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Episode 387: Tom Donaghy
2.5k Plays1 year ago
Tom Donaghy explored the murder of the "Fudge King" of Ocean City for The Atavist Magazine.
Support: Patreon.com/cnfpod
Show notes: brendanomeara.com
Newsletter: Rage Against the Algorithm
Sponsor: Liquid IV, promo code cnf
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Transcript
Sponsorship and Introductions
00:00:00
Speaker
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00:00:39
Speaker
using the promo code CNF at liquidiv.com. Solitary writer at kitchen table calls murder suspect's son and see if they're aware that their father was involved in a murder or not. Hey, CNFers, it's CNF Pod, the creative nonfiction podcast, a show where I speak to badass people about telling true stories. I'm Brendan O'Mara.
Feature on Tom Donaghy's Journey
00:01:10
Speaker
It's that Edivistian time of the month, so we got a new issue of The Edivist coming out today! Featuring the writer Tom Donaghy. Tom is a screenwriter by trade, and he dipped his toe into the journalistic waters to try and solve a cold case, the murder of the Fudge King, Ocean City's Harry Englemeyer.
00:01:30
Speaker
a local luminary, a member of the queer community, and a perceived threat to the perfect picture along the Jersey Shore. You can read the story at magazine.adivis.com, I encourage you to subscribe, and no, I don't get any commissions. I'd tell you if that were the case. If you head over to brendanomerra.com, hey, hey, you can read show notes and sign up for my rage against the algorithm newsletter, a curated list, an essay by your resident crank,
00:01:55
Speaker
Book recommendations, stuff to make you happy, stuff to make you think, goes up to 11. Literally, the list is 11 items long. First of the month, no spam, can't beat it. Also, consider heading to patreon.com slash cnfpod. Sure, I'm asking for some money, but what you get is more than the satisfaction of helping this podcast, you get access to a community of other CNF and writers.
00:02:26
Speaker
Lately, I've been starting these threads, and then you talk amongst yourselves. Don't lurk. Jump in and contribute to the conversation. Maybe find a way to exchange contact info. Make a friend. Patreon.com slash cnfbot. And we got three new patrons. Thank you to Louise Julig, Caroline Rothne, and welcome back, David Yemain. That's amazing.
00:02:50
Speaker
Really cool, free ways to support the show. You can always leave a review on Apple Podcasts or ratings on Spotify.
00:02:57
Speaker
And one last thing, shout out to Athletic Brewing, my favorite non-alcoholic beer out there. Not a paid plug, but I am a brand ambassador and I love to celebrate this amazing thing. To head over to athleticbrewing.com, use the promo code BRANDANO at checkout. You get a nice little discount on your first order. I don't get any money and they are not an official sponsor of the podcast. I just get points towards t-shirts and hats or beer. Give it a shot.
Writing Challenges and Strategies
00:03:26
Speaker
All right, but before we get to Tom, we're going to hear from Jonah Ogles, the lead editor of this piece for the Atavist. He's got some really, really beautiful insights that I think you're going to want to consider as you go about your CNF and journey. Here we go.
00:03:55
Speaker
who identify as common hang-ups among the entire stable of activist writers that you routinely, not routinely work with, but just in general, like what writers tend to need. You know, there are sometimes reporting questions. I mean, that comes up a lot, actually, that just like in the process of reporting, you hit a wall with something, either reaching a source or finding a document or
00:04:21
Speaker
Yes, anything like that. So those those come up quite a bit. And then I feel like there are certain writers who want to talk as they're writing the draft, you know, who they hit like a point in writing the story where they feel like they don't know exactly what to do or they want somebody to look at the first section to make sure they're on the right track or the first big chunk of words.
00:04:51
Speaker
It's funny, if there's a writer like that, they tend to reach out kind of early and often. I think there are writers who just want the collaboration and interaction and advice, which I think is smart, and I appreciate that. Especially if they're having trouble, I'd much rather know about it early and be able to kind of talk it out and at least be on the same page about what we're trying, even if it ends up not working in the end.
00:05:19
Speaker
And then there, but there are some writers who just kind of want to be left alone to do their thing and they turn in the story and it's pretty good, you know? So it just kind of depends. But I feel like reporting and then the draft stage are the two points where writers often reach out. Would you say that when in doubt you'd like to hear more from the writer early on just so they don't paint themselves into corners that can be really hard to get out of?
