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Episode 366: David Grann
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David Grann is the best-selling author behind The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder. He's also the author Killers of the Flower Moon, The Lost City of Z, and The Devil & Sherlock Holmes.
Social: @CNFPod
Support: Patreon.com/cnfpod
Substack: rageagainstthealgorithm.substack.com
Show notes: brendanomeara.com
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Transcript
Introduction & Sponsorship
00:00:00
Speaker
Hey CNN4S, a little shout out here to Athletic Brewing. The best damn non-alcoholic beer out there. Not a paid plug, but I am a brand ambassador and I want to celebrate this amazing product. If you head to athleticbrewing.com and use the promo code BRENDANO20 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 for like swag and beer.
00:00:22
Speaker
Give it a shot. And the God no file is when I give her my chapter after hot off the press and show it to her. And she starts to read something. She says, God no. And God no is always the section where I went on and on and on about something. And that goes into a little folder that's called the God no file.
Guest Introduction: David Gran
00:00:46
Speaker
Oh hey CNFers, it's CNF Bod, the creative non-fiction podcast, a show where I speak to badass people about telling true stories. I'm Brendan O'Mara, how's it going?
00:00:56
Speaker
Once upon a time, David Grant came on the show for episode 99 to talk about Killers of the Flower Moon, and he returns for episode 366 to talk about his new book, The Wager, a tale of shipwreck, mutiny, and murder. It's published by Bantam Doubleday Dell, and I'll come right out and say it, see you in efforts.
00:01:18
Speaker
There's nobody better at reconstructing these narratives that immerse you in an era and make you feel the tension of being there, even if there is 300 years ago.
Themes in "The Wager"
00:01:30
Speaker
So we talk about how he creates tension and also how each book he writes merits its own voice and tone and where the term, among others, under the weather comes from.
00:01:42
Speaker
The wager has resonant themes that echo into the present and dives into the issue of colonialism, racism, shipbuilding, and the degradation of the human mind and spirit. This was a time where the balance of power was beginning to shift from Spain to Britain and the narratives a country can spin about itself and also how individuals spin their own narratives through their own logs for, in a lot of cases, for self-preservation.
00:02:11
Speaker
It's juicy stuff, CNFers. You're gonna love it.
00:02:16
Speaker
Make sure you're headed to BrendanOmero.com for show notes and to sign up for the Rage Against the Algorithm newsletter. It's now on Substack. Just click the lightning bolt on my website or visit rageagainstthealgorithm.substack.com. Still first of the month, no spam, can't beat it. What with Twitter burying any tweet that has a link in it that takes you away from Twitter, I'm more inclined to just be almost unilaterally done with Twitter. So this is how we Rage Against the Algorithm.
00:02:47
Speaker
And if you take this show, consider sharing it with your network so we can grow the pie and get this CNFing thing into the brains of other CNFers who need the juice. You can also leave a kind review on Apple Podcasts, or the wayward CNFer might say, well shit, I'll give that a shot. Also, show is free, but it sure as hell ain't cheap, so you may want to go over to patreon.com slash CNFpod and consider dropping a few bucks in the hat if you glean some value from what we churn and burn here at CNFpod HQ.
00:03:17
Speaker
Okay, so you know David Gran as a staff writer for The New Yorker, the author of The Lost City of Z, Killers of the Flower Moon, The White Darkness, and The Devil in Sherlock Holmes. It's safe to say he's one of the literary heroes worth meeting because he's a sweet and generous person. He's one of the good guys. And I know you're gonna dig this conversation with a first-team all-American writer in David Gran, so let's hit it. Let's get right after it. Riff.
00:03:56
Speaker
Yeah, I remember that was it was a good time and it's uh, where were you? At what point did the wager get on your radar? Was it like during flower moon time or is slightly after? So yeah, so I killers of our moon come out and
00:04:14
Speaker
And I probably didn't find the wager to a little before the Killers of Fireman was done, but before it was published, I had come across an 18th century journal by John Byron, who was a midshipman on the wager.
00:04:32
Speaker
And it was this kind of very old journals kind of written this stilted prose. But while I was reading it, I kept kind of, you know, being seized by these various phrases like, you know, mutiny and typhoons and descriptions of a shipwreck on an island and how the castaways kind of descended into this.
00:04:53
Speaker
Hobbesian state of depravity. And I realized that this journal kind of held a clue to this kind of extraordinary saga.
The Voyage and Shipwreck
00:05:01
Speaker
And that's where things really began. And then, of course, the thing that really drew me to the story was after I had come across that journal, I began to do more research. And I was fascinated with not only what happened on the island when these British
00:05:19
Speaker
crew and officers were shipwrecked, but also what had happened when several of them made it back to England, and they were summoned to face a court-martial for their alleged crimes. And if they didn't tell a convincing tale, they were going to get hanged after everything they'd been through.
00:05:38
Speaker
And so this kind of provoked this furious war over the truth where they released their various competing accounts and there was disinformation and misinformation and I swear even allegations of a kind of 18th century version of fake news. And of course, there was a fight over who we get to tell the history and efforts by those
00:06:00
Speaker
empower to cover up the sinful parts and scandalous parts of a nation's past. So I thought even though the story took place in the 18th century, the thing that really drew me to it was it felt in many ways like a parable for our own times.
00:06:14
Speaker
Yeah, there's a there's a moment like very early in the book and it really rhymes and echoes with something at the very end. And it's what you're kind of what you're getting at that you're right. You know, we all impose some coherence, some meaning on the chaotic events of our existence.
00:06:30
Speaker
Then go through the raw images of our memories electing burning erasing and then like later in the book, too It's a just as people tailor their stories to serve their interests revising erasing embroidering So do nations so you find it like at the micro level of these people Massaging things for their own good and then you're like on the macro level of nations doing it So it really does kind of go right up the ladder so to speak. Yes it does and so
00:07:00
Speaker
I mean, just to tell a little bit about the, you know, kind of what happened, and then we should talk more about this because I do think it's such an interesting theme and what makes the story so interesting was, but, you know, these men of the wager and they were boys as well were part of an expedition that set out in 1740 on a secret mission.
00:07:25
Speaker
try to capture a Spanish galleon filled with treasure, which was known as the prize of all the ocean. Believe it or not, that was part of the war mission that a real with piracy about it. And they set out as part of a squadron. And they have to cross the Atlantic and then they're supposed to round Cape Horn.
00:07:44
Speaker
then head into the Pacific and try to intercept the galleon. But almost immediately, everything begins to go wrong. While they are trying to get around Cape Horn, they have to battle typhoons and tidal waves. Many of the men begin to suffer scurvy, hundreds of them perish. And then ultimately, the ships are scattered around the Horn, and the wager ends up alone by itself. And it ends up wrecking off the Chilean coast
00:08:14
Speaker
Patagonia on this desolate island. And at first they hope that this island may be their salvation.
00:08:21
Speaker
But it turns out that the island was freezing cold and it was constantly wet and raining or sleeting. And worst of all, there was virtually no food. One British officer described it as the kind of place where the soul of man dies and gradually they begin to descend into chaos and into warring factions as they struggle to survive. So that's the kind of basic synopsis of what happened.
00:08:51
Speaker
Yeah, and what's particularly riveting about it as well is, well, for one, the cover illustration or painting of the book is amazing. Granted, I have a digital copy, but I've seen copies of or cover images of the book, and you get a sense of the incredibly turbulent ocean and how this warship, which isn't much longer than
00:09:15
Speaker
Home to second base on a baseball a little bit longer. Yeah, you know maybe like home plate to the outfield grass Like straight ahead and I'm just thinking of any time. I've been on a cruise the ocean can Will throw a cruise ship around and I'm thinking like how are they even staying afloat out out there and in the waters on these on these sailboats? Yeah, I do have that you know do yeah on the on these boats that rely primarily on wind it was just really
00:09:45
Speaker
just harrowing to put yourself on the boat with them. Yeah, the wager was about 123 feet, had three mass. There was onboard 250 men and boys, which was nearly twice the amount that the ship was designed for. So the people were just packed in there. The sailors would sleep in hammocks between cannons.
00:10:09
Speaker
And when the waves would come, their elbows and knees would jostle. That's how close they were together. And they have to cross Cape Horn. And for people who aren't familiar with Cape Horn, I had always heard that Cape Horn is like a terrifying place for sailors. But until I did a little more research, I didn't fully grasp how terrifying it really is. It's the only place on the earth. It's at the very tip of South America, at the end of the Americas.
00:10:36
Speaker
And it's the only place on the globe where the oceans flow around the entire earth uninterrupted, meaning un-instructed by any other bit of land. So the waves build over about 13,000 miles accumulating force. It has the strongest currents on earth and it has waves that can dwarf
00:10:59
Speaker
a 90 foot mast and then there are the winds. The winds can accelerate to, you know, they often accelerate to hurricane force and they can reach as much as 200 miles per hour. And so when the squadron was coming around the horn, they were just battered
00:11:17
Speaker
day and night by these storms until the ships are effectively starting to break apart. As you said, those waves could toss a cruise, but they would toss these vessels around. In those days, you had to climb the mast to work the sails. They would send people up on the mast. The top men would climb as high as 100 feet on these mast.
00:11:44
Speaker
And they would cling to the yards, which were like the booms, which the sails unfurl from on the mast. And when the ships were rocking, they were rocking so much that the tips of the booms, or the tips of these yards where the men are clinging like spiders to, are touching the water. And they're just swinging back and forth like a pendulum.
00:12:02
Speaker
There is one point where the storms were so rough they couldn't fly any sails and one of the commanding officers orders his men to climb the mass so that they can use their bodies like sails.
00:12:17
Speaker
And so these people climb the mass. They're using their bodies like these concave sails so that the captain could at least have enough resistance to be able to maneuver and turn the ship some, rather than just pitch wildly in the waves. And it actually succeeds, but one of the men is tossed and thrown into the churning ocean. And the others can see him swimming after them. And there's no way to turn a ship like that around in the storm where we take
00:12:46
Speaker
far too long and they know he's still alive and they can see him for a long time just swimming desperately to catch up until eventually he disappears and vanishes into the sea.
00:12:57
Speaker
yeah it's uh your description of the drake passage is it just sounds like a pure hell and it's just like why anyone would try to contest that given that they they kind of knew what they were up against going in there as a as a squadron uh but it was like you know you're there and you're recreating this whole thing and you know there is like sort of the the mothership and the wager was certainly one of the smaller ones and i
00:13:20
Speaker
again just in the way that you evoke it you can almost you can feel the palpable helplessness of the men on the wager as like the other ship you're getting away or they can't see them be on the waves and then before you know it they they're alone and on their own just at the chaotic whims of the Drake Passage yes and on top of that
00:13:41
Speaker
They knew they would need every person on board if they were going to keep these ships afloat and to battle against these elements. And right in the midst of these typhoons, shortly before they all separated,
00:13:57
Speaker
or a few weeks before they all separated, they begin to come down with the illness of scurvy and many of the men could no longer rise from their hammocks, their hair begins to fall out, their teeth fall out, the tissue kind of that seems that connects their bones seem to be coming undone. There was one man who had been on a battle 50 years earlier
00:14:20
Speaker
who had fractured a limb in that battle. It had obviously over five decades long since hailed. But then it kind of just snaps in the same place. It just refractures again.
Research and Storytelling
00:14:33
Speaker
And some of the men were described, one semen observed that the disease got into the semen's brains and they went raving mad.
00:14:41
Speaker
And so all this is going on. They are battling this disease as well. I call it the storm within the storm. And many of the men have to be just tossed overboard. And hundreds and hundreds of them perished from scurvy at this time.
00:14:58
Speaker
Regarding scurvy, you know, which we we now know the the causes of it but in the in the end notes which I skim through and I to see your commentary on various things that you cited and Some of the scurvy was kind of attested to you know, possibly you know laziness and a lot of times the commanding officers would you know kick and beat them to try to like
00:15:22
Speaker
Get up, you lazy asses. You're not suffering, you're just lazy. Meanwhile, it's just like their bodies are just breaking down through vitamin deficiency. Yeah, they didn't. Back then, they didn't know. It was interesting because I was doing this research and writing about this during the pandemic. It actually made it feel very electric to me and real because it was very beginning of the pandemic. With scurvy, they didn't know the disease was named. They referred to it as scurvy. It actually killed
00:15:52
Speaker
more mariners than kind of all the other disastrous elements possibly, like, you know, including storms or battles or other diseases combined. More people in the age of Seale died of scurvy. So they knew about it. They were terrified by it. But it was the great enigma of the age of Seale. They did not know what caused it.
00:16:13
Speaker
you know, some people thought it was caused by your breath or by bad ear, you know, something malignant in the air. And others, as you described, some of the officers believed it was just a product of laziness among the semen, which is kind of preposterous. And so these poor men who are suffering and dying, you know, are being kicked and lambasted for their lack of vigor. So
00:16:38
Speaker
And of course, as you said, the cure was really so simple. They just didn't know it was a vitamin C deficiency, and it was a deficiency from their diets. They didn't have refrigeration on these ships, and so they didn't bring a lot of fruit and vegetables, so it was very deficient in their diet. And this squadron actually stopped in Brazil shortly before they then headed down and
00:17:00
Speaker
to round the horn. And when they stopped there, you know, there was an abundance of fruit and vegetables, including limes, which would have saved their lives, but they didn't know that at the time. And what's fascinating about the way you were able to construct this book is primarily through, or at least significantly, a part of the recipe where these log books
00:17:22
Speaker
that most, a lot of the Mariners kept for themselves and it's amazing given how rough the weather and the conditions were that these logbooks endured or that they even thought to keep them given that they had so little else to, I don't know, so little strength and so you figure, you figure logbooks might, I don't know, might be sacrificed but it turns out it was like the thing that they hung on to.
00:17:51
Speaker
Yeah. So in the Navy, the captain and lieutenant were required by the ability against penalty to keep a daily log of each occurrences, locations, the wins, and then descriptions of any remarkable incidents or mishaps.
00:18:11
Speaker
And so they kept those and other members of the ship would also keep log books on their own, even though it was required by law or journals of some sort. And and it is amazing. I mean, these journals, you know, you can go to a British archive, you know, and you can pull
00:18:31
Speaker
a log book from the 1740s, some of them that made it all the way around the world, some of them that survived the typhoons, survived these scurvy outbreaks, documents that survived even the shipwreck. And so you're just, it is one of the most astonishing thing to read these. And of course they have a plethora of information and research. You know, the empire was very keen on documenting
00:18:53
Speaker
Um, uh, and recording what was seen on these travels into less familiar areas as the British empire, uh, kind of sought ruthlessly to expand its reaches. So that was one of the purpose of the log books. And then the log books were also mandated by the admirals to be kept because they were also kind of evidentiary that if anything ever happened, if there was ever a mishap or a wreck or let's say a mutiny.
00:19:18
Speaker
these documents would be entered later into a court-martial as evidentiary material. So they were very important. And then they became and kind of held the roots. They would, out of these log books would grow a great deal of travel literature as, you know, first the seaman began to put more of their individualism into the log books and the journals and began to publish them, especially the officers. These became kind of staples of travel literature and so,
00:19:47
Speaker
So the log books were in many ways the seeds of European and especially British literature and travel literature.
00:19:55
Speaker
What became the challenge for you to build scenes and to string together the narrative from a lot of disparate accounts from these logs and just trying to make it very cohesive from a lot of piecemeal things? Yeah. So I chose to focus as much as possible through three fascinating members of
00:20:24
Speaker
wagers company so that it would kind of cohere around each of them and be filtered through the perspective and I did this to show how they were each trying to shape their stories in many ways to emerge as the hero of them to live with what they had done or hadn't done and of course when several of them made it back to England they faced a court martial
Survival and Court-Martial
00:20:48
Speaker
know, they really need to shape these stories because their lives will depend on it because they could be hanged for their alleged crimes on the island when they were marooned. And so the three people I focus on was the captain of the wager, a man named David Chee, who was somebody who always kind of struggled on land. He was kind of plagued by deaths and chased by creditors, but he always found refuge
00:21:13
Speaker
on a warship and it was his dream to always become a captain and during this voyage after one of the commanders dies of illness he gets promoted and he finally becomes
00:21:25
Speaker
the captain of the wager, the captain of his own warship, and achieves his great churning ambition. That is, of course, until the wreckage. And the other perspective is from John Boakley, who was the gunner on the wager. And though he was, perhaps, or arguably the most skilled seaman on board, he was certainly seen that way. And he was an instinctive leader. He did not come from the aristocracy, and so he could never rise to become captain of his own ship.
00:21:56
Speaker
And the third perspective is from John Byron, the 16-year-old midshipman on the wager when the expedition began. And in many ways, he's our eyes and ears onto this world. He's training to become an officer. He's filled with all these romantic notions of a life at sea. And of course, as the voyage goes on and everything goes to hell, he has to come of age
00:22:23
Speaker
amid the horrors that were unleashed, not only by the elements, but also by his own shipmates. And what makes him even more interesting, or also makes him very interesting, is that he would become the grandfather of the poet Lord Byron, whose poetry was very influenced by John Byron's written account of this voyage.
00:22:46
Speaker
And because the logs survive, you know certain members live or certainly make it farther than others in the course of the journey of what becomes like an adventure story.
00:23:03
Speaker
Um, but you're still creating a tremendous amount of tension and you don't necessarily, you know, it doesn't feel like a spoiler alert that the, that you kind of know that these guys survive. So like for you as a writer, how are, how are you pulling, how do you pull that off? You, you do that extremely well. And it's, I wonder how you still maintain the tension, even though we have these logs. So we kind of know like who makes it to England.
00:23:29
Speaker
Well, you tried telling the story from the vantage point of people who did not know if they were going to survive. And so they woke up every day with the terror. They woke every day with a desire to try to survive and to try to figure out how would they survive? How would they survive the voyage? And then, of course, how would they survive once they were marooned on this desolate island without food? How would they build in an encampment?
00:23:55
Speaker
Where would they find food? Would they work together? Would they turn on each other? And so if you describe history as it's unfolding through the eyes of the people who are experiencing it, it inherently has a tension because it has the tension that they do not know if at any moment they will perish. And so that's the way I try to tell the stories, not from
00:24:21
Speaker
You know, some historians, you obviously have the benefit of hindsight and you eventually bring the knowledge you've learned over time and obviously, you know, different perspective or modern perspective to the story. But I try to tell the stories not in reverse engineering them with this kind of God-like omniscience of knowing everything. I try to tell the stories as they actually were experienced by the people who are living them.
00:24:48
Speaker
And that in itself is always inherent with mystery. And in the case of these individuals, a real question of whether they would survive the next hour or the next day.
00:25:03
Speaker
Given the conditions they were subject to, even on the, we can even say the relative comforts of the wager itself, because once they were marooned on what would become Wager Island, suddenly the wager felt like an ocean line, like a carnival cruise ship. It gets worse, and then it gets worse.
00:25:23
Speaker
Yeah, it's just I'm just thinking of is something of the not for like a better term like the primitive clothing and then everything is breaking down or tearing there in tatters there in poor health and it is cold and it's snowy and it's ice and sleet and rain and wind and here they are stranded somewhere and yet they a chunk of them a significant chunk are able to survive so you know what did that tell you about you know just the the resilience of
00:25:53
Speaker
of the human spirit and these men in particular? Yeah, what's so interesting is in many ways, the island becomes a kind of laboratory that tests the human condition under extreme circumstances. Yeah. And inevitably, it reveals the secret nature of each man, the good and the bad.
00:26:16
Speaker
And you can see in our, you know, you're really struck for, let's just, you know, for example, someone like John Boakley, he just has an extraordinary level of resilience and ingenuity and a certain ruthless cunning to survive. And so many of the men gravitate toward him. And it's kind of spellbinding to see how
00:26:38
Speaker
how he endures what he is able to overcome when many others are giving up and just, you know, basically waiting for death to take them. He is plotting, scheming, building, constructing, doing whatever he can foraging to try to to try to live. So, you know, you're quite taken by the resilience. And then, you know, one moment you maybe, you know, you know, admire somebody's or
00:27:07
Speaker
you know, resilience or these kind of great acts of bravery. And then, you know, a moment later, you may recoil at their shocking brutality. And you often can see both. They are all very deeply human who are being tested under these extreme circumstances. So you see on that island, you see both acts of kind of extraordinary courage, acts of heroism, acts of gallantry. And you also see acts of brutality and murder and mayhem and cannibalism. So you see it all play out under these circumstances.
00:27:38
Speaker
Yeah, and speaking of it being like a laboratory, you do have something of a medical set piece where you do cite this study of people who were starved in more controlled conditions, but what you go on to write is the report summarized the results of the study and noted that the volunteers were shocked at
00:28:00
Speaker
Quote like how thin their moral and social veneers seem to be like once they reach that threshold of desperation and it was like right there like in modern clinical terms like is an explanation for what these men I endured on wager Island, you know food deprivation like sleep deprivation can just corrode and undermine and challenge
00:28:26
Speaker
and test the widths of a human being. And we know that just even when we're a little hungry, how we get, or if we haven't eaten for half a day or we're getting low blood sugar, imagine if day after day after day you're only having a tiny little bit of rations, you have a little bit of flour maybe, or you have a couple muscles and that's all you have to eat. You can imagine what that would do.
00:28:50
Speaker
not just to the physical body, which begins to wither, but also it has tremendous effects on the psychology of humans. And it can cause people to behave selfishly and cruelly and wantonly. And you certainly see that in many of the people trapped on the island.
00:29:07
Speaker
Yeah you'd get you'd get a few who might try to steal just an extra handful of flour or something to to eat and then like when that starts happening then everything then the seams are really starting to break loose and you start to see a truly like Lord of the Fliesian type thing take place.
00:29:27
Speaker
Yeah, you really see them fractured into different groups. And what's interesting too is they're in this kind of state of nature. One of them, I think, refers to it as a state of nature. And in that, they are trying to figure out how to govern. Even while they're starving, they have these kind of philosophical debates about the nature of leadership and loyalty and also governance. And so when crime begins to happen, when some of these
00:29:57
Speaker
desperate starving castaways begin to steal, taking out the bits of rations that are held in a communal store tent under guard. And in effect, when you are starving, that is treated as a heinous crime. It's not like you're just breaking into someone's house with endless food and taking a piece of bread.
00:30:20
Speaker
the last rations that may keep people alive. So it was seen as almost a murderous crime or was seen as a murderous crime by taking these foods. So they have to kind of come up with questions about punishment and how will they punish them. They decide to hold these makeshift trials on the island where
00:30:36
Speaker
They're kind of, I don't want to call them kangaroo courts because they follow certain rules, but you know, they're pretty quick and pretty prompt and they're very brutal in their punishments. And you see, you know, you just see the growing sense of chaos. One group of castaways kind of breaks off and they're referred to as the cedars and they kind of roam the island marauding.
00:30:58
Speaker
Then there is a faction led by Captain Cheep who is desperately clinging to his command and power who believes he should remain in charge because he was the captain of the ship and also believes their only chance of survival is to maintain the cohesion that existed on the ship and therefore the kind of strict military hierarchy, naval hierarchy
00:31:21
Speaker
and rules. And then you have John Boakley, that instinctive leader who spouts phrases that certainly resonate with many Americans today. He would use phrases like life and liberty, and more and more of the men are beginning to gravitate toward him. And he is now emerging as a commander in his own right.
00:31:41
Speaker
What's really fascinating in the story as well is how you imbue, like a moment ago when we were talking about that starvation study, being able to imbue that degree of context on these men from the
Nautical Details and Editing
00:31:57
Speaker
future.
00:31:57
Speaker
but also the the amount of this is sort of completely unrelated to the men but it is a pretty cool fact about just shipbuilding and how much board feed it took and and stuff those little facts that you've
00:32:14
Speaker
that you kind of fold in there like do you find that those are those are great things that you kind of stumble across over the course of the research and you're like oh sometimes maybe when my story beats are feeling a little thin it's like you know this is a great way where I can kind of inject some cool facts that still keep the story moving entertaining but also kind of you know it helps you know space out the action a little
00:32:36
Speaker
Yeah, you know, I mean, I am so I can really geek out. I like I become, you know, I know most of the subjects I know virtually nothing about when I begin them. I didn't know anything.
00:32:48
Speaker
certainly didn't know much about the 18th century. Yeah. I don't remember anything from school and what nautical life was like in these ships. And so I, you know, I just have a kind of a certain curiosity. So I will become like endlessly fascinated with the building of the ships and how they had to load them and the tons of foods. And, you know, I mean, you know, the ships were both like the most sophisticated instruments of their day. And yet they're, you know, they're made of very perishable
00:33:16
Speaker
materials are made mostly of wood. And so, you know, just all of that, getting these ships ready, setting them out to see these ships that were both the homes to many seamen that were like their families, and yet they're also these lethal instruments of imperialism at the same time with these cannons. So usually to me, I don't really separate those sections out from the narrative.
00:33:44
Speaker
To me, they're just as fascinating. So I will end up doing a ton of research as I try to understand things. And for me, the book is kind of
00:33:57
Speaker
told in different parts, but the first part of the book, I needed to describe the construction of the world. Because if you didn't understand the floating civilization, if you didn't understand what these worlds were like, how they were built, how the people survived and existed on them, the societies, the games, the regimen, the hierarchy, if you didn't understand that,
00:34:20
Speaker
You wouldn't then understand what happens when that world begins to crack apart. And so part of my mission was to build the world so that I can then also document its disintegration. And so I, you know, for me, the biggest issue tends to be more, I will do so much research and be so interested. I will write long on these descriptions and the challenge is just to peer them back.
00:34:42
Speaker
so that they don't overwhelm the narrative. So that's, that's usually more the challenge, rather than me saying, Oh, this is a part that needs something, it tends to be more that I already believe the narrative needs these sections. And then it's just a question of distilling it to its to its essence, and then finding the facts that convey it and are kind of astonishing, and losing some of the other material that'll make it feel lose its propulsion or its
00:35:11
Speaker
sense of narrative nonfiction of kind of moving forward. But you know, I, you know, certain facts, you just, you know, they're, they just kind of grab you and seize you. I mean, I remember the fact that it would take, you know, as, as much as 4,000 pieces of 4,000 trees to build one of these warships. This means 4,000 trees. So you come across certain factions, just like, wow, that is just an astonishing fact. One of the other facts that I kept finding really interesting
00:35:40
Speaker
was the language on these ships. I had no idea until I did this research how much of our language today was influenced from the language of the age of sail. And so many of the phrases we use from, you know, a scuttlebutt, which was, you know, which a scuttlebutt on a ship was a barrel filled with water and the seaman would gather about it to get their water rations. And when they're gathered about it, they were known to gossip. So that's why we use the word scuttlebutt today. Under the weather.
00:36:10
Speaker
I always thought well under the weather you know I never really thought about it but under the weather was was on a one of these ships when you were sick you didn't serve on the watch so you weren't exposed on deck you were kept below so you were quite literally under the weather so you were sick but you were quite literally under the weather above.
00:36:27
Speaker
And there's so many of these phrases, you know, cut and run was when they would cut the anchor line and run downwind if they had to escape and attack. My favorite phrase was the one by Nelson, which came a little bit later than the wager, but was to turn a blind eye. And the vice admiral Rachel Nelson had
00:36:47
Speaker
when he had taken his telescope and he had put it up against his blind eye so that he wouldn't see the signal flag from another officer to retreat because he didn't want to retreat. So that's where to turn the blind eye comes from.
00:37:03
Speaker
Yeah, and there was like toe the line, like pipe down. It just goes on and on. I mean, there were so many more I didn't put in there. Just so you know, three sheets to the wind was when certain certain sheets, which were the ropes, caused the sails to the flutter and the boat would kind of bounce about drunkenly.
00:37:22
Speaker
So all these phrases we use, you know, even pipe down, which was the bosun's whistle. He would blow a whistle to be quiet at night. Or piping hot was his whistle that the meals were ready.
00:37:36
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, that's I had highlighted a lot of that stuff, too, and it blew. I didn't realize that that's where I came from. It was like really, really cool. It's like, oh, wow, that like, that's where it came from. That's like a like your to your point earlier. It's just a great fact to kind of fold in. It doesn't take much more than a few sentences. Yeah. And so, for example, the language you'd ask me that question, I probably wrote, you know,
00:37:57
Speaker
many paragraphs in the language and then ultimately I just have to distill it down. So that's more so that you don't overwhelm the narrative. My wife is always my first reader. She's a great editor.
00:38:11
Speaker
And I have what I call the God No File. And the God No File is when I give her my chapter after, you know, hot off the press and show it to her. And she starts to read something. She says, God No. And God No is always the section where I went on and on and on about something. And that goes into a little folder that's called the God No File. That's awesome. I love that.
00:38:32
Speaker
Yeah, and it's like the story proper, at least on my copy, is like roughly just 250 pages. And that speaks to me that, especially after you read through the endnotes and some of the explanation that you go through in the endnotes just kind of expounding upon a particular citation you made.
00:38:54
Speaker
It must have been, to your point earlier, about really culling down and trimming down. You see the muscle of your research in the end notes, and then to see the story so lean and without any glut, it must have been just a tremendous exercise in restraint about what you put in and what you ultimately left out.
00:39:18
Speaker
And it involves a certain ruthlessness. You have to separate yourself. You know, there's the zealous reporter and researcher which learns everything. It may spend months trying to gather certain facts and then like lovingly puts them into the text as a writer. And then, you know, you finish and then you have to completely shift brains and then the ruthless editor must come out. And the ruthless editor has to say, you know what, he's been three months getting that fact.
00:39:47
Speaker
I really need that. And you often don't and you have to cut it and kill it. It's often painful, but you got to do it. And, and, you know, I was, you know, up until, you know, even from when the galley was printed, the first early galley to the final finished copy, there was parts I was still making sure were, you know, perfectly streamlined and balanced because I think especially for this kind of story, you need propulsion and
00:40:16
Speaker
And, you know, readers' attentions are short, so you really want to hold them in their grip. But you can do that, I think, and still have so much kind of wonderful, important information. I hope people reading the book will get this kind of unrelenting story of survival and adventure
00:40:38
Speaker
about leadership and the human spirit and also a great deal about the human condition. And then at the same time, hopefully learn a great deal about, almost folded in on the nature of war and imperialism and racism and the kind of malignant effects that were present in that day and still present to this day in many
Research Journey to Wager Island
00:41:05
Speaker
ways.
00:41:05
Speaker
How did visiting Wager Island for the, I believe, or that area for the roughly, I believe, three weeks that you were in that area, how did that inform the research, the reporting, and ultimately the writing of the book?
00:41:21
Speaker
Yeah. So, you know, I, I almost always begin a book, uh, project thinking, you know, okay, especially do some in the 1800 say in the 1700, okay. I'll just, this is all going to be in the archives. So I spent about two years, uh, researching in archives, looking at log books, learning how to read log books, muster books, finding journals, letters, correspondence, whatever I could. Um, but after about two years, I began to wonder or fear that I could never fully understand.
00:41:47
Speaker
what the castaways had undergone and experienced on the island unless I went there myself. And so that's why I decided somewhat foolishly to try to go there. And I found a Chilean captain who would take me there leaving from
00:42:04
Speaker
which is off the coast of Chile, traveling about 350 miles south to what is now known as Wager Island, known after this disaster, obviously. And Wager Island is located in
00:42:19
Speaker
El Gulfo de Penas, which translates as the Gulf of Sorrows, or some prefer to call it the Gulf of Pain. And when I had seen photographs of the captain's boat, I looked really big, you know, from when I was in New York, looking at the pictures before I went. I thought, this is a good big boat. And then I was a little bit taken aback when I got there to see that I was really
00:42:41
Speaker
pretty small, I think less than 50 feet but and it was it was heated by wood and it was very top heavy and to get water for the ship would have to pull up along the various islands and get glacial water so it was very tight and
00:42:58
Speaker
When we first set out, well, we were supposed to embark immediately, but the storms were so bad that the Coast Guard had closed the port. So for three days, we could not leave. And I sort of fear we would never get off. But eventually we do and we headed out. We got across the Gulf, which was very rough. But then we kind of stayed in the shelter channels along the Patagonian coast.
00:43:18
Speaker
which is sheltered by all these fractured islands. It's very chillingly beautiful, and the waters are really calm in there. It was peaceful, it was cold, it was winter time, but it was not rocky. But after several days, maybe it was about the fifth day the captain said, well, now we're going to have to go out into the ocean if we're going to get to Wager Island.
00:43:38
Speaker
And so at that point, we turned out and left these channels and headed out into the open unobstructed Pacific Ocean. And it was then that I got my first glimpse of these terrifying seas. The boat was just tossed about so violently. I had these little seasick things patches behind my ear.
00:44:01
Speaker
I had taken Dramamine. I was like drunkenly dosed on Dramamine. And it was so rough, you had to sit on the floor. It was funny, on the expedition, many of the men described how they were just tossed about and had their limbs broken during the waves.
