What If Evel Knievel Had Run for President?

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Welcome back to the Bulwark goes to Hollywood. My name is Sunny Bunch. I’m culture editor at the Bulwark. And I’m very pleased to be joined today by Jake Tapper. We’ve had Jake on the show before talking about his great book, The Outpost, and he is here today to talk about his new novel All the demons are here.

We’re gonna talk about some of his older novels as well, talk about some of the process of running, etcetera. But Jake, thanks for being back on the show. Really appreciate it.

It’s great. As you know, you are the movie critic I turn to the most.

That’s that is

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And I agree with you most of the time.

Well, we’ll get we’ll get that we’ll get that percentage up. I’ll turn you around to bunches thinking on all on all movies. But movies play a big part in your in your book here. And I I wanna talk about that a little bit as we go on. But let’s let’s discuss the the new novel first.

Alright. All the demons are here. It’s the the third book in I don’t do you have an is there a name for the series? Is it, like This

is only Margaret Martor

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Okay. — mysteries, I guess.

The Charlie and Margaret Marter mysteries. I like that that we get that rolling off the tongue. But this book is more focused on their children. I can Lucy Marter, who we we kind of meet and get get involved with here. Why don’t you run us through the the What is the setup of all the demons are here?

What is what’s the backstory? What what do people need to know before they pick it up if they haven’t read the first two?

Well, first of all, I write the books assuming that people haven’t read the previous one or two, so they don’t have to read the previous ones. The book is basically about the Ike and Lucy, Ike is an Aewall marine, who is working on evil canevils pit crew. It is nineteen seventy seven in in Montana, and it’s a wild time in the United States much less Montana. Ebel knievel is a I I don’t know how familiar your listeners are to Eagle knievel with Eagle knievel, but he is a a wild quintessentially American salesman, showman, con artist, and the like, and and a great character. Not necessarily a great person, but a great character.

In his own right. So that’s Ike. And then Lucy is his older sister, and she is she’s a journalist in DC. She leaves the Washington Star newspaper to Bulwark for a brand new tabloid started by a Murdoch esque family that has moved to DC to get a toehold in the world of media. And it’s that is that her story is more about her trying to find her trying to solve a a serial killer.

The crimes of a serial killer, which she covers and also just about the rise of tabloid journalism in the US in nineteen seventy seven. But Nineteen seventy seven is almost a a a character unto itself because it’s such a crazy year with evil knievel, the death of Elvis, UFOs, cults, Studio fifty four, disco, New York City blackout, and and all the other things going on in the culture at that time.

It’s it’s it’s great to read. So, you know, the the previous books in this series starts with the the Hell Fire Club which is set in nineteen fifties Washington DC. Then we move to the double May dance which deals with kind of the rat pack era. Of Hollywood, and and here we are in the seventies. And one of the things I really like about them is that they are historical novels.

Right? They are There are novels that you know, kind of touch on different real life characters, obviously very fictionalized for this for these books. But you know, still Still dealing with the the the kind of history of America, kind of pop history of America. When you were when you sit down to write them, when you Alright. So you you sit down to write the hellfire club.

What is the research process like for this? Obviously, you’ve got a lot, you know, just up in your head about McCarthy, Washington, lots, lots to pull from there. But when you’re when you’re trying to get specifics, names of sitting congressmen senators, or locations of, you know, buildings, that sort of thing. What are what are you what is your research process like?

I do a lot of research But just I mean, that’s just for my journalistic background that I love nonfiction. And so I read a lot, you know, for the the hellfire club, a lot of it was based on real things that happened. There was a hellfire club, as people may or may not know, that was a kind of a sex club in England in the in the eighteen it’s eighteenth century that Benjamin Franklin visited at one point. And that’s real. So I read two books on the Hell Fire Club, the actual one.

And then I read a lot about Joe McCarthy, a great book by Jack Anderson that was written, I think, in nineteen fifty two, fantastic book. And then I read a lot about a comic book earrings and I read about it as best as key fobber. And the first book is about I mean, it’s about a lot of things, but what it’s about compromise about people who come to Washington, DC, to do good things, and then little by little, they lose parts of their soul in order to try to get anything achieved. It’s also about, you know, shadowy groups and and the military industrial complex. I read a lot of by the Eisenhower Howard for that first book too.

And then the second book, it’s it’s attorney general Robert Kennedy basically blackmails Charlie Sykes Margaret to go out and investigate Frank Sinatra to see if he’s actually mobbed up or if it’s just kind of an act. And and that is that one was based on a real story too on the fact that Frank sinatra after president Kennedy got elected wanted president Kennedy to stay with him at his ranch mirage estate during a visit to California in nineteen sixty two, and it had the place built up. This is all real. A helipad and a place for the reporters to go and extra rooms and this and that. And then he had his heart broken when Kennedy did not go, and he did not go because of the exact reason that Charlie and Margaret are sent out in this fictitious version to investigate, which is that people, the FBI, told Robert Kennedy, your brother cannot go and hang out with Frank Sinatra.