00:05:48
Speaker
Yeah, totally. If a writer feels like something isn't going right, they are probably correct in that assessment. So if they need help, I would much rather be aware of it and talk it through and just come up with a plan together so that we know what's happening with the story. Because there's nothing more frustrating from my standpoint than getting a draft
00:06:19
Speaker
reading it and being like, you know, what did this person say when you talk to them? And then the writer's responses. Well, I never did talk to them because they never picked up the phone or whatever, you know, or I couldn't get these documents because they said it wasn't subject to the FOIA laws.
00:06:41
Speaker
You know, and like, I would always rather know that in advance, even though I guess there's not much of a difference in between saying, Oh, try these things now that the draft is written versus doing it before the draft. I'd like being made.
00:06:56
Speaker
aware of any issue upfront. Writers shouldn't feel that they're inconveniencing me, at least. Maybe other editors are different, but Sayward and I like to communicate a lot, so we really encourage writers reaching out.
00:07:15
Speaker
And when a writer is stuck or spinning his or her wheels or their wheels, you know, what is the way that you try to get them back on track or, you know, just what is the how do you coach them back? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, a lot of times they just in talking to me, they coach themselves back. You know, like, yeah, I'm I'm a therapist, basically, you know.
00:07:41
Speaker
Um, saying, yeah, yeah, right. It's hard. And they sort of come up with a solution just as they're talking to me for writers who are feeling stuck in a draft.
00:07:53
Speaker
There are a couple of things that I've tried over the years that seem to be pretty helpful and if they're just having trouble getting started or just kind of getting words on the page. This is not an original idea of mine. I've picked it up from probably dozens of other people who have recommended it.
00:08:21
Speaker
starting a draft in an email, like you're going to email your buddy who you want to tell the story to, just starting to write an email for some reason that's a little bit different than doing it in a Word document. And the words just come a little easier so they're not as, I think there's less pressure to make it right and you just sort of get it out.
00:08:47
Speaker
So that often helps. I mean a lot of times what I'll do with writers is they'll be talking to me and they're stuck and what they really need to say is and then they say it to me and I'll just let them finish and be like,
00:09:04
Speaker
That that thing that you just told me that's a paragraph, you know, like start there and build out from it, you know, and recording yourself. I think it would probably be an easy way to do that. You know, if the editor isn't reachable or or just as another way to try it.
00:09:22
Speaker
For writers who are having trouble with the structure, I use a trick that Alex heard and taught me at outside where you just distill the section down to like two sentences. So like Brendan encounters difficulty on his hike at 10,000 feet, wonders if he should be doing this.
00:09:47
Speaker
period and then you look at the next section you do the same thing and what you end up with is like 500 word summary of the story and you can just look at it and the sentences should still basically flow because your idea should flow that way. So after Brendan encounters trouble the next one should probably address how
00:10:10
Speaker
and deals with that, you know? And so when you look at it that way, it's often pretty easy to identify, oh hey, this section is out of place or it's not covering the ground that it needs to, let's move it or revise it so that it is tied into the section that precedes it and follows it.
00:10:31
Speaker
Very nice. And with Tom's story here, this kind of cold case that he tracks down and tries to solve this mystery of a murder of the Fudge King on the Jersey Shore, how did this strike you when it came across your desk?
Connection to Harry Englemeyer
00:10:48
Speaker
And just what were some of the unique challenges that this story presented to you on your side of the table?
00:10:53
Speaker
Yeah, well, this was an interesting one because it was one of those drafts that came in, it came in draft form. The pitch was the draft. He'd done the work, he'd done all the reporting. So we were able to look at something very close to the finished product. And what struck Sayward and I about it when we first read it was that it was just so fun. And I know that can,
00:11:22
Speaker
There's sort of like a jaded editor mindset of dealing with stories that involve tragedy, where we just sort of ignore the subject in order to talk about the writing. But the writing was just so fun. And it was clear that he was having a good time as he was writing it.
00:11:42
Speaker
And it just felt very lively and right in front of you. We pretty quickly realized this is a good one for us. It has a lot of the things that Anatobus Story should have. And it also has this writer who really has a good sense of how to tell a good story.
00:12:06
Speaker
Yeah, and given that it's a murder that takes place in the 60s, because it's much farther away, does that grant the writer maybe a little more leash to play with the story versus having it to be really, really sensitive to someone who lost their life?
00:12:33
Speaker
Yeah, right, right. I mean, yes, and I think the short answer is yes. When there's a tragedy that occurred a long time ago, you're not as concerned about living sources for whom this might be a really sensitive topic and who might be
00:12:57
Speaker
very concerned with how they're portrayed in a story. I do think that gives writers a little bit more leeway with how they approach it. That said, I mean, one of the things that happened during the editing of this story is Tom really wanted to
00:13:16
Speaker
work in his, I guess for lack of a better term, the relationship he sort of built with Harry Englemeyer, the fudge king who was murdered in 1964, because he felt a connection to Harry as a person.
00:13:36
Speaker
And that was probably one of the bigger things we added as the story moved through drafts. It's just a line here, a line there, trying to just make that connection feel real to readers. Yeah, and what was the connection that you felt that Tom was seeking with the central figure of this piece?
00:14:02
Speaker
Well, they share, they have a lot in common. Tom grew up kind of in the same region. Obviously, it spent summers in Ocean City where Harry had his fudge shop, grew up eating the fudge. So they're sort of
00:14:20
Speaker
that aspect of it. And also Harry was gay, Tom is gay, you know, so they have that shared experience of growing up in that very particular part of the world and in the way that people there view gay people and their place in the world. So he had a lot of stuff and he actually writes in the story that at times he almost felt as if Harry was kind of like reaching through time to like urge him on.
00:14:49
Speaker
And I think he came to identify a lot with Harry and the position Harry found himself in in that moment in time. Very nice. Well, well, Jonah has always, always really cool to get your side of the table on these things and also to drop in some little things that might help some other writers out there as they work with editors to get some of their, to get the best, put their best narrative foot forward. So as always, Jonah, thanks so much for the conversation here. My pleasure.
00:15:24
Speaker
All right, we are stepping right up to the plate with Tom Donaghy. This man doesn't have any social media presence, which I deeply admire, as you know, your resident rager against the algorithm. Or maybe he has some for research sake, but that's about it. You can learn a bit about him at tomdonaghy.com.
00:15:43
Speaker
And you're about to learn a whole lot more about Tom and his story about Ocean City's Fudge King and why Tom needed to solve this near 60 year old cold case. Let's do this. Oh man, I'm not sure it did to tell you the truth. And in fact, I started looking into this story because I was researching it for what I thought might be a screenplay or a
00:16:12
Speaker
a limited series. That's that's how I spend my time at this point in my life. And then once I got into it, I began to just the research took me deeper and deeper and deeper. And what happened was I had all this material and then the strike hit the WGA strike hit. And so I couldn't
00:16:36
Speaker
I don't know if you're going to want to include this, but I couldn't pursue it as any kind of screenplay or limited series. And one of my reps said, why don't you write an article
Research and Historical Justice
00:16:49
Speaker
about it? And I said, well, I've never done such a thing. And they said, well, you've got all this material. Give it a shot. So that's how this happened. I kind of backed into it, which is how much of my career has unfolded, to tell you the truth.
00:17:06
Speaker
Like, did you set out to be a screenwriter or like you said, you kind of found yourself backing into it somehow? I did not set out to be a screenwriter either. I mean, I was a playwright in New York. I consider myself a playwright, you know, by nature and history. And then I was visiting Los Angeles and I took a meeting and I ended up in television.
00:17:28
Speaker
At a certain point, I started writing screenplays. And so this article came about in a kind of organic way. As I say, someone suggested I do it. And then I thought, well, this would be an interesting way to arrange this material. I had no idea what I was in for. I had no idea what it meant to investigate a cold case crime. I do have journalists in my life, and they were helpful.
00:17:56
Speaker
It's not what I meant to do. And it took the stuffing out of me, let me tell you. But it's been extremely gratifying. In what way did the story take the stuffing out of you? Well, in so many ways. It takes place in this landscape, Ocean City, New Jersey, where I visited as a child every summer and where people I know still live. And I was dealing with
00:18:24
Speaker
people who remembered this crime. I, you know, I ended up speaking to one of the eyewitnesses to Harry Englemeyer's murder. You know, I talked, of course, to Leland Stanford, who's in peace, the public defender of the man acquitted of this crime. I had no
00:18:41
Speaker
I didn't know how to do such things or approach such things, but I just kept going where the story led me. I guess that's what a journalist does. In this case, it was almost, I don't want to say not choiceful, but there was something about this story from the beginning, from when my brother brought it to me.
00:19:03
Speaker
that has led me more than I've chased it. One person led to another, to a Facebook post, to a phone number, to a website, to a blog. It was as if I was being sort of pulled
00:19:21
Speaker
through this. Now, I went happily, but I was dealing with real people and real history, and that's not generally what I do. So that's what took the stuffing out of me. And I want to honor the truth as I understand it, and it's a slippery truth that
00:19:40
Speaker
And I want to honor this man, Harry Englemeyer, who is, you know, fascinating. I want to keep wanting to use the language of television and screen, which I was about to say character. He's not a character. He's a he was a man. And so all of this is different to me. And I and speaking with Jonah, like, I understand that, you know, just had like a really a good connection, if you will, to to Harry. And I wonder if maybe you can articulate what that connection was and why you maybe felt so strongly about him.
00:20:10
Speaker
Right. Well, first of all, he he was a charming, by all accounts, a charming, good, fun, you know, guy, you know.
00:20:23
Speaker
I have a photo of him that I keep, and he's someone I'd want to hang out with. And he was a gay man, as am I, who lived in this town where I grew up long before I ever visited it, and somehow made it not just a success of himself, but a real splash. And by all accounts, many accounts, most accounts, was really well loved.
00:20:50
Speaker
and well regarded and respected. And yet, he was mostly openly gay, as openly gay as he could be in 1964. So all of this was astonishing to me. He was good to his family. He was good to his workers. He was engaged civically. He was trying to move his
00:21:16
Speaker
this place, this small town founded by Methodists into the future. I mean, I was thinking about him this morning.
00:21:26
Speaker
I think about him frequently, but I left that place. You know, I left the places where I grew up to go to places where there would be people more like me. He stayed and wanted to change it from within. I would not have had that fortitude. So he has my respect and affection, you know, from this distance.
00:21:48
Speaker
Now, it's clear that you really have a connection to him and a genuine, to use the character term, but kind of a love for this character. And given that he was a real live person who was just tragically brutally murdered, to what extent was the, did you feel like the weight of wanting to honor his story over the course of the reporting and the writing of this piece?
00:22:18
Speaker
Well, tremendously. At times it was, I didn't know if I could rise to the occasion to tell you the truth. I mean, the other thing about him that is so striking is that town was and is America's greatest family resort. That's what it calls itself. And I remember,
00:22:45
Speaker
as a child seeing families around me men and women families with children and that was the only family and there and there was it was a very Christian community and and especially in 1964 he was saying
00:23:03
Speaker
I don't want you to tell me what to do on Sundays. I want to make some fudge. I want to sell it. I want to be a businessman. That was really provocative, and it's still provocative. We live in a world where we're still being told what we might
00:23:21
Speaker
you know, maybe should be doing on Sundays. So, you know, I, he came to be a hero to me and I wanted to, that's, I wanted to make sure he was a hero to everyone who would read the piece, you know, so that's what I endeavored to do.
00:23:43
Speaker
When you're dealing with, in the non-fiction world, and then you come across someone of this nature who you just, by virtue of what they stood for, you come to very much admire them, and then like you were saying a moment ago, feeling like, can you rise to the occasion to tell their story and honor them? That is a psychic burden that so many writers of non-fiction feel, and it's just great to hear you articulate that, because it is tough to do.
00:24:11
Speaker
It is tough to do, and I need a rest after this. But don't get me wrong. It was invigorating, and it engaged the people around me, my family, who I mentioned in the piece, who were and are so invested in this, and the people I talked to on the ground in Ocean City.
00:24:37
Speaker
And that was new to me. When you make up stories in your head, you're in your head. But this was me going into the world. And it was very, very gratifying in a way that I'm not generally gratified by what I do. So I might yet do it again. But as I say, this story fell in my lap. I'm not sure a story like this would fall in my lap again. In fact, I'm sure it would not.
00:25:08
Speaker
Yeah, and given since you weren't trafficking in, let's say, imagination, where you can patch in those kind of holes with your own creativity, you know, this way you're beholden to the facts and if you need certain information, you need to go out and seek that particular person out. So in what way was that a challenge or maybe not a challenge for you over the course of the generation of this piece?
00:25:35
Speaker
Well, as I say, this piece had a strange evolution. I thought I was doing research for a story. And then I found, no, I was actually going to be investigating what happened in this cold case murder. And that happened about when I got the files, the investigation files from the Atlantic
00:25:56
Speaker
County Prosecutor's Office after making an open public records request. And when I got those files, 168 pages,
00:26:06
Speaker
I realized most profoundly that I was on a whole new journey. So I had to really get down to business. And I worked with a research assistant. And we made Excel spreadsheets and contact lists.
Cold Calling and Witness Interviews
00:26:31
Speaker
I turned into a different kind of writer because of wanting to get it right. And given that you had journalist friends in your orbit, what kind of counsel did you seek from them for this?
