gettleman’s World of War" (Jack Shafer • Slate • Mar 2009) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Rafe Bartholomew is the former features editor at Grantland and the author of Two and Two: McSorley’s, My Dad, and Me. “I never saw it as something negative because [my dad] comes out, to me, at the end, extremely heroic. … He becomes this dad who I idolized as a bartender, a guy who would hang out with me and make me laugh, a guy I just adored almost every step of the way. I mean, of course, everybody gets into fights. But to me it was always so obvious that he had overcome the problems in his childhood, he’d overcome his own drinking problem, he’d done all these things, and by the time I was older, he’d even found a way to get back into writing and self-publish a couple of books of poems about the bar. So he’s sort of managed to tick off all those goals, just maybe not on the same schedule, maybe not in the most normal way.” Thanks to MailChimp, V by Viacom, and 2U for sponsoring this week's episode. @Rafeboogs rafebartholomew.com Bartholomew on Longform Pacific Rims: Beermen Ballin’ in Flip-Flops and the Philippines’ Unlikely Love Affair with Basketball (Berkley • 2011) Bartholomew’s Archive at Grantland Two and Two: McSorley’s, My Dad, and Me (Little, Brown & Company • 2017) "The Old House at Home" (Joseph Mitchell • New Yorker • Apr 1940) [3:45] Bartholomew’s Archive at Harper’s [22:00] The Last Shot: City Streets, Basketball Dreams (Darcy Frey • Mariner Books • 2013) [22:00] Swee’ Pea: The Story of Lloyd Daniels and Other Playground Basketball Legends (John Valenti • Atria • 2016) [29:00] Coverage of Grantland at Deadspin [29:30] "The Legend of the Iron Five" (Chuck Klosterman • Grantland • Jun 2011) [24:11] "Press X for Beer Bottle: On L.A. Noire" (Tom Bissell • Grantland • Jun 2011) [37:10] "Mayweather-Pacquiao: A Sad Morning in Manila" (Grantland • May 2015) [38:30] "One Hundred Years of Arm Bars" (David Samuels • Grantland • Aug 2015) [44:30] "Death and Tradition at the U.K. Grand National" (Sam Knight • Grantland • Apr 2013) [45:00] "Dropped" (Jason Fagone • Grantland • Mar 2014) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Nick Bilton is a special correspondent for Vanity Fair and the author of American Kingpin: The Epic Hunt for the Criminal Mastermind Behind the Silk Road. “I’ve been covering tech for a long, long time. And the thing I’ve always tried to do is cover the people of the tech culture, not the tech itself. … I've always been interested in the good and bad side of technology. A lot of times the problem in Silicon Valley is that people come up with a good idea that’s supposed to do a good thing—you know, to change the world and make it a better place. And it ends up inevitably having a recourse that they don’t imagine.” Thanks to MailChimp, Viacom, and Audible for sponsoring this week's episode. @nickbilton nickbilton.com Bilton on Longform [00:00] Ponzi Supernova [01:15] American Kingpin: The Epic Hunt for the Criminal Mastermind Behind the Silk Road (Portfolio • 2017) [01:45] Bilton’s New York Times archive [01:45] Bilton’s Vanity Fair archive [01:45] Hatching Twitter: A True Story of Money, Power, Friendship, and Betrayal (Portfolio • 2014) [07:30] "The Underground Website Where You Can Buy Any Drug Imaginable" (Adrian Chen • Gawker • Jun 2011) [07:30] Adrian Chen’s first appearance on the Longform Podcast [07:30] Adrian Chen’s second appearance on the Longform Podcast [09:15] NYC Resistor [11:45] "Uber’s C.E.O. Plays With Fire" (Mike Isaac • New York Times • Apr 2017) [16:00] Fan Club [21:30] Bits, New York Times technology blog [21:45] Gizmodo [23:00] Bill Keller’s New York Times archive [23:00] John Markoff’s New York Times archive [25:45] "The iEconomy" series [27:30] "How the Kindle Moved From BlackBerry to iPad" (New York