00:44:17
Speaker
My shoes weren't near as that bad, but I had to just sit on the floor the whole time holding on. Otherwise, I would just get tossed about. It was just like being in a tin can or like I felt like being in a ping pong ball, just being thrown about and just being battered about. And, you know, I passed the time because you just had to sit there. I put on an audio book of Melville of Moby Dick.
00:44:42
Speaker
which in retrospect was probably not the most soothing thing to have done, but I listened to that. The good news is the captain was extremely capable and he managed to lead us through the Gulf of Paine, as I prefer to call it, to Wager Island. Then we took the Zodiac and we went onto the island and we explored the region.
00:45:06
Speaker
so important to my writing and understanding what the castaways had gone through and to just better understand their descriptions. This was not a part of the world I knew and also let me kind of check their descriptions to see if they could form what I saw and they did. I mean the island is desolate, it's barren, it's windswept. I was covered, you know, I had like
00:45:33
Speaker
I don't know how many layers of, you know, long johns and, you know, coats and sweaters and a wool hat and thick gloves and boots and they, the castaways, you know, just had a few scraps of clothing that slowly disintegrated. And I was so cold, I could only imagine, because it's this damp cold, you know, it's not like it wasn't zero degrees.
00:45:53
Speaker
It's probably about 30 degrees, but it's constantly raining and windy. And so it's just this damp cold that kind of gets under your skin. So it could only, you know, gave me just some sense of, you know, the fact that many of them were no doubt facing hypothermia, among other other issues they had to battle with. And
00:46:15
Speaker
We could find virtually no food. They described not being able to find food on the island. There are no animals other than birds that kind of fly about around the ring of the island. And we found a few sprouts, a celery, like the kind that the castaways had eaten, which
00:46:32
Speaker
They didn't really know why, but had the benefit of curing their scurvy because of some of the vitamins in it. And being there and kind of seeing how hard it was, how hard it was to even walk across the island because of the, it's very mountainous and misty. And then between the mountains is this kind of boggy terrain that's covered with foliage. It's, it's like trying to march through a hedge. You know, I began to understand why, why I could fathom that, why that British officer had described it as a place in which the soul of man dies.
00:46:59
Speaker
Yeah, in Lost City of Z and Killers of the Flower Moon, there are moments where you enter the story and Killers of the Flower Moon, it was like the last third and then Lost City of Z, I can't remember, but you come in there just to kind of give a sense of what
00:47:17
Speaker
these areas are like and similar so you like you went to wager island here and i was i was wondering i'm like is david gonna kind of enter the story here just to kind of bring us in and uh but in this story you don't so i was wondering you know what the sort of creative decision was between you know between being there and not being there as like you know real presence so yeah you know um uh you know i'm not i don't
00:47:45
Speaker
I never obviously see myself as a memoirist, and I try to put myself into a story only if I think it will enhance and help illuminate the story or the truth of the story, if it's a sensual necessary.
Relevance of Historical Narratives
00:48:03
Speaker
And Pillows of the Flower Moon, I'm not a character, but I'm just kind of a cipher reporter to try to be present, to show the reader, to kind of be a stand-in, to show the reader.
00:48:14
Speaker
what things are like today in the Osage Nation and also share some of the various bits of reporting and research that had long since come out about these murders and that helped illuminate that there was this much larger, deeper conspiracy that was causing the death of so many Osage. And so you could meet with the descendants and hear their voices, hear the voices of the descendants about the murder victims and also, in some cases, the murderers.
00:48:42
Speaker
So I thought it was important. With Velocity Z, I kind of alternated my own expedition into the jungle against the expedition of this kind of Edwardian, Victorian Edwardian explorer, Percy Fawcett. And it was a way to kind of illuminate how the world had changed to such an extent. And I thought also to bring some levity because Fawcett was such a severe, extreme individual. And here I was, this kind of
00:49:11
Speaker
uh you know the like you know like the magoo of explorers half blind getting lost hates camping hates bugs so i thought it kind of just i just thought it would help the narrative and you know you could suddenly compare a description of faucet where he was seeing you know you know you know
00:49:30
Speaker
days and days of trying to hack through jungle and then I would get to certain parts and there was no jungle there. It looked like Nebraska because everything had been deforested. So it was a real way to kind of bring you up to the present and to show how the past echoes with the present and the present reverberates back.
00:49:48
Speaker
And for the wager, you know, I wondered if in the epilogue maybe I would bring in my own visit. But in the end, I felt like, you know, there were so many stories going on and in a way I authored the whole story or read it.
00:50:03
Speaker
So shifting into the first person just felt like the wrong intrusion. So there's a kind of a nice, I hope a nice passage at the end where you're kind of seeing an omniscient description of the island and what can be found there today. And clearly that's me, but I never used the word I. And so you're getting to see it, but somehow the intrusion of the I in this narrative felt like it would be more jarring and not quite right because in a way,
00:50:33
Speaker
There had already been an eye in the way I kind of had organized the story and shaped it. So I didn't think a breaking with that with an eye would work. But it's always a decision. I'm always reticent to use the eye, although I have, and I will if I think it will help a story.
00:50:50
Speaker
The, oh, shoot, I kind of lost my train of thought. Come on, come on, Brendan. Where, where'd this go? Here, here it is. There it is. I found it. I found the thread. It got away from me for a second, David. You know, given that you're, you know, that I am many people and you might balk at this, but I consider, consider you a master at this. And like, you know, I look up to what you do and I'm like,
00:51:15
Speaker
Man, if I could just write a book 25% as good as yours, I'd be like, I'd be right there. I'd be pretty damn content with myself. And yet all writers find difficulties in the process and things that they still find hard, no matter how great they are. So for you, what do you still find? What gives you headaches? What is still difficult for you that you wrestle with when you're writing these incredible books you put out?
00:51:40
Speaker
Well, it's very nice of you to say, I will say that I wish I could say it got easier. Yeah. Easier. And I haven't found as I've gotten older, it's got easier. I think I'm more skilled just from repetition.
00:51:57
Speaker
And I kind of have a better understanding of what I need to do and the process and why structure is important and certain techniques about reporting and finding materials. But ultimately, the challenge is of finding the right story, figuring out how to organize it. What's the best way to tell it?
00:52:21
Speaker
And then to somehow convey that with words that bring visual images through words and bring to life a story. To me, that's always enormously challenging. In this case, each book has its own, I think, certain particular challenges. For me, how to make a story set in the 18th century
00:52:43
Speaker
feel alive and modern in its prose, in its style or in its theme so that it resonates. Because when you read a lot of the narratives, they're often written in this old convoluted English with the F's. I think they're called F's or I don't know what they are. The S's don't look like S's, they look like F's.