00:26:50
Speaker
Well, I have a friend who writes for the New York Times who's a great guy. And I would call him and say, how do you call someone up and say, do you realize your father may have been the actual murder in a cold case? How do you do that?
00:27:10
Speaker
There was no, I had no idea. And I would say, what are the rules around quoting people? I didn't know if you could change a word. And I should say that Jonah and everyone at the Atavist was extremely helpful in holding my hand through this.
00:27:27
Speaker
I didn't know what the protocol was. Toward the end of this experience, once it was an article, I didn't know how to circle back to law enforcement and say, we're going to print this as an article. Do you have any comments? I needed a real help. So I just asked and asked and asked, which is what I do generally. I'm not afraid of
00:27:54
Speaker
asking a question and just hope that people would answer, answer. And many people did not, you know, many people or many people initially talked to me then wouldn't. Some of that is in the piece. And that was confusing, you know, but then that's par for the course, it turns out, you know. So I was learning as I went.
00:28:14
Speaker
someone who kind of struggles making cold calls and having that initial conversation especially when you're you have like it's a foreign phone number popping up on someone's phone and you got to like pitch them real quick who you are that you're not
00:28:30
Speaker
a robocaller that you're not a scammer of some kind and that you're looking to talk to them for certain information. So for you, what was that experience like for you that might help other people who struggle with the cold calling nature of this line of work?
00:28:47
Speaker
Right. Well, I always wrote a script for myself before I made such calls. And in fact, I wrote several variations of that script, depending on how the call might proceed. So I had two or three versions in front of me. And some people I had phone numbers. Some people I only had emails. Some people I reached out to on Instagram. Actually, Christopher Brendan Hughes
00:29:16
Speaker
Son, maybe I shouldn't be saying this, but he only has a social media presence. So I reached out to him. I did not, by the way. I heard back from him, but he didn't engage about the piece. Again, I just groped through the darkness and just went by instinct. But I tried to be as prepared as I possibly could be. I tried to have in my head, or at least in front of me on a piece of paper,
00:29:42
Speaker
all the questions I could ask. And then within that, if they only gave me five minutes, the three most important questions I needed to ask. So a lot of this was just prepping before I got to the actual interviews. I should say there were people
00:30:03
Speaker
like Joyce Lickfeld, like Leland Stanford, who I talked to on several occasions. So that was because they were open. And one conversation opened up a lot of new questions. So then I would prepare a whole new script and proceed that way. So I'm not sure I could give a masterclass in this. In fact, I know I couldn't. But I somehow found my way as time went on.
00:30:32
Speaker
I find the script is helpful to have that down just at an open screen in front of you. You tend not to stumble over yourself. You're getting quickened to the point. And it definitely helps you from stammering over yourself and sounding fretful, if that makes any sense.
00:30:54
Speaker
Absolutely. And of course, I generally write scripts. So for me, that was what came naturally. Interior, picking up the phone. Exactly. Solitary writer at kitchen table calls murder suspect's son.
00:31:11
Speaker
see if they're aware that their father was involved in a murder or not, you know. Oh my gosh. Yeah. I mean, gosh, what like that must have been like you talk about a butterflies in the stomach call. Like what was that like? Take us to that moment of dialing that phone number.
00:31:27
Speaker
Well, right now I'm remembering Beth Blevin, who her father has mentioned in the piece, as being a suspect, or at least a suspect, he wasn't an official suspect, he was a suspect in the minds of people on the ground in Ocean City for many years. And, you know, for real reasons, it seemed to me,
00:31:48
Speaker
at first anyway and and that was such a long road even to get to her because that family was so off the grid but I finally got her and and I just tried to be as respectful and as journalistic in the way I understood it as I could be and lead with my uncertainty about what I was
00:32:12
Speaker
suggesting and saying I was just after the truth and and using the names that may have paved the way to get me to that phone call, you know, and sometimes my credentials, you know, when you work in Hollywood, people answer the phone. So I just tried every trick in the book. And, you know, she was
00:32:39
Speaker
taken aback to hear that her father had been thought of as a killer. She had not
00:32:47
Speaker
heard that. That was another great mystery, getting to her and I was rather shocked because I had heard her father's name from several sources as being involved in this murder. But she was open and honest and she had spent several years of her life taking care of her father at the end of his life.
00:33:11
Speaker
And she gave me the number of her sister and I talked to her sister. The talking to them, because I do like talking to people, I like hanging out and getting to know people. So that's kind of how I dealt with it. It was after the fact that I thought, oh man, did you just ruin this person's day? And especially talking to some of the older people who remember this is a very traumatic experience.