Times • Sep 2011) [29:45] "Disruptions: Fliers Must Turn Off Devices, but It’s Not Clear Why" (New York Times • Nov 2011) [50:45] "Meet the Dread Pirate Roberts, The Man Behind Booming Black Market Drug Website Silk Road" (Andy Greenberg • Forbes • Sep 2013) [50:45] "Silk Road Creator Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison" (Andy Greenberg • Wired • May 2015) [50:45] "The Rise & Fall of Silk Road Part I" (Joshuah Bearman • Wired • Apr 2015) [50:45] "The Rise & Fall of Silk Road Part II" (Joshuah Bearman • Wired • May 2015) [51:00] "Exclusive: How Elizabeth Holmes’s House of Cards Came Tumbling Down" (Vanity Fair • Oct 2016) [52:00] "‘It’s An Honor’" (Jimmy Breslin • New York Herald Tribune • Nov 1963) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Samin Nosrat is a food writer, educator, and chef. Her new book is Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat: Mastering the Elements of Good Cooking. “I kind of couldn’t exist as just a cook or a writer. I kind of need to be both. Because they fulfill these two totally different parts of myself and my brain. Cooking is really social, it’s very physical, and also you don’t have any time to become attached to your product. You hand it off and somebody eats it, and literally tomorrow it’s shit. … Whereas with writing, it’s the exact opposite. It’s super solitary. It’s super cerebral. And you have all the time in the world to get attached to your thing and freak out about it.” Thanks to MailChimp, Squarespace, Away, and Masters of Scale for sponsoring this week's episode. @CiaoSamin ciaosamin.com [01:45] Chez Panisse [02:00] Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat: Mastering the Elements of Good Cooking (Simon & Schuster • 2017) [03:30] Pop-Up Magazine [27:45] Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation (Michael Pollan • Penguin Books • 2014) [30:00] Nosrat’s Archive at Edible [30:45] "Out of the Kitchen, Onto the Couch" (Michael Pollan • New York Times Magazine • Jul 2009) [34:00] Wendy MacNaughton on the Longform Podcast [37:45] An Everlasting Meal: Cooking with Economy and Grace (Tamar Adler • Scribner • 2012) [39:15] Levels of the Game (John McPhee • Farrar, Straus and Giroux • 1979) [52:15] Outliers: The Story of Success (Malcolm Gladwell • Back Bay Books • 2011) [54:30] Golden Boy Pizza [55:30] "Cookbook Author Samin Nosrat Celebrates with Champagne and Babybels" (Sierra Tishgart • Grub Street • Apr 2017) [57:00] Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us (Michael Moss • Random House • 2014) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Sarah Menkedick is a freelance writer and the founder of Vela. Her upcoming book is Homing Instincts: Early Motherhood on a Midwestern Farm. “I’d been rejected a ton of times—I had that 400-page thing that never became a book. So there were plenty of epic rejections that felt catastrophic. And I’d sort of arrived at this point where I was like: I’m living in my parents' cabin, and I’m pregnant, so whatever. Fuck it. I’m gonna write whatever I want to write.” Thanks to MailChimp and Blue Apron for sponsoring this week's episode. @sarahmenkedick sarahmenkedick.com Menkedick on Longform [00:15] The Writing Program at the University of Pittsburgh [01:00] Aaron and the Donut Dude [01:15] Homing Instincts: Early Motherhood on a Midwestern Farm (Pantheon • 2017) [01:15] Vela [02:15] "Why don’t people take writing about motherhood seriously? Because women do it" (Los Angeles Times • Apr 2017) [07:45] "A Wilderness of Waiting" (Vela • Feb 2015) [09:15] "Good Pilgrims" (Harper’s • Jul 2014) [17:30] "Living on the Hyphen" (Oxford American • Oct 2014) [19:30] "Sarah Menkedick’s Four Books on Early Motherhood" (Vela • Aug 2015) [22:30] "Written by Women" (Vela • Sep 2011) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices