The Tragedy of True Crime

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:01 John: Narrators have a lot of power. We hear a lot today about like the facts, the facts. You know, that's like kind of all bullshit. Like it's all about narrative.

0:00:17 John: That's how it was in the 70s and 80s. You notice the average time served for homicide is seven, eight years. Today, it's about 18, 19 years. But in New York, it surpasses that. It's a liberal state, but they will hold you till the sun burns out, as we like to say.

0:00:41 Thomas: Hello, and welcome to Opening Arguments. This is episode 1210. I'm Thomas. That over there is Matt. How are you doing, Matt?

0:00:47 Clip: Hey, Thomas, I'm excited to talk about one of my favorite books of the year with the author of the book. This is a really special one.

0:00:52 Thomas: Yeah, you were really buzzing about this one. What's the book? Who's the author? Give it to us.

0:00:56 Clip: So this is John J. Lennon. He's an author and journalist who is doing 25 to Life and Sing Sing, and he has written the book, The Tragedy of True Crime, Four Guilty Men and the Stories that Define Us. And I tore through this book. This is an essential read, I think, for nonfiction for 2025. And it is talking about true crime from the other side, from what it's like as a perspective of someone who's been the subject of a true crime documentary, and he's talking to other men that are doing time in Sing Sing with him, who are also subject of true crime one way or another, or somehow involved in sensationalized media stories of the kind that I'm sure many people listening like to follow. And I think it has a lot to say about the true crime industrial complex and about the media today and how we handle things and how

0:01:37 Thomas: Yeah, and you just dove right in with John J. Lennon. So let's cover some background knowledge that I think people are going to need. First off, you said he's doing time. What is he doing time for?

0:01:48 Clip: So in 2001, he was a drug dealer on the streets of Brooklyn and he shot another drug dealer who was working for him in the belief, right or wrong, that he was stealing money from He's completely taken full responsibility for this and he acknowledges, obviously, the here. And I think the way that he talks about in the book and the way he talks about this interview is just very honest, very straightforward. You know, I've talked to a lot of people in jail. I've spent a lot of time in jails and prisons in the course of my work. And people really do kind of fall down into two categories, really. It's either people that completely deny or try to really mitigate what they've done or people who are just completely honest. And I have to say I've always respected and appreciated people who are ready to be accountable. And that's certainly what John has here.

0:02:30 Thomas: And there's not many of them, right? I mean, I feel like I've heard you say that or maybe John said it. I can't remember which. But it's kind of rare that someone takes full accountability and responsibility to the extent that you can do that.

0:02:41 Clip: Yeah, for some of the worst crimes, especially. And there are lots of reasons in prison why maybe you don't want to be taking full accountability.

0:02:45 Thomas: Yeah, appeals are always ongoing and all that kind of thing. Yeah yeah sure yeah hmm

0:02:50 Clip: And some of worst crimes you don t necessarily want other people believing that you did things He talks a lot in the book about how we are obsessed in the true crime with the stories of innocent people, but really we don't talk enough about guilty people and people who People are trying to move on and rejoin society.

0:03:05 Thomas: Yeah it's interesting you mentioned the true crime thing documentary whatever that he was in and it's with Chris Cuomo talk about how that went and how it kind of went wrong.

0:03:16 Clip: Yeah, this is what inspired the book, that he was the subject of the last episode, I think, of season three of Chris Cuomo's Inside Evil, which is something I've never seen before. And he wasn't told, of course, as he'll tell us about, but he wasn'T told that that was the name of the show, or he was misled as to what the name the show would be at the time. And they were trying to portray him in this episode as somebody who is like a mind hunter style, understands killers kind of prison journalist. And the fact is, he's a journalist. He is an actual writer. This book is very well written. I've read a lot of his other work. We'll link to some of it in the show notes, but he's written for every major publication. This is not some kind of novelty act. This is a real author, a real journalist who had something to say, and they were treating him like he was some kind, like I said, like a mind tenters or like a profiler who understands the

0:03:58 Thomas: Last thing that I think will be important, you're going to talk about three men who are featured in The Tragedy of True Crime, the book by John J. Lennon. So who are the three men? Give us the quick kind of facts on who they are, what they did.

0:04:01 Clip: Mind of criminals because he is one or whatever. It's pretty stupid. Yeah along with john there is most famously in the book robert chambers known in manhattan as the preppy killer one of those big splashy tabloid kinds of things who really I think one of the most interesting figures just because he hasn't really fully taken accountability and john talked pretty honestly about that. He killed a fellow teenager when he was in high school. And there's Michael Shane Hale, who was, I think, the most sympathetic of these stories, really just a terrible story of a man who was suffering from a domestic abuse, but was in a situation in which the prosecution didn't even really recognize that there could be such a thing as same-sex domestic abuse. He was in a relationship with an older man that he killed. Then we have Milton Jones, who was a teenager when He killed two priests. It's a horrific murder, really terrible thing.

0:05:00 Thomas: Wow. Yeah. Yeah, I find that really interesting. I really want to talk. You've done a great sales job on this book. And of course, getting to edit this conversation, I've absorbed a lot. And I think it's interesting because these are obviously really horrible crimes and in some cases, still pretty

0:05:01 Clip: John talks a lot about who he is today and his understanding of these things. Again, these are very honest accounts, very straightforward accounts of the people around him, the circumstances. And it's not just about these stories, it's also a prison memoir, so you're getting the full account of what it's like for them in there, which you don't really get to hear. I mean, that's just a voice we don't have in American society right now.

0:05:37 Thomas: Horrible people, to be honest. But at the same time, what you said, I think is just right. It's like, we don't get to hear this part of it, you know, because I think we do this thing where we just want to say, well, we found the bad guy, put him away forever. But we've gotten to the point, at least, you knows, most of us, I think, where we don't want to just instantly, you know, what Charlie Kirk was advocating we do in front of children. You don't wanna just execute bad guys on the spot. But we do this thing where we just kind of like, we just want them to go away forever, or maybe sometimes we could let them come out eventually, but we don'T think a whole lot about what that even means, you KNOW, what they're supposed to do. Like, what are they supposed to DO? You know, I know it's, it's not, they're not sympathetic people, but like, they'RE still people and they still exist and they'RE still alive and they're gonna have lives. What do we do? What should they do? And it's really interesting. I think this people can listen in and really hear how it's pretty horrifying. It's pretty mind blowing just to think about how kind of little society cares about those questions. Don't you think?

0:05:57 Clip: Mm-mm. Absolutely. And what it's like decades later when you're not the same person, when maybe you are a sympathetic person, right? And you really have given real thought to it.

0:06:40 Thomas: Right? Gosh, especially if you killed someone when you were a teenager or something. Yeah.

0:06:44 Clip: Yeah, sure, sure. And also the contrast, you and I, for as long as we've known each other, we've been talking about Adnan Saeed and the contrast between this sort of puzzle box mentality of true crime. And I know we both have very strong opinions about the Saeed case and about serial and true crime generally, right. And sort of the like diddy or didn't do kind of thing when it seems pretty clear he did. But either way, the fact that serial ended up giving voice voice, potentially, to somebody who did something terrible, who's never taken accountability for it, who's, you know, become kind of a professionally innocent person. And now we have sort of John coming out as a professionally guilty person, almost, and coming and telling, taking the opportunity to take writing classes in prison and discover himself as a writer, to find his voice,

0:07:21 Thomas: Oh, wow. I do need to check that out. Well, I think folks have all the info they need to go into this interview. Can't wait for you all to hear it. Really fascinating stuff. So we'll take a break and then Matt will be back with John J. Lennon.

0:07:23 Clip: And to tell the stories of the people around him, as I said, to kind of give voice to something that we just never get to hear this perspective. And it's such an important one. The book is available everywhere you can buy books, and also as an audiobook if you want to check that out.

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0:07:50 Matt: Joining us from Sing Sing Correctional Facility, we're very honored to welcome John J. Lennon, the author of The Tragedy of True Crime, Four Guilty Men, and The Stories That Define Us. I just want to say before anything else, we look at a lot of books here. I've talked to a lot authors on this show, and this is the first time I'm going to tell listeners this is a book that you need to read. This is an essential piece of nonfiction for 2025, and I'm so excited to talk to you, John. There's so many different ways we can go with this, so many things to talk about here. I guess just as a preliminary thing, in your title here, when you talk about four guilty men in the stories that define us, just to catch reader listeners up, what do you mean by us? And why have you chosen that subtitle?

0:08:23 John: Well, I'm one of the guilty men in the title. I write about three other men who've killed, and it's a first -person journalistic narrative written from prison, and so I'm, I mean,

0:08:39 Matt: You're so effective the way that you weave yourself in here, I have to say. You write at one point that you don't like to know too much about the crime before you start talking to someone. And you spend a lot of time with your subjects, getting to know them and getting a sense of who they are. Obviously, the purpose of this book is to show us who they are after the true crime story ends. And I want to get to that. I guess just kind of in thinking about this interview, how does it apply here when we're having this conversation? How much would you want to talk about before we kind of get into everything else we have to talk about?

0:09:08 John: I lay it all out there in the book. I mean I'm pretty transparent. I don't have, you know, we could talk about whatever. I mean look, I, I mean, you know, I've been a journalist in prison. I mean, I wasn't a journalist when I came to prison, and I took to this style of first -person journalism, and, you know, I'm usually present. I'm almost always present in a sort of Donzo style, first - person, personal journalism. I have many names.

0:09:36 John: You know, I'm usually present in the narrative, like magazine -style journalism. That's where I kind of discovered my voice.

0:09:43 Matt: I noticed in your writing, you talk, that's kind of your first exposure to sort of serious writing or serious journalism was just reading magazines, which is a great way to start to learn. Who are some of your influences, some of Your favorite nonfiction writers?

0:09:54 John: When I really started sort of getting into like the style that I took to, I mean, I went back and when I started writing for Esquire, I just, you know, I started reading, you know, Norman Mailer, you have Tom Wolfe, maybe these, these, like iconic, legendary magazine writers. And along the way, I mean, there's other there's been other influences. I mean the book by Janet Malcolm, The Journalist and the Murderer, there is an an interesting ethical guide for me and to see like how other writers kind of have always told our stories and you know so I've been grappling with this for a long time it's like who are these people all these different strangers kind of telling our stories it's at least from a perch you know and I'm like I can do this

0:10:31 Matt: I was just thinking about Tom Wolfe today as I was walking over here. Tom Wolfe with his new journalism is invisible, right? He's not supposed to be there. And he's writing it as if he was never there. This is almost the opposite of that. You are fully immersed. You're fully part of the story, as you should be.

0:10:48 John: Yeah more like hunter thompson like he's the he's from so from that new journalism space comes hunter thoms and comes these other you know more contemporary people like you know emmanuel career he's like a french writer uh he's liked the most famous non -fiction french writer I came across like this is all around the years that I was sort of teaching myself and learning about these great non -fiction writers I just wanted to see what their process was and what their agency was and how they how they handled the first person in this in their kind of journalism

0:11:18 Matt: I'm probably going to say this a number of times in the interview, but you are one of those writers now. You have joined those ranks, I really think, with this book. And I just can't recommend it enough. Let's start with Chris Cuomo and with Inside Evil, which was kind of the emphasis for what got you to write this book? And I will say right up front that on this show, we have always been, and I guess we'll say true crime skeptics. We don't like true crime very much. And I certainly appreciate your perspective here as someone who was the subject of a true crime documentary. I went looking to try to find this episode of Inside Evil, and it doesn't exist. It's not out there. Did you know that? How does that make you feel?

0:11:47 John: It makes me feel good like my work buried it maybe maybe it took part in it makes you feel makes you do a good because one of the reasons is it's like a lot of of people in prison who've had, like, these narratives about their worst parts of themselves, but don't have the ability to sort of clap back, if you will.

0:11:53 Matt: I hope so. Sure.

0:12:05 John: They don't have a voice, and there's just, like... There's just these identities of this terrible shit that they've done and their crimes, so it's, you know, that makes me feel good. But just to sort of, like. Contextualize and drop back, I come to prison, you now, in 2002. I'm usually always contending, by the way, with a lot of noise, right? Like, it's just my life. So right now, it just Like, if you ever hear, if you hear me sort of getting distracted while I'm just like, it's usually because there's chaos. I'm on a tier right now, just to set the scene. I'm in a booth and I'm talking to you on a landline. It's kind of convenient that we have these tablet phones now. So everyone's like not trying to get on this phone that's on the tier. I'm calling you because the line is clearer, but the tier is chaotic, right? Guys can walk, you know, up and down the tier, guys are yelling up and down the tier and there's a lot lot of that going on and half the tier is seriously mentally ill which is kind of like representative of the population anyway but there's actually a mental health population on on one side of the tier and then and there's like clerks that actually run the prison so it's kind of like privileged housing on the other but they mix us with them so it is quite a scene over here you know I come to prison I have a ninth grade education I don't know about these writers that I just rambled off and I was, you know, immersed in this lifestyle, you know, selling drugs and from Brooklyn and I, and I kill a man and I come with up to prison with, you know, 28 years to life and eventually along the way, I, you know, I land in Attica, you know, turning point for me was getting stabbed up in the yard. And I was at a different prison where I got stabbed and I was transferred to Attica. They didn't give the guy up. And, uh, so Attica is a tough joint, but there was a gem there. There was a gem of a program. There was a volunteer program of a creative writing workshop and it was there where I was sort of I discovered what good writing looked like and I started like subscribing to these essay collections these were reprints the instructor gave us these best american essay collections so sometimes I would see like where the essays were were published and I would sort of subscribe to them ask my mother to subscribe and that's how I kind of became a magazine writer By the time I transferred from Attica down to Sing Sing, which is closer to the city and coveted, I was already sort of building my career. I like to think I was writing about substantive issues, like what's it like to be what I just described, like psychotic in prison. What's it Like to be a kid gangbanging, trying to get into the college program. I just did an interview before I jumped on this phone with you. I was talking to a kid that's on the spectrum. He's autistic. Autistic what's it like to be living in this fucking chaos when you're autistic

0:14:51 John: These are like stories that I find I don't know just like a little bit more meaningful than like watching murder for entertainment I had published a piece about a severely schizophrenic man named Andrew Goldstein and he's on like Kendra's Law in new york he had 20 years prior this was 2018 in 18 at the time when I come down from attic I write about this guy who's behind that law kendra's law and I write this piece and I'm sort of like calling around and I know some producers at cnn because I want to talk up the piece and this producer I know pretty much to make a long story short sold me out and kind of sent chris cuomo and his crew up there up to see me for his show inside evil on hlm they just happen to leave out the name evil or that part out of the show and that's how I sort of find myself on cuomo show I

0:15:45 Matt: Write that you were starting to realize what you're getting into, but you remembered as you're sitting down with Chris Cromwell that this is the governor's brother, the man who potentially has your future in his hands is that what was that moment

0:15:56 John: Mean it's like a power structure right like you're you're like look look I became a writer not not as like some like passport to freedom like but it was just like this like whenever anyone who's in prison it's this idea of like everybody wants to get out of prison so it's you know you kind of hope of course that that somebody will read your stuff and be like, well, this guy can actually live a life in society and doesn't need to be here anymore. So there was a little bit of that. There was a Little Bit of I Hope that he had admiration for what I was able to accomplish in prison. It was rare, I like to think. I was probably a bit too proud of who I'd become at that point. But yeah, so I'm sitting across from this guy, and I learn in that moment of what the show really is and that they lied to me, so it was a bit uncomfortable. But to be fair to him, he didn't lie to me as producer, What am I going to do? I mean, I'm in a room. The whole room is wrapped in guards and sergeants and captains and there's cameras and there is the governor's brother. You're back and be like, you know what? You guys are unethical. I'm going to go back to myself.

0:16:58 John: You know, what am I doing? I had written this New York magazine piece. Actually, I co -wrote it with Bill Keller. He was a mentor of mine at the time. And it was about this schizophrenic man yeah so after I had published it in new york magazine as you often see print journalists do sometimes they appear on different outlets like tv outlets mpr whatever I just appeared on tbs with Bill Keller I called in he was in studio you know it was just like in my mind I was just Like oh I know this producer that had this website and she had reached out to me she said cnn now I just kind of pitched the idea to her like did you see my latest and you know that kind of thing and would love to chat she was like well I'm not all they want to do is talk about trump which was true at the time well still now but then she was kind of like I'm at the HLN documentary unit I could you know put some feelers out I didn't realize like the whole hlm unit was all true crime like we don't get those stations in the tv package in ourselves so I was like introduced to the dark side of the media so when they to answer your question they got back to me they were like your story is fascinating and chris cuomo wants to talk to you and we're doing a series on redemption and we would love to send some producers up there so it was like this whole date and switch thing he said it's inside with chris Cuomo which was which was a bit of a head fake right because the first season they were interviewing me as a sort of candidate for the third season and they said our theme is redemption on this third season our first season their setup the first reason which it was was it was just inside with Chris the second season was inside evil so I was being interviewed for the third season so it makes sense right you know you have the governor's brothers people kind of talking to you like yo I got like I like these these people like they're trustworthy right yeah

0:17:43 Matt: Yeah sure still this and it's 17 years in now you're watching now a documentary about yourself and you write about the experience of watching a reenactment of your crime can you kind of just try to tell us what that's like

0:18:55 John: So that was in 2018 you're right so so when it aired in 2019 I had about 18 years in prison at that point and I was watching like the crime I had committed reenacted and yeah it was like this dark figure like doing what I was convicted of doing was just shooting a former associate of mine to death in a car you know shot him several times and it was just a lot that's not something somebody encounters every day like seeing seeing themselves played by dark figures like slow motion the chambers coming out of the gun and it wasn't constant it would be like our conversation chris quinn was in our conversation like and then it would cut to like the casings flying out of the guy and then we'll cut to the family that I've heard and to answer your question it was a bit emotional

0:19:40 Matt: Sure that kind of got you thinking you know you've already become a writer at this point and you're you've been published and it gets you thinking about true crime as a as a genre which which as you note, of course, and this is a special interest to us, started off with the serial in 2014, kind of the big push of what we now know as the true crime industrial complex. I think that your story is particularly interesting because you have, and I want to really say this very clearly for the readers, you've taken very sincere responsibility, I think, in this book and in all of your writing. And I know that's been a long road. And as you say, guilty people are more interesting. And I've been working with guilty people for a long time. I've been a post -conviction attorney for about 20 years, and I've spent hundreds of hours talking talking to people in jails and prisons and detention centers. And I agree with you. I mean, I've represented quite a number of people who are wrongfully convicted, but there aren't very many, as you know, at the book. One thing that jumped out at me is that the legal system isn't really a factor in this book very much. AndI understand why that is, but I'd be interested to hear more about why thatis.

0:20:33 John: I mean I I think we hear that a lot with like criminal justice reform, journalistic pieces. That's not my agency, right? Like, so there's much smarter people than me that are taking that approach, yourself included, right. So like, I own my crime. I'm guilty of what I did. I take full responsibility for it. I am in the business of critiquing the criminal justice system. I mean, I am an extent if it's through story, right, you guys want to know what your tax dollars are paying for then come hang out with me in this book and get a little glimpse of the punishment side because I think with true crime you hear a lot of the crime side but to your point I think you said it started with serial I mean you know that that's a story sarah coney does this like you know she's a wonderful storyteller and everyone listening probably is familiar with that story about you know it's a true innocent story so that's the subset of true crime but to me the I'm not I'm I'm less interested in those stories because I think, you know, there's an unknown there. Did he do it? Didn't he do It? And then the whole conflict of those stories is leaning into that uncertainty, right? That's not what I'm looking to do here. A lot of true crime is about guilty men and usually guilty white men killing their partners. And I mean, that's like the sweet spot. That is about the legal and the sort of like relating those stories to the audience. And it's usually about not typical sort of crimes like my own street crimes. What I'm trying to do is try to tell the part that is not really pulled too much in traditional true crime, like after the gavel drops, what does a punishment scene look like? But I do sort of go through the system of like the legal parts with my characters, with Michael Shane Hale, his whole story of him just not being an arch criminal like myself and understanding the system. Them and he was he was genuinely remorseful for killing his lover he was all out there for this for the homicide detective so I think through story you kind of see and through the way I'm positioning myself as the narrator me saying like look I was an arch criminal this guy here this gay kid that killed his 63 year old lover when he's 22 like he's not a criminal look what he did look how he showed remorse and

0:22:49 John: You know what they try to do when he made a statement he show remorse they try to execute and he's never blown a red light

0:22:56 Matt: That's fine. First time once Pataki had reinstated the death penalty, that was incredible to me. And just the obvious homophobia in the way that the case was prosecuted and the fact they refused to recognize it as a domestic abuse situation. The fact that Shane himself, that was incredible to me. It's only about halfway through the book or further that he realizes he was in a domestic use situation. And that's ultimately the change in the law that helped him, right?

0:23:20 John: Well I mean we hope it will so you know the law has evolved in new york where they're acknowledging today with this new law the domestic violence survivors act like that you know if you have something a little hairy going on with some type of issue within the relationship that that was a contributing factor in quotes then it should be considered years later so that's what's happening in new York we'll see if they give up any rhythm on that hopefully they do

0:23:36 Matt: I hope so. I really felt for him. And the way that you filled him out and showed him to us and introduced him, I think was just so effective that you can't not root for him after reading this, honestly.

0:23:52 John: And that's the trick right I'm a convicted murderer I'm I'm writing about three other men who killed Michael Shane Hale being one of them, Milton E. Jones being another, and Robert Chambers being another. And, you know, look, we're all guilty of this terrible act. So, like, when we think about story, I'm at a disadvantage here because, you think about a story, you want to write about sympathetic characters, right? You want to read about potentially innocent characters. That's what we're sort of delivered when we're not doing the carnage stories for entertainment. Entertainment it's very tricky just to to earn the reader's trust like I'd like to think I I hope I do and and and to tell the stories of the men around me and still get readers to to feel for them and I think that's the way in which I chose to structure the story I'm not opening with bang bang and the 911 tape narrators have a lot of power and people sometimes they don't realize we hear a lot today about like the facts the facts you know npr says that everyone's saying they're giving you the facts they're giving you that that's like kind of all bullshit like it's it's all about narrative they're using the facts and they're doing it with their own narrative skills to deliver it to the audience everyone has agenda each one of us storytellers has an agenda whether they're on the left whether on the right it's a little narrative yeah I hadn't learned these skills and that's how I delivered the story through narrative

0:25:14 Matt: That's the tightrope you're walking here is that you're telling a very effective story about these four men while critiquing true crime. But at the source of this, at the heart of it, it is a true crime, these are four true crime stories. These are literally true stories about crime. As you said yourself, you're using clear declarative sentences, this is very straightforward, there's no ambiguity, and it's not sensationalist, I don't think in any way, even though some of these, Robert Chambers and Milton Jones especially, all of them really are sensational stories in different ways. I assume, I'm sure that you were were very conscious of that as you were writing, not to sort of do a true crime story in the course of critiquing true crime? What was that sort of writing process?

0:25:49 John: It was intentional in the way I delivered the story right if you watch or read a a true crime story they're all the same like watch 48 hours watch day one watch one of these snaps or these all these dopey shows they're All by Acts act one they start in the middle of the drama they want to suck you in so it's the 9 -1 -1 call it's this it's that and then it's you know act two they drop back it was it was a beautiful town and you know they they have a script so you know what they're doing and then they get to you know the sort of investigation the headsake the the red herrings. And then, you know, it's usually they get the bad guy and boom. But what I was doing was extending the story. And I was also reorganizing the structure. So sure, it is true crime in a sense, but it but it departs from the traditional structure.

0:25:52 Matt: I could tell. Let

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0:26:43 Matt: Me just take it back a little here, because you talked about how you grew up reading true crime and sort of idolizing, or at least looking up to the gangsters in your neighborhood who were kind of in the pages of the books and the media you were consuming. And then you actually, on your first day, you ended up meeting one of those people. What was the experience after having read about that? And how does that kind of play into all of this, the fact that we're all constantly absorbing these these things, including yourself growing up.

0:27:05 John: Yeah, I mean, I guess it's like in a different way, right, that I experience it, right? Because it's more real for me. Look, I mean I grew up in a neighborhood. I grew Up in Hell's Kitchen, Manhattan. This was like a neighborhood with a history of gangsters right and you know I moved there when I was at the early 90s and I you know it was very impressionable to to these these characters so I mean referring to the westies book so around that time like I think it was probably around 90 91 that I remember my stepfather had this book on his counter and I would always overhear him talking about these these characters that he his credit stayed away from they were just larger than life it's 90 91 one you have to understand like john gottie's in the papers every day I always found it interesting that people would were just captivated by john gotti right the public was captivated by I don't think and these people in my neighborhood they were all you know sort of affiliates right but you also knew he was a killer right yeah I didn't know he was he was killer right so like imagine a 13 year old or a 14 year old that was really like that that it was like part of part of the neighborhood right so it's a little it's still it's a little bit of a different hit so fast forward you know years later when I had this embraced that whole lifestyle now in my early 20s I have 28 years to life and my first spot is is sing sing and I meet kenny shannon one of the characters in the book the westies and at the first thing he says to me while talking to another gangster and he sent me a little care package he would sell I was in I had like you know that's what happens in prison yeah you send word to a guy and they tell me from the neighborhood and send your care package so later I came in the yard he's talking to his friend another old much older guy than me at the time he said wow they're loading these kids up with so much time you know so part to answer your question I was I was captivated like I'd seen this guy in person I was kind of like peeping his mannerisms and he's like you know he's a bit of a vain character he's putting you know pushing his hands through his hair he's got white hair he'S like how old do I look though kid you know these are attributes that kind of thing a few years later it kind of hits you when he leans over to uh to his other mobster buddies like they're loading these kids up now he's gonna give this kid 28 years to life he's like he was like a nobody else he was a punk I

0:29:21 John: Mean he was finishing up in 18 years years to life sense but that's that's how it was in the 70s and 80s you know in the 80s to know this the average time served for homicide is seven eight years today it's about 18 19 years you But in New York, I think it surpasses that a bit. That's a liberal state, but they will hold you until the sun burns out, as we like to say.

0:29:43 Matt: You write that when you went to trial, it was interesting to me the way that you phrased it, just to focus on this for a second. You were talking about how I was in this mindset that I was trying to get out of it and that I wasn't taking responsibility. And you said you kind of came into prison that way and that taking a writing class, I think it was maybe nine or 10 years later, was kind of the beginning. Is that my understanding of sort of the evolution of beginning to take responsibility and really learning how to think through this in your own head?

0:30:08 John: I think so. I mean, the reality of it, I got convicted in 2004, and by the time I took the writing class, it was 2010 -ish. I had a really candid conversation with my appellate attorney. His name was Stanley Neustadter. He leveled with me. He said, John, you're not getting out. He said I'm not taking any more money from your mother. That's it.

0:30:28 John: But you could do the time. He said, you can find yourself in there. And then I didn't really like the conversation at the time. I was like 28 years old. I had like 28 flights. It was a lot, right? And so many of us are delusional when we come to prison. We think we're going to like get out in the law library and find the constitutional issue. And we're gonna get out. We're gonna sue the state. And we'RE gonna just live happily ever after on the millions. It's just nonsense. I didn'T want to live like that. So I guess what writing gave me was, when I got into the workshop, I knew at the time that I had no problem with just, like, coming clean. And I realized right away, you know, I wasn't, like. Reading all these famous writers. But I realized just naturally, like if I just came, if I was accountable, like I could actually have a different identity, something more than a murderer. You know, yeah. So, yeah, it was a process. You don't really have deep conversations in prison. And they're often rationalizing conversations and especially when you're thinking about what guys talk about in the yard these are even more rationalizing conversation oh

0:31:33 Matt: Accountability is a real theme in in this book, all the way through, and in all of your writing, between yourself and the others. What does it mean to you at this point? What is that word? Because you've been convicted by the people of New York, and that's supposed to be holding you accountable by keeping you 28 to life, but you also write about how no one in the system asks you about how that's going, about how rehabilitation is going. We don't really even pretend that's the purpose anymore, but you sort of almost accidentally come into this process through finding yourself creatively and being able to become a journalist. Please let me know if I'm summarizing this wrong. I'm just trying to give my best summary of what I've read here. But at this point, what does accountability mean to you and for the men you're profiling?

0:32:14 John: For me I mean it's everything for the process of my work but also it just exists with myself you know I mean I just I mean naturally it helps me develop my voice on the page but it also it's the only place where I come to to reconcile it right writing was everything for me uh to there's no other place to you know just sort of like process the accountability like 28 24 years in prison not once does a does a state employee ever say like how do you live with killing a man John not once ever had that comes no therapy there's nothing going on in here so for me it's especially when I got into personal essay writing you kind of gotta figure yourself out before you start figuring you're in like the the motivations of other characters I write about characters long form right I have to understand what motivated me internally well my external motivations I think we know that from the lifestyle and this one robs you this one's extraordinary so you got to do this to prove an example those are kind of like glum descriptions of what motivated you to do the killing I think the more interesting ones are the more insightful ones is when you try to sort of understand your own internal motivations what were my fears well why was I so fearful what what drove me to sort of commit this violence and I think that's more interesting I try to accept that my characters that I write about too but you better figure the shit out yourself before you start trying to figure other people out so writing for me kind of helped me um become accountable but look it was a process right it was you know I was the guy in the yard talking talking with these guys for my first few years, too. Kind of saying, you know, I was a knock -around guy. I'm not so bad. I killed another knock -around. Like, what's, you Know, that kind of thing. And it's all bullshit. It's all rationalization. You can't show up on the page with that. That's not how society thinks. And that's how I grew up. I grew up on the page.

0:34:12 Matt: I think that you have some of the most interesting, I guess I'm going to say freedoms and limitations of any writer that I've written in a long time. Certainly you're not thinking about where your next meal is coming from, but you also have no privacy. I mean, you have Some privacy, right? But you're talking about how there's always sound in the background, which is murder for a writer. I understand you have headphones, which has to help.

0:34:31 Matt: When you started writing, you were writing on a typewriter and the whole thing was evolving, you know, with the technology until you had a tablet. You went, as I understand, I'm just so interested in this as a writer myself, your process here, because you went from having a typewriter that could store 7000 words to being able to write drafts of messages. And you worked out like your own system. I'd be so interested to know how this worked and being able transmit 6000 words at a time to the people outside who are helping your assistant editor publicist. List. It's so interesting to me, the ways that these restrictions shape art and when it comes out, because you're not able to directly Google things or to look things up. You have an assistant helping you, and you're Not able to put out a complete manuscript, even having the manuscript sent back to you. You're writing about how difficult it is, I guess. Sorry, I'm just fascinated by all of this. And I'd like to know a little bit more about how this writing process evolved and how you actually did it.

0:34:31 John: I mean, you got what you got. You know, there's plenty of great writers that didn't, you know, pump out their manuscripts in the age of technology. Technology so I never really saw it as a restriction in prison I write the kind of pieces that time is an asset for me like it's usually not for other journalists but usually cranking out stories on deadlines I mean I write I mean today I'm in a position to write like these pieces that I like to think are meaningful these future these feature writing pieces immersed in a world that that can take you know months and months to to write you know a lot of right journalists don't have the luxury to do that so that's maybe a you know a plus but But it does suck to just sort of be in this environment, this toxic environment. Headphones do help. I did start with a typewriter, a word processor with a 7000 word sort of memory. My office is an upturned bucket, you know, for many years. An actual upturned water bucket. And, you kind of lean over on the edge of the bed and, you just poke away for hours. And then you kind of got to perfect the first 7,000 words. It's like four double-spaced print pages. And then, you know, you kind of got to erase. Like, your opening scenes are okay. You kind of gotta erase that and print it out and then just keep working through it. I think years later, when I transferred to Sing Sing, they had issued a tablet. It's a very controversial thing. It's probably a company. Securus issued us tablets. And there was an email function on the tablet. And you could send messages out for a price like 10 cents a message or 15 on average 10 to 15 cents a and you can craft a 6,000 word message and it had up in case like kind of things that I didn't have in the typewriter you know I was like oh this is kind of cool I could it's like a little word document here you know and you save it in the drafts and I was like wow like this is all right and I that's what I would do I would have like all these drafts and it was but there was like so much of a learning curve you know like you lose stuff all the time there's no cloud there's not saving I've lost so much you know I've got work all day and lose the draft it's like something you know stupid would happen where I didn't it's it's a janky thing it's

0:37:33 John: Pretty devastating when you work on something all day you lose it but yeah I went through that yeah it's I

0:37:37 Matt: That's painful to hear. It is incredible to me that there is not actually any kind of even basic Google Docs type app on those pads, on those tablets. How is that? I guess it's just not a priority. They're not thinking about writers at all.

0:37:50 John: Mean it's its own system I mean you know they give you what they give you it's not you know you don't have any requests it's like and then they charge you for everything it's just like you know look there's plenty of people that like I've written about this in the times and like you and you know uh I wrote a piece in sass company about like the process of writing this book it's a love -hate relationship I got with this stupid company you know like they have no competition because they make deals with the administration of each state they don't have to have like a like a it's not apple not like an apple pad you know because there's no competition you know I've been making lemonade for so many years you know out of out of lemons I just take it I'll make it do what it does and it's it's enabled me to be a bit more efficient and and that's it I'm fake it you know what are you gonna do

0:38:41 Matt: You made it work. Generally, you've talked about how people in there with you, they do watch a lot of true crime or think about a lot true crime media. Is there anything, I guess, kind of beyond the sensationalist true crime stuff we're talking about, but even in the world of books and TV and movies, is there anything you think has really gotten the experience that you're sharing here. Yeah, anything that's even close to accurate.

0:39:00 John: In terms of the shows in terms of documentaries and a friend of mine produced this documentary interestingly with uh Andrew Jarecki, the guy that produced The Jinx. A friend of mine, he did 12 years, and he works in philanthropy, and Joe produced this new show on HBO, and it's called The Alabama Solution. I've been talking to him about it for the past couple of years. He was telling me about this project, and I love the fact that a formerly incarcerated guy gets to work with Andrew Jarecki and kind of tell something a little differently. What he told was the story of these guys in Alabama. I mean, you could call it true crime, but I would call it a little something nuanced has been very true I would say true punishments what it is he and Jarecki had gotten some footage from some of the prisoners in alabama and it was pretty brutal stuff with illegal cell phones they took the footage and Jarecki and my friend Alex Garan they produced this uh this really wonderful it's hard to watch according to Meg and my publicist we talked about it a lot but it's terms of getting like what can actually happen in prison right and giving you like these sort of visceral scenes captured with cell phone footage, like on the scene with these guys seeing dead bodies and blood. I mean, you get a little capture of that, I think, with Alabama, with the Alabama solution.

0:40:20 Matt: It took somebody who's actually been there to make it, of course. I wanted to ask about the family of the man you killed. They've asked you, and obviously we're honoring this here, they've asked me not to use his name and we're not going to use this name in this interview. You have been so thoughtful in your writing and so considerate, I think, of just about everything that I've read in the way that you talk about this and not hesitating about taking responsibility here. You wrote an entire piece in the Washington Post about what it's like to try to write an apology. And they ultimately did not accept that apology. You said, essentially, I don't know how much these words matter if they're not going to accept it. And I just wonder how much thinking you've done about restorative justice and what it means and what the limits are in these kinds of situations.

0:41:01 John: I see restorative justice as an ideal that it's not really practiced that much. There's a lot of ideals around people that think about the criminal justice system. And those ideals are like, whether it be from abolition to restorative injustice, I wouldn't go as far as just saying restorative justice is an ideal because it is practiced. But in the American prison, in my experience, in New York state prisons and with murder cases, it becomes very, very thorny. So it's really not practiced much or at all. For example, common justice is a restorative Justice Program that works with the Brooklyn District Attorney's Office. It does many cases except murder, like they won't do murder cases. So when you ask me Me personally about, you know, restorative justice, like, you know, look, I wish there were more resources to sort of bridge, you know, this very contentious potential conversation. I'm not saying the people that the family of the man I killed wants to have that conversation, but if they did, you know, I don't know what that would look like. The resources aren't that public. And the only time I was sort of like thought that it could happen was when the producers of this true crime show, who had already, the same producers who had already misled me, the The sisters, you know, I'd say the sisters, they had reached out. They said, well, she said this. What do you say? And it just felt like so disgusting, like to get these messages from these people who like, this is what we're doing here.

0:42:28 John: Like, this isn't what we've come to. Like, This is what it is. And look, that's a tough position to sort of take. I've said all this pain in motion, right? So I try to be accountable about it. It's also exasperating, too, to be honest. I realized what brings me pride, which is to say writing, causes the family of the man I murdered more pain and that causes me like some shame you

0:42:50 Matt: It's the source of your career is the worst thing that you did. It's a fascinating paradox, but I mean, I really can say that you have told a story here that I don'T think I've ever seen before, which is what I always want to see as a reader and from a perspective that I think really was very necessary at this point in time And for whatever it's worth for me to say this, and I hope the audience understands and will read this book because it really demands to be read. I just feel like I'm not doing it justice, even how I'm describing it. It's just such an important thing that you've done here. And I think you should be proud of it. But I can also see and I can feel when I'm reading this, the tension at the heart of it, that feeling of that recognition. Recognition. Sure.

0:43:21 John: Know whatever I'm prideful about it's so much tension that's you know that's involved because of the style in which I I write all that conflict right all that inner conflict I mean that that's remorse that that that shit in the gut right now like that like answering it you can't like take somebody's blood or like kind of like attack them and like say is he remorseful is he not no like it's a feeling and it's and And it's conflict, and it's that complicated shit in your gut that you know you caused this pain, and at the same time, you have the ability to move on with your life, which I have. I don't let this prison shit define me, you know what I mean? I will live a life. I'm not a criminal just because New York hasn't sort of evolved with having just one good time law on the books. Just one, for people that have committed violence with the violent crime.

0:44:10 John: And then they wonder why the violence is out of control in New York State prisons. You load people up and you give them no hope what do you think's gonna happen I suppose I'll always be the murderer but I'd like to think you know a much more of the writer you know yeah

0:44:25 Matt: You are. Yeah. You are absolutely a journalist. There's no question just from looking back at your body of work now, and especially this book.

0:44:31 John: No and I think like it's not just like me in my career it's just like what happens if I don't write right there's a whole movement of prison journalists going there's infrastructures there's prison prisoners across the nation that call themselves journalists now they write me all the time I love that shit like much more than I well I mean look I appreciate what I can refuse from like these these so -called legacy outlets but the shit that makes you kind of like get a little emotional is when a dude says man like you show me this this shit could be done what I could do we're gonna have this new york review of books about the history of prison like what of it all right it's the bicentennial of sing sing next year the first cell block was made in 1826 so I'm reading all these books it's like old prisoners old it's kind of fascinating to read these guys guys they use the old old terminologies this one's a school pigeon or like get them boys like some of these prisoners like wrote great books and you know I've tracked them down and I'm reading them so I'm writing this this like sort of historical piece things things part of my history too these past 20 years of my life 20 something years of our life I've been here three separate times you don't like sortof stay in one prison during your whole bit well some people do but I didn't this is my third time here I spent many years of life at different parts of the chronology of my prison experience it means something to me I've experienced this this place in a very visceral way but I've never like walked by the old cell blocks and the dungeons and like these there's like these historical artifacts that you see every day in prison but it wasn't like till recently so I thought about writing this this piece you know like going to the yard and passing like the old sub like and like scratching your chin like hmm that's interesting kidding you're like like this place is fucking miserable looking at it through that lens and it is interesting but that's a testament to like my career and thank god like I have this like this thing that I'm doing and I'm living a life that's what I mean by I'm saying like I'm living a lie it's that it's not this identity that you're a prisoner you're criminal no actually I'm not actually I'm a writer

0:46:31 Matt: And you're writing something that people need to read in a voice that they need to hear. So I think that, you know, I understand what you're saying about the pride, but anybody who publishes your book should be proud. But I really think for what it's worth, I mean, you really should be pride of this book. We are told so many stories about prison by people who really haven't really spent any time there. And again, I've just been the guy in the Monopoly board on the Just Visiting corner, right? And I've been in plenty, but I can't say I understand it. What would you most want people to know about the experience of being incarcerated.

0:46:58 John: It's a weird thing right sometimes I'm asked like what what would have happened is you know if you didn't go to prison or if I was ever if I wasn't acquitted of the murder. You know, I don't think anything good, right? So there's a part of me that does acknowledge that I belonged in prison and I needed to be put away. There's another part of me that doesn't realize that it's an incredibly, you know, futile experience. It's an awful place to live and to be forced to find yourself. It is a complicated sort of question. I wouldn't recommend this journey to people that want to find themselves. Prison is a really disgusting disgusting place just generally speaking there are people that uh that are trying to overcome it trying to overcome their own shit in a pretty pretty shitty environment and I like to think like you know I kind of bring those characters some of those characters to life on the page you know and not a campy way where I'm trying to like here are the prisoners like you're more than our crimes and we and we're you know we're I mean it's not it's that kind of story you know really

0:48:01 John: Complicated and I try to build that out on the pace the best that I can

0:48:05 Matt: You really do. And I mean, I'm still thinking about, and I'm going to go back and reread parts of this. I'm thinking about some of these people you've written about, some of the stories and sort of the different levels of accountability we're talking about and the levels of engagement with what they've done that you're just very candidly putting out there. And understand all of the men that you've profiled have read and more or less fact -checked, or I guess I'm not going to say signed off because it's your story, it's your book, but they participated in this.

0:48:30 John: Yeah you know all of I mean, Robert Chambers, when he got out, he was pretty elusive and my fact checker couldn't track him down, but everyone else did. But I have notes and recordings with Rob. I have so much stuff with him and he agreed to have me tell his story. But I guess I want, you know, just listeners and audiences, just I guess if there's a takeaway from it all, I guess to be just judicious, right? Like with what they consume, especially in this moment.

0:48:57 John: You know, the truth is crime is at its lowest rate as it's ever been. A recent YouGov poll found that half of Americans believe otherwise, though. I think it has a little bit to do with like what we're consuming, because that same YouGов poll said like 57 % of Americans watch true crime about murder. They probably do it before they go to sleep. Going to go to sleep in their head thinking like you know thank god for prison it's not to sort of minimize like these terrible acts that do happen but it's time to pay attention to narrative and you know I'm just grateful for anyone out there that wants to read something different but I would I would argue perhaps more authentic than most of what's out there I

0:49:37 Matt: For sure. For sure. And I mean, you are making the point about how exploitative and harmful all of this is. And not just, I mean obviously it's most exploitative harmful to the people harmed originally, but also to the perpetrators and to society. I completely agree with you that the more that we get on edge about this, the more the people think that there's just rampant amounts of random, violent, dangerous crime out there. As you say, it's lesser than ever. I think that just makes us all worse off and it makes us more susceptible to some of the worst messaging and sort of trends that are running this country right now. So just this particular kind of pushback from someone who has seen it the way that you've seen it and has the voice you have, I think is so important. I haven't been able to watch the Chris Cuomo special, and I'm telling you, I wouldn't even pay for it if I could, but I can't even pay for it. It's not even available to pay for. What would you have done differently if you were producing that?

0:50:25 John: Just think it's the agency we come to the screen with right I don't even know if it's like he's aware if he has like an agent I'd be like bro maybe this is like not the best look for you like we're in the middle of the criminal justice reformer like you grew up in the governor's mansion and you're doing a show like like about like evil people like it's just like it may not be the best book I don't know I just it's not even about doing it differently I mean I think maybe there of course I would have to think about like the structure of it and I just think I come to it with like a different agency and a regrettable one right but there's something wrong in america where we have this guy that's like they grew up the governor's son his brother is now the governor and it's just like what's up with that we're like telling the stories of granted fucked up people but like do we not see the optics here of just like how this is like coming from a perch of just righteous indignation I don't know I think as complicated as it is I think there's a way and look he has a way in which he could level with the with the audience and some of his other stories and I think he does it quite quite well he has like this candid kind of like kind of like fake tough guy thing going on I don't know it's kind of weird but but the point is if I could strike a tone like you know like I do on on the page with the people watching saying like hey this is what I did and this is who I reckon with and I want to talk to others who have reckoned with that but not doing it from this perch I don' t know maybe that would be different maybe that's an example of how I would do I think it's just the agency I bring to the page or hypothetically in this case the screen that would be perhaps different but I don't know if that makes sense

0:52:06 Matt: It doesn't. Because they were styling. I found a couple of clips on YouTube. That's all all there is for that I could find but they're styling you as like a mind hunters type guy that understands the you know the minds of criminals and I mean yeah I guess but that's not really it's not the appeal of the story to me the appeal the story of me is that you are a real person who did a real thing and is talking to other real people that have never gotten a chance to talk to the public about who they are and and what they've become since then and I just I think it's really cheap to reduce it down to comparing it to some kind of criminal profiling nonsense right Those are my take on it, at least.

0:52:38 John: But you're not missing much but I'm glad you read the book uh I'm uh that was just a catalyst for me to say you know what it really was that it was a catalyst for me to say, hey, that was a bit misguided, vielleicht könnte ich es besser machen ich versuche herauszufinden wie mein Fleisch war mit dem Genre, mit einigen von meinen Magazinen, bevor ich den Buchpreis bekommen habe And I was really just grateful to rap with some of the, and just learn from some of the best editors in the business. I'm always grateful for that, right? Like my whole career has been like this privilege to, you know, to like fly with these, with these people that, that check me, you know, they check me and they help me come to terms and just crystallize the things that I'm looking to say. With True Crime, like that's how I, with, you know, with the magazine criticism, you know, I was able to do that in the New York review of books and some some other places to the new york magazine and new yorke times magazine rolling stone I really tried my hand at a lot of this criticism of of different people telling this and kind of saying like what if I tell it you know and I think that's what the book is the book is just me

0:53:42 John: Like putting that narrative out of just developing these characters and saying well here's my whack at it

0:53:42 Matt: And it's about character, I think, in both senses of the word. I mean, it really is about your own and the characters that you're sort of examining these other people. But it's a story about, I read it and I saw it as a story, but you becoming a writer also just sort of underneath the entire thing, step by step, how you're finding your voice and your style and your writing process. Process. I think that's fascinating just as somebody who has been a writer for a long time, a lawyer. And I think in a way, I think one of the ironies of the book, as I said, it sort of seems like accidentally you did the thing that we tell people they're supposed to do when they go to prison, which is to really think about what they did to reform, to express remorse, to rehabilitate, and to find a vocation. And you did actually find not just a job, but a career and a calling. From what I remember, those programs were not available when you started and they only came back, you said, around 2011? Those are much more active now, right? The writing programs?

0:54:40 John: No no right that's not right there's nothing going on right now there's only college came back when I came to prison to be fair the commissioner he gave me a workshop and in a prison last year he's actually a pretty decent guy the current commissioner and this is not like an ass -kissing kind of thing I just call it how I see it he's Actually a decent dude he just got inherited a pretty shitty system like right now I mean between covid the short staffing it was just like a really tough time that New York State was having and then they passed this law that that like got rid of solitary confinement and they didn't pass like a good time though it's It's like, how do we punish them? We can't put them in solitary. And like, what the fuck? Like, what are we supposed to do? There's no incentive for anybody to behave. So you got like a 19 -year -old kid with 50 to life. He just came up fresh. He's gangbanging. And then they can't put him in the box anymore. They can't let him in solitary so it's just like the legislators were like, oh, like, oh, we forgot to pass a bill that offered them a carrot. You guys are really like lost. I mean, I don't know. The commissioner actually yanked two people out of their cells and had them testify, which I've never seen a commission like any career like he took them out of their cells and put suit he put them in suits and had them testify to the judiciary committee last year so they could pass a that's a law in new york that gives like judges an opportunity to reset them to lower time you know

0:56:03 John: He understands the problem you know I'll give it to him you know she actually does the problem is legislators don't because they're stuck this guy in the white house is eating their their lunch. They just don't know what to do. They don't know what do when it comes to criminal justice now. And the crazy thing is that Trump passed the federal, you know, first step back that gives federal judges the exact thing we're trying to get in New York.

0:56:28 John: I know these same guys, remember we started this conversation with gangsters that I looked up to when I was younger in those very pivotal adolescent years. I'm reading these guys' cases now. They're all getting out. These mobsters and organized crime I figured they're all getting out under Trump's law because judges are letting them know because they have the law to do that. I actually reviewed a book, this federal judge in the Eastern District, Judge Block, Judge Frederick Block. I reviewed his book. It's called Second Chance. And he's saying for New York and other states to follow the lead of no other than, guess who, Donald Trump.

0:57:04 John: They're saying, please give these guys another chance. And so it's a pretty thick scene, you know. Judge Block's seen this review that I reviewed of his book in the Washington Post, and he wrote a letter to the Washington Post. He's like, I can't believe this prisoner here. I would let him out tomorrow if he was in federal prison. So there's all this stuff that you have to kind of deal with. You got to block all that stuff out. I'm very grateful for that, for the judge for writing that. But if you get caught up with all this, like the laws and this and the justice, you'll become bitter. I just try to live in this space where I have just like a lot to be grateful for right like I have this career and I have like it'll work out it'll workout eventually I try not to get too sucked up in the law aspect of it because it can make you feel better you know and nobody wants to hear from a from a bitter murderer in prison so I try to like tone that down you know just live in a place of gratitude you know

0:58:01 Matt: Sense there's an interesting relationship you have here with the concept of abolition and abolitionists, and I'm still figuring this out for myself. I don't have any answers. You've talked to and done some work with people like Chase Abedini, who we've also talked to. From your perspective and where you're literally sitting, what are your thoughts about alternatives to incarceration? Operation.

0:58:16 John: I think abolition that's an ideal about the people that are sort of espousing a kind of ideal of how they see the world and I think that's a beautiful sentiment but we have to realize how that sounds to me right I've been saying it's the 28 years to life you know how much time I have to do I have 28 years it doesn't matter like what I was like I came to prison with a ninth grade education and I know I'd like to think I've like evolved into a somewhat of a decent human being I have a career I write for the like like like it doesn't matter and I just to hear I can't even get like a day off my sentence you know writing this historical piece about thing saying in the old cell blocks they had chairs in their cells like my fucking lower back is killing me I just want a chair in my cell I guess it's just like to hear idealism about like a perfect world and it's like It's like, what? Can I get a chair?

0:59:14 Matt: Yeah.

0:59:14 John: What the fuck?

0:59:18 Matt: You should have a chair.

0:59:19 John: I just want a chair. It's just hard for me to reconcile. It's really, really difficult for me to reconcile, I appreciate the concept of it, I know all the quotes, I know all that stuff, those aren't the stories I tell, I tell the stories of life on life's terms in this prison system, they're very well -inventioned decent people, we just live in two totally different worlds.

0:59:36 Matt: Yeah, that's where you're at. Of course. Of course.

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0:59:47 Matt: In the book, you talk a lot about the sort of the dark humor in prison and sort of the joy that you find with other prisoners and the ways that you found it.

0:59:54 John: It is in the absurdity of of like what do they really expect like what is the real society's reasonable expectation and I say this in the book like I am unwell emotionally all I'm saying is like I don't need to live in a cage anymore I'm not saying like a lot of my peers don't mean to live on a cage either anymore they're not like amazing people this is not what I'm selling here like that's not what I'm doing I would hope at 50 something years old like you're you're better than like your your actual self at 20 something of course you are like jesus you know what I'm gonna do when I get out I have like a lot of cool literary friends and like you know like like I'm very close with with megan my publicist like we're best friends like which but I have like amazing people in my life I have a lot to be grateful for but I'm mercurial I'm moody I'm depressed I'm going to get therapy I'm go to therapy when I get out I'm the first night I'm going to you know to a 12 step meeting because they don't have them in here you would think that they have them they don't this is the shit I want to do like thanks my first night out in manhattan like I'm going to a meet and I'm not gonna raise my hand and say I'm a contributing editor at xy and I and I write for the new yorker no I'm gonna say I just did 25 fucking

1:01:16 John: Years and I need help and they're gonna fucking embrace me that that's what I'm to do when I get out I know I'm unwell I may be able to help others I think my story can do that so yeah like that's that's the other so that's what I look forward to you know in terms of the emotional health but you know when I started to tell this story about shane you know I was michael shane hale you know he's you know so tough being like you know I think you think I had a tough try being gay and white in prison in new york state prison you're the minority and then you're ostracized and you're hated on because you're homosexual and then he just figures out how to be of service the same people that talk shit about him like that's how I made him a sympathetic character because he is. Here's a little example and I knew I had to evolve because when I started talking to him I was always so concerned about what the crowd thinks. You know today I spent the whole yard with him. I'm back with him again and things I look forward to our conversations more than anything and I walk the yard for two hours with him today about an hour and a half we get and I don't think for a second like about what the crowd or if I do I don't give a fuck and

1:02:21 John: That's the evolution of just writing this book you know that's how I grew it transcends this stupid subculture that I adhere to when I came in and this guy is just like he's great you know

1:02:28 Matt: When I think of him, I'm going to think of the actor that you've told us about, about the man who's helping in so many different ways, the people around him, about the man who's crying when he hears a piano concert, when they bring a piano in, you know, and that was very very touching to me just to see the whole person and the fact that he's got this long sentence and is still so committed to others and to his own betterment. It's so much more than just trying to tell a sappy story about people are better than they are. I mean, even Robert Chambers, the most sensational and sort of famous person that you're talking to, the so -called preppy killer, you still introduce this to a man who has voluntarily learned sign language in prison, so he can talk to a population that doesn't usually get to talk to other people. Was that one of your first observations of him?

1:03:11 John: Yeah I appreciate that I mean he yeah I mean look I mean we love to hate that guy in this moment you know I mean especially just coming off of me too and like this is this is the ultimate villain it was dangerous like taking in him and building him out and showing his humanity he was kind of a draw to my other characters right to milton to shane because you don't really know about their cases and everyone hates him robert chambers but they want to know more that's the thing with true crime we tune in to the shit we hate like the evil and this and that like but I try to like flip it with him and actually actually show parts of him that are really actually quite decent and dare you feel for him.

1:03:51 Matt: And still showing that he doesn't fully understand accountability in the way that maybe the others do. And I think you've portrayed that very honestly as well, as you should be.

1:03:57 John: I'm tough with him too. Yeah,

1:04:00 Matt: But I think we're coming up to the end here. I really appreciate you talking to us. I've really been looking forward to this conversation more than any other book that I've read in the time that I'm doing this. So thank you so much.

1:04:09 John: That means so much to me. Thank you guys. And when you give me that compliment and say like, this makes me think after I finished the book, that's the best compliment you could give me. So I really appreciate that. Thanks for the opportunity to come on your show.

1:04:22 Matt: Thank you, John.

1:05:00 John: You have one minute left. Thank you for using the Curious. Goodbye.