00:53:08
Speaker
You know, it's kind of old archaic English. And so, you know, how do I breathe life into that? And so that becomes a challenge. But it's, in a way, they are rewarding challenges. Like each project has its own, you know, how is it going to learn about the nautical language so I could describe it to the point where it was a little more effortless, where I actually understood everything they were saying. You know, I had to go to school, basically, and teach myself everything about these ships and the language they used and the
00:53:36
Speaker
clothing they wore and the foods they ate. So, you know, they're kind of, they are challenges and they can be very frustrating at times, but they're also really rewarding because they're, you know, you, you know, they're kind of entries into these, these hidden worlds. And I'm always kind of curious about them. So, but the challenges, you know, I would say, especially with writing, you know, writing is always hard for me. It's always been hard for me. It'll always be hard for me.
00:54:01
Speaker
It takes me a lot of times and a lot of revisions. I know more natural writers and for me it's lots of my writing is a product of endless revision. I rework Ascendants over and over. And also finding the voice for a book. I think each book has a different voice and almost a different style to some extent.
00:54:24
Speaker
Killers of the Flower Moon, I wanted a very restrained style. It was a really, you know, you're describing one of the worst racial injustices and one of the more sinister crimes in American history. And so there I really wanted to be restrained and not get in the way of any of the facts and to have a very almost
00:54:47
Speaker
I want to say withdrawn style but just just you know a great deal of restraint and with with the wager um you know I could have more I don't wanna say fun because they're not going through fun but I could I felt like I could have more a vibrant tone and descriptions of life at sea and what they were going through.
00:55:07
Speaker
Oh yeah, there were little moments peppered throughout the wager, for instance, where you might have a little thing broken off by m-dashes. You'd be like, like, look over there! And like, exclamation point. And you're like, there's a boat, or there's land. And you get a certain, a different kind of pulse of energy through that. And I was like, when I see moments like that in a book of this nature, I'm like, oh, it looks like Dave is having a little fun right here.
00:55:33
Speaker
Yeah, yes, yes. And I felt that, you know, I felt that that room and, and, and, you know, it's, it's funny, because it's not funny, it's in some ways, I mean, you know, they're, they're undergoing so much hardship. But, you know, the, the, the power of what they're going through the descriptions of the sea and the sick, I mean, it's, it's so alive and so vivid, what these
00:56:02
Speaker
souls went through on this expedition and so you know the material itself just lent itself in a very dramatic nature because it is a very
00:56:14
Speaker
dramatic saga. I always say that truth is stranger than fiction. Probably not always true, but it often is. And this is one of those stories where you're like, I can't believe now this happened. And then you're like, oh my god, now that happened? I mean, just imagine this. They get to the island after this expedition. They've been through. They've battled typhoons. They've battled scurvy. They have to navigate without knowing their longitude by dead reckoning.
00:56:44
Speaker
Then they shipwreck on an island, then they begin to starve, then they begin to turn on each other, then they descend into a Lord of the Flies, there's murders, there's mutiny, all those things.
00:56:54
Speaker
And then several of them have to get off the island and they go on these castaway voyages. And one of the castaway voyages is nearly 3,000 miles in this little boat where they're packed so tightly, they can't even move. And some of them survive. I mean, it's one of the great feats of navigation and endurance and resilience. So it's just, you're just like, can't believe it that. And then you're like, okay, it's over, right? No, now they get to England.
00:57:24
Speaker
And they're summoned to face this court martial and after everything they've been through, they could be hanged. So it's just it is one of these just inherently dramatic tales. Yeah, it's like they're they feel like a couple of them are home free and then like then cheap gets back. You're like, how the hell did this guy get back into the picture? Yes. Every time you think of the story is over and they've kind of escaped and like, you know, somebody emerges and not only emerges, it emerges with a very different story to tell. And so then it becomes a war over which story will prevail.
00:57:54
Speaker
I know your editor, Daniel Zaleski, at The New Yorker, he's worked with you in a lot of pieces, helps you with your books, I think, as well. And when you're talking about earlier the ruthless nature that you have to be with editing down things.
00:58:10
Speaker
What are some of the conversations you have with him? Because I understand he's so skilled at what he does. When I've spoken with Patrick Radden Keith, it's a similar thing. And you have the benefit and the privilege of working with him as well. So what are those conversations like as you're looking to just distill the best possible story, which you guys so often stick the landings on?
00:58:34
Speaker
You should get Daniel on your podcast. I would love to talk to him. Yeah. You know, I think, you know, he is, you know, he has been my magazine editor since, uh, you know, from the early, my early days at the New Yorker. And, um, you know, the first thing is, is just an extraordinary reader.
00:58:56
Speaker
You know, he just can read a manuscript or read a magazine piece and see it, see what it needs, see where its weaknesses is, see where it could be deepened, see where you, you know, the flaws where you need more reporting. So he just, he's, you know, I think to be a good editor, you have to be a really fine reader. A few of us are, I mean, he really is just such a precise reader. I mean, he just, he can spot a hole in a story.
00:59:23
Speaker
If you have not completed the circle, he won't let you get away with anything. Over the years, I've been instilled with so many lessons from him about precision in my writing, making things clear,
00:59:45
Speaker
He's just so good at that as well and good with structure. Yeah, he's just, he's supremely gifted. And I've really been blessed because, you know, I've had Daniel as my, you know, magazine editor, and then he helps me with the books. And then I've had the same book editor and Bill Thomas for all of my books. He's the publisher of Doubleday and the editor in chief. I think that's his title. And, you know, he is, he also is just,
01:00:15
Speaker
you know, an amazing reader, you know, you can read a manuscript, see where its weaknesses are, where you need more research, where you may need less material. I'm very good at terms of like, how to structure a story. I mean, structuring a story to me is really important. It's kind of one of the secrets, I think, of good narratives. So is everything kind of in the right place? You know, sometimes
01:00:41
Speaker
he might say, oh, I would move a chapter. And you're like, really? And he's like, yeah, I would move the chapter. And he's usually right. So I didn't always have that in my career, but I've really been blessed in the last, both at the New Yorker and at Doubleday, my publishing house, just to work with two of the finest editors and to be able to work with them consistently. And you develop rhythms by being able to work with editors over time. They know you, they know your rhythms.
01:01:10
Speaker
they know your flaws, your weaknesses, they know your strengths, and you build up a trust. I think that's so key to the relationship is having a sense of trust. If Daniel or Bill tells me something, I have to listen. I might not always agree, but I will always interrogate myself about it because if they're saying it, there's a good reason.
01:01:32
Speaker
That's amazing.
Recommendations and Reflections
01:01:33
Speaker
Well, David, there's always one question I love ending these conversations on of late. I like to ask the guests for a recommendation of some kind for the listeners out there. And that could be anything you're excited about that you're trying, be it a podcast or a TV show or a brand of coffee or whatever it is. And so I'd extend that to you. I have a dual recommendation, which is
01:01:56
Speaker
which is not always the case, but I, and it kind of worked in reverse order. Normally I read a book first and then I discover if it's been adapted into a show or movie, I may watch it. In this case, it was the reverse. I started watching on Apple TV, the series Slow Horses, which is this spy series with Gary Oldman, who's just terrific. And so I watch this and I love the series. So now I've gone back and I'm now reading the actual novels that it's based on.