00:33:40
Speaker
Harry Englemeyer's murder and the trial five years after the murder. Joyce Lickfeld, who had me to her house, that was intense. I actually brought my mother and my brother, who were mentioned in the piece, and Joyce had with her sister and her son, we sat around a table full of bagels and muffins and coffee and talked about
00:34:09
Speaker
a murder she had witnessed in 1964. And she was the prime. She was the eyewitness to this murder. And it was not easy, but people are people. And if you, I think, present with
00:34:28
Speaker
in a sense of I'm just trying to understand this story because I think it's a story that needs to be told. People are generally responsive, unless, of course, they have something to hide. And then doors were shut. And there were some people, as I say, who didn't want to, who talked to me and then didn't want to talk anymore. That happened more than a few times, which is fair enough.
00:34:56
Speaker
And a moment ago, you talked about how you're kind of writing through the darkness.
Queer Histories and Screenwriting
00:35:02
Speaker
And I wonder for you, as you're writing through the darkness, how best do you illuminate that path? Well, that's a great question.
00:35:14
Speaker
How best, you know, I just kept my eye on the answers. I just kept thinking this is for him. This is for Harry. I just kept that in my head. And I relied on my friends. You know, I'm sure they are complaining about me behind my back, you know. I really did need people to sort of help me through.
00:35:39
Speaker
Again, this story connects to my personal history in so many ways that there was no not telling it. And and I kept thinking this connects to the landscape where I grew up. Something about this story reveals to me something about the landscape where I grew up, the people I grew up with, you know. And so that kind of notion led me through.
00:36:07
Speaker
Yeah, having that North Star and that connection to Harry and wanting to do right by him too, it's like kind of when you get bogged down by the weight of it or you want to give up, you know, you kind of have something that's like, oh, you know, I have something of a bigger purpose in telling this story too.
00:36:23
Speaker
There's no question. And there's this thing about this story, which is to say it is queer history that ran parallel to accepted history. And I'm super interested in those stories. This is as much a part of the history of that city as the history of the blue laws there, or the beaches that were segregated by tradition.
00:36:50
Speaker
or the Methodists who founded that city that Gay Taliz mentions in his books. And it had not been told. So that's what carries me through. I feel suited, I guess, to tell this particular strain of history, which is this man who was a gay man. I don't know how he identified, but there's no question.
00:37:20
Speaker
he was a gay man. And that to me has always been important in storytelling, the stories that are missed, the stories that run alongside actual history. And probably that above all is what carried me through.
00:37:37
Speaker
Yeah, and I guess earlier when we were talking about your screenwriting roots and how that maybe helped you with this story, I think a lot of reporters, narrative journalists, they don't have as great a handle on those sort of cinematic blocks that really move a story forward. They're very good at gathering information, something very good at writing information, but when it comes to pacing, suspense,
00:38:04
Speaker
Scenes sometimes that takes a bit of a heavier lift on the on the part of the of a narrative journalism writer So in what ways did your screenwriter? Experience like really kind of help you propel this story and structure it well well
00:38:24
Speaker
It struck me as such a cinematic story at first, you know, that the world of the Jersey Shore at that time, very sort of quaint, very picturesque, Ocean City, extremely charming, charming cottages and
00:38:43
Speaker
a Victorian architecture in the ocean and the boardwalk. It's all, it's stuff you have seen, you know, on the screen and the feeling of it just struck me as this kind of noir. So I had in mind, you know, double indemnity and Scorsese and, you know, it's just sort of part of
00:39:09
Speaker
what's in my head. I'm glad that ends up in the piece. I can see the world. I can see it too, because I grew up in it. And there's also this great juxtaposition of Ocean City, America's greatest family resort, and Atlantic City next door, which was debauched and corrupt. In 1964, when Harry was murdered that summer,
00:39:38
Speaker
the Democratic National Convention came through, and there was this light on Atlantic City, and people were appalled by what they saw. So you had these two very different places almost right next to each other. And it's something I had postcards up. As I went, I started to collect on eBay postcards of all the places mentioned in the story. They're all up on, I have a wall that's all corkboard.
00:40:07
Speaker
The visual of it, I wanted to be inside the world visually as well as all the other ways one needs to be inside a story. It's just what I guess I do by nature. And the story lends itself to that, I think. I remember even as a kid just being so struck by that
00:40:31
Speaker
I grew up in a rather, I guess, homogenous suburban suburb, you know, a suburb of Philadelphia. And then you'd go to the shore, and it was another world. You know, it was people having cocktails and wearing a bathing suit and, you know, smelling of cigarettes. All of this was delicious to me. Not, you know, and then you'd have...
00:40:56
Speaker
Harry Englemeyer's fudge. It was a very sensual place. Very, you know, I can picture it still. Do you find yourself to be much of a like an outliner or are you kind of like by the seat of your pants just kind of like to see how it flows out or you follow something of a map along the way?
00:41:17
Speaker
Absolutely, well, absolutely, Outliner. And that's not how I started writing when I wrote plays. I didn't outline. But writing film and television, it's part of the industry. It's part of what's required. It's actually super helpful to have a place to go, you know, beat to beat to beat. And I did, that was really my first task.
00:41:43
Speaker
in organizing all this material was to plan out all of it. And, you know, when I first wrote it, the first draft of it was kind of a mess, of course, and it was the longest thing I've ever written.
00:42:00
Speaker
There's no question. I mean, it was like 35,000 words at the beginning. I was appalled because I have a strange relationship to words, which is to say I'm ambivalent about them. But I was trying to get in every piece of research I had done. I was so proud of myself at that point. And it doubled back on itself, and it repeated itself, and it went down roads that shouldn't have gone down and didn't pay off.
00:42:27
Speaker
Again, Jonah, who's such a great editor, was incredibly patient and helpful in giving it a kind of narrative drive, you know, and really shaping up what I'd only sort of understood intuitively, you
Role of the Writer in Storytelling
00:42:45
Speaker
know. But yes, outline, absolutely, absolutely. What are some books that you return to?
00:42:57
Speaker
Well, again, I love what's spare. You know, I was when I was writing this, I reread a lot of Janet Malcolm. Oh, nice. I love nonfiction. I love nonfiction. And and Joan Didion and
00:43:14
Speaker
Eve Babitz, you know, I'm stuck on women of the 60s, 70s. Janet Malcolm, who, of course, her crime reporting is so excellent. And how she talks about the journalist as participant or not in the story. Because I was hesitant to put myself in this story at first.
00:43:40
Speaker
And it's something I had to be sort of talked into. And then I realized, well, of course I'm in this story, you know. And then I had to find a way to allow myself into the story in a way that I was just reading. I read Joan Didion,
00:44:05
Speaker
You know, I like nonfiction. I like people writing about true crime. I like reading people writing about the culture. But both of those writers very spare to the point writers and
00:44:19
Speaker
It's Janet Malcolm who helped me think about how I could be in the story of the Fudge King, because at first I did not want myself in the story, but then I was, you know, led to
00:44:39
Speaker
to believe I should be in the story because I was, in fact, part of the story. And it was true. But I had to make my way into it without it becoming about me. And so I was reading people who were writing about crime while I was doing this.
00:44:59
Speaker
Yeah, that's always a tough decision to make, whether you want to be a presence in the story or not. And then how much so? To what extent are you a guide or are you part of the story? And that's always a tough decision to make. Sometimes you have to experiment a lot as you go.
00:45:18
Speaker
Well, we did dial it up more than I originally had thought we would. But then I sort of came to peace with it because the fact is Harry's not around to talk to and it's
00:45:37
Speaker
It's the one great mystery that remains is what he thought of all this, what he thought of his life that last summer. So it's me speculating on that. So that's how I am in the story. It's me trying to understand what was going through this man's head, this very charming man who loved people, who was actually being targeted by
00:46:07
Speaker
the people in the community that he cared for so much. So that's how I understood I needed to be in the story, sort of speculating on what was maybe going through his head. I still don't ultimately know why Harry Englemeyer stayed in Ocean City, America's greatest family resort. He could have been anywhere. He could have opened fudge shops.
00:46:35
Speaker
in New York City, where there was a virgin and gay community, even in the early 60s, or Philadelphia, his hometown, my hometown, in the early 60s, in Rittenhouse Square, where there was a gay community. I don't know why he stayed where he did stay. These questions are my questions about his life, because he can't answer them. And so that's how I'm in the story.
00:47:03
Speaker
Would you have stayed if you were in his shoes? No. No. No. I didn't stay. Yeah. No, I left at 18. I left Philadelphia. I left, I, in fact, had not been back to the Jersey Shore since I was a teenager, decades ago.