01:02:26
Speaker
they're wonderful and so I'm now into the third book and they're written by an author named Mick Herron and they're just kind of just delightfully entertaining smart wickedly funny in many ways spy novels and so for me they've been my they've just been a great escape of late oh that's fantastic well well David this is such a thrill to get to talk to you again about you know your work and how you go about the work and this amazing book that uh will just
01:02:54
Speaker
It's just going to be a ton of fun. Adventure stories are so wonderful and this one definitely takes us to some painful places and it's such a great study of human nature and just beautifully told. So just thanks for coming on the show again and thanks for the work. It's my pleasure. Thank you so much and hopefully it won't be five more years till the next one.
01:03:22
Speaker
Thanks to David for coming back on the show. I'd love to have him back on in between books Yeah, that's a really ripe time to have a guest back on the show before they get into promotion mindsets and They're in research writing darkness of the soul mind
01:03:38
Speaker
That's a really great place to podcast from. Anyway, very grateful for him coming back and spending some time with us, right? If you like this conversation as much as I did, and I did, consider sharing it and tagging me in the show on Twitter at cnfpod and at Creative Nonfiction Podcasts on Instagram.
01:03:59
Speaker
This show will only grow because of you as you know I'm something of a nobody so it's the validation of your endorsements that makes the needle move There's so much content out there so many old shows and many more new ones and this show will only Survive the pod fade if you celebrate it so long as it's worth celebrating Now also you can consider going to patreon.com throw a few bucks in the tip jar patreon.com slash cnf pod Show is free ain't cheap
01:04:29
Speaker
Yeah, I was debating whether to share this or not, but I figure I will. It's not a writing anecdote. So, you know, for those who stick around, you can skip this or not. It's up to you. Not really a happy story.
01:04:47
Speaker
So three weeks ago we adopted a new dog, Lachlan. We were really attracted to him because he's like, you know, Catahoula makes a lot like our producer Hank here, but about 20 pounds lighter, about a year, year and a half old maybe. Strong. Strong, strong, physically strong, strong headed.
01:05:08
Speaker
very demanding parked in your face until you paid attention to him so ignoring him while he was throwing these tantrums tested your resolve that's for sure. He was over very overbearing and to producer Kevin so we always needed to run interference because she doesn't like the rough house and he sensed that she was weaker and he would gang up on her so he had to keep them apart.
01:05:34
Speaker
Over the weekend, he and Hank got into a real nasty fight over a purple squeaky ball. I threw it and it got wedged up against a fence and they both hit it at the same time. And, oh boy, it was mayhem. They're going after each other. Hank's got him pinned and it's like no blood was drawn, so got him separated. But it took some doing to do it. Two days later, inside the house, they were standing beside each other.
01:06:03
Speaker
and suddenly they just erupt into each other. No food or toys, nothing, no resources involved. We checked Lachlan and he had a nasty cut from where Hank bit him above his left eye.
01:06:16
Speaker
So we knew there was a problem brewing here. We separated the two. You know, it's been giving them more exercise anyway because Lachlan was just super high energy, just needed to get out, run a lot, walk a lot. So even walking the pair together unleashes it worked. Like it was fine. They were like good next to each other like that. Then the following day,
01:06:39
Speaker
I got back from walking them and Hank went into the back room to see Melanie who's standing on his dog bed and then Lachlan went trotting after him and then he just pinned Hank against the wall and the two Attacked each other again spit flying teeth bearing and and this time Lachlan took a big chunk out of Hank's left jowl He didn't need stitches, but it was still nasty and kind of raw and open and for the first time we were like
01:07:09
Speaker
We really have to we got we got to bring Lachlan back to the shelter like he probably needs to be in a single dog home Like it's just square peg round hole here So the entire house for this whole past week has been just super super tense You know Kevin and Hank would be in one room with me or Melanie and we keep walking another room with me or Melanie
01:07:32
Speaker
I talked it out with Chelsea at the shelter and they agreed that it's most likely not a good fit. Like the escalation didn't appear to be abating. So yesterday we made the choice to bring this sweet though incompatible dog back to the shelter and I was just all morning just bawling my eyes out sobbing. Just saying I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry to this guy.
01:07:57
Speaker
And when we took on a third dog, the deal breaker would be if he threatened the happiness and safety of the incumbents. And that was trending in that direction. Oddly enough, it feels like a death in the family. It really does. We always prided ourselves on being able to
01:08:17
Speaker
take on these unadoptable dogs and these kind of trouble cases and work with them and give them happy lives that they deserve. But this dynamic was just untenable. And I have to believe, I have to believe that there's a perfect family out there for this guy. But he was living at one point in his history, his short history. He was living in a car with an unhoused family, then they surrendered him to the shelter.
01:08:42
Speaker
Then he was fostered for a few days with another family, but I think his separation issues and his barking, they had to bring him back to the shelter. Then we adopt him for three weeks, try to give him stability and some training and everything.
01:09:01
Speaker
But then even we had to surrender him back. So we're complicit in the trauma of this poor dog. There's a bright, funny, sweet, goofy dog in there. He loves touching you. He loves curling up right next to you. He loves curling up next to other very submissive dogs. He would spoon with Kevin if he could, if she let him. Sometimes he would get up and leave, but he loved being up against her, sometimes even Hank.
01:09:31
Speaker
That was starting to get nasty as I have recounted. I think he just needs to be on his own with a family who can work with him, have a yard, not leave him alone too much and nurture him through his separation and his apparent aggression towards other male dogs. And when I handed him off yesterday, I just melted down. The poor woman who took him from me must have been like, keep it together, dude.
01:09:59
Speaker
But Lachlan, he just, they, you know, he leased him up and handed him off and he yanked her inside and didn't look back. And I'm glad he didn't look back. And I went in the car and I weaped for another five minutes. And then all day and all night, two of us, Melanie and I, we couldn't shake the feeling that he'd be back in the canal, you know, barking his head off, scared and abandoned again.
01:10:27
Speaker
I know it was the right call for the safety of all our dogs. There was a palpable relief even amongst Kevin and Hank. You could see the, especially with Kevin, the kind of joy that came back to her face. She was living in some tents. You could just tell it was tents. I don't know if I'm projecting relief onto them, but it appears that way.
01:10:47
Speaker
But we're just gutted and so sad and feel so guilty. And you know, on top of that, Melanie broke her ankle on Monday morning in our driveway. So all in all, an awesome week. So stay wild. See you in efforts. And if you can't do, interview. See ya.