00:47:21
Speaker
until I went back to celebrate my mother's birthday during the pandemic, at which point my brother, Michael, who is a chocolatier and confection maker himself, told me about this story. And then I realized I had to go back again. So it's a land I left because I
00:47:49
Speaker
I left because I knew people who were more like me were elsewhere. But Harry stayed, and I don't know why. I wish above all I could ask him why he stayed, because that led to his death. It really did. He stayed, he fought, he wanted to make it a different place.
00:48:12
Speaker
not essentially, but just take it a little bit into the future. I don't, I don't, I know people like that who stay within systems and change them. I don't know that I have that courage, you know? But I marvel at his attachment to that place. And maybe it was his family who, you know, he was very close to his family and his sister had apartments above, an apartment above Copper Kettle, as did Harry, and her children worked in the shop and his mother would come visit in the summer. Maybe it was all that. Maybe it's just what he knew growing up.
00:48:42
Speaker
In that way, we're very different people, you know? Yeah. Of course, it was a very different time in 1964. Yeah, Jesus. I mean, you know, that's that's part of it, too. I have extraordinary freedoms that man did not, you know, the American Psychiatric Association was calling homosexuality, you know, a sociopathic personality disturbance. Yeah. At that point, you know, Life magazine, the summer before Harry's death published this piece about
00:49:10
Speaker
gay people that called them sad and sordid. You know, that was the climate at the time. So I'm not faulting Harry for not heading to New York or to even Philadelphia's gay neighborhood. But he was so forward thinking that I can't help but wonder why he didn't go, you know? Yeah. Over the course of your research and learning more and more about him, what did you come to admire most about him?
00:49:42
Speaker
Oh, that he was a fighter. You know, he in several places in the investigation files and in a couple of the press mentions, he's quoted as saying, I can take care of myself. And it touched me. He was he was by several accounts, a kind of brawler, kind of stocky and kind of he would he would tangle with people, you know, he but that that moved me. I can take care of myself.
00:50:11
Speaker
That was what stayed with me most about him. And not only could he take care of himself, he could take care of the people around him. And I just think that's incredible. No self-pity, ultimately no real fear. He thought he could power through all his troubles that summer. They were coming for him. Those morals charges.
00:50:40
Speaker
that he was accused of in the months before his death, the year before his death, actually. And he stayed, and I can take care of myself. I mean, you know, good for you, you know? Yeah.
00:50:55
Speaker
That's wonderful. Well, Thomas, I like to bring these conversations down
Recommended Readings and Final Reflections
00:50:59
Speaker
for a landing. I always ask the guests for a recommendation of some kind, and that can just be anything you're excited about. And so I pose that to you as we wind down here. What might you recommend for the listeners out there?
00:51:11
Speaker
And then, well, boy, you know, there must be something going right in my life that I'm overwhelmed with things I might suggest. But I'm going to recommend Janet Malcolm's Two Lives, which is the book I read most recently about Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas. It's a slim book.
00:51:29
Speaker
It is about how these two Jewish lesbians survived during the war in France. It is complex and rich and so astute.
00:51:47
Speaker
Her observations are incredible, and what a writer. So that's what I would recommend. Fantastic. Well, Tom, for people who want to maybe get a little more familiar with you and your work, is there any other digital or online footprint where people can go find you?
00:52:03
Speaker
I have a very limited online footprint, but yes, I don't have any social media. There is a Wikipedia page and otherwise they'll just have to keep tuning in. Nice. How do you navigate the internet and just creative work without the social media footprint?
00:52:30
Speaker
You know, that's a great question, Brendan. You know, I think things come to everybody that should come to everybody. And I'm not sure that having an online presence brings anything more. Yeah. You know, I'm a great believer in meeting up with people, IRL, and seeing what happens.
00:52:59
Speaker
I find a lot of that to be overstimulating and distracting and putting me elsewhere. I remember when it all began and I thought, oh, this is going to destroy everybody's sense of place. The sense of actual place will be obliterated because now will be any place or all the places. And so I think, well, whatever might come to me if I have a stronger online presence,
00:53:29
Speaker
will have to come to me another way, and if it doesn't, then it's not worth coming, you know? All right, thank you to Jonah and to Tom for a lovely conversation about all of this. That's magazine.adavis.com to read this piece and many past issues of incredible work from incredible storytellers. I don't have much by way of a parting shot, and by that, I mean I don't have one. This week, I just
00:54:00
Speaker
I don't have it. Okay? Brendan and Mary.com pay for show notes and to sign up for the Rage Against the Algorithm newsletter. Dig it, friend. Stay wild, seeing efforts. And if you can't do interviews, see ya.