He’s mobbed up. So a lot of it’s real, but then I just have fun playing with all of it.

Yeah. And then, of course, we get to the evil, can evil sections of this book, which are are are Super interesting to me. Alright. So I I’m gonna play factor fiction here. Did Evil Con Evil actually toy with a run for president as you as you have in the book here?

No. Not that I know of.

Okay. Okay. Because I because it’s it’s really it’s really amusing to to watch him kind of work through the process of, you know, trying to figure out what to stand for. And I don’t think I’m going too far out on a limb here to suggest that he’s kind of modeled in a, shall we say, Trumpian way? In his I

mean, I think they’re I think they’re cut from the same cloth. I mean, you know, I I I think that that just is a fact and then I just took it and played with it. They they both and this isn’t meant as a slam on Trump or evil can evil, but they both have this quintessentially American kind of p t barnum quality of let’s put on a show. Let’s figure out what people like. Let’s you know, they they can capture and get news attention, media attention.

They can put butts in the seats. They can get followers. And it’s, you know, it’s funny. I I don’t know anything about motorcycles. And motorcycles are a big part of this Eich drives a motorcycle, Eveble, Kenebel obviously drives a motorcycle.

There are lots of scenes where there’s motorcycle action pivotal to the plot. And so after I wrote the book, the first draft, I I found a guy named Mark Gardner, who’s a a motorcycle expert and also writer, and I hired him to to edit those parts because I don’t know about you, Sunny, but, like, I hate it when I’m watching a movie or a TV show about journalism or about politics and they just don’t even know anything about what they’re talking about. It just takes me completely out of it. And so I didn’t want that to happen for any minor any motorcyclists. I wanted them to enjoy the book.

I don’t want them to be, like, yelling at the pages and saying you don’t know the first thing about motorcycle. Right? So anyway, so he edited it. Did a great job, really good guy. And then afterwards, he said, I don’t know if you’d seen this, but but I wrote this a few years ago, and he had written an essay comparing evil can evil to Donald Trump.

I I I didn’t know. I stumbled on evil can evil because I was out fishing with some friends in Idaho back in twenty twenty one, and they all loved evil, and evil, who had jumped who attempted to jump the Snake River, Canyon in nineteen seventy four a few miles away. They loved him. I had completely missed him and I did not see the appeal. But as a fiction writer, I I saw the appeal of grabbing him and turning him into a character in the book.

And it’s it’s sunny. You might find interesting also just because you’re you’re a movie guy, My understanding is Hollywood has been trying to figure out how to make an evil cannibal movie. I mean, there was a shitty one made starring George Hamilton in, like, nineteen seventy or nineteen seventy one. But, like, a real evil can evil movie for years, I heard that I don’t know. Is true, but I heard that leader in our leader in our ducaprio.

Leo ducaprio has the rights to it. I don’t know I don’t know if that’s accurate or not, but can understand why they have a problem with it because he’s a horrible guy.

Yeah.

He’s an awful guy. He’s a great antagonist for me, for my book, but he’d be a horrible protagonist for for a biopic because he’s, you know, he’s horrible to his wife and he’s anti semitic and all the rest.

Yeah. No. I mean, I I could see Paul Thomas Anderson style rambling Bogie nights esque, you know, rise and fall of the great great American showman sort of thing. I think that could that could work.

There’s no third act redemption. There’s no there’s no arc. Well, that’s If you just I

mean, that that could in and of itself be the real American story. Right? The the But the, you know, look, the evil evil is is is interesting, again, because as you say, he is the kind of quintessential American Shomen, entertainer, Rachan tour. And and we get another glimpse of that in this in this in this book with The The Death of Elvis, which, as you mentioned, huge kind of pivotal moment in American history. How when you when you were when you were looking at the when you were looking at the the the his death and that that kind of surrounding drama, what was it that jumped out at you about how the people reacted to it?

Because there’s a really interesting almost biblical scene at the the Graceland mansion after his death in your book.

Yeah. I mean, and and I did draw on on the bible for it as well. The well, first of all, the death of Elle, I loved Elvis as a kid. So I, you know, I was eight years old in nineteen seventy seven. But I of all the things I write about in the book, there are only a couple I actually remember.

One of them is the death of Elvis. I had, like, thirty Elvis albums. And you know, I really I really loved him. And I I took his death hard as a kid just because I thought he was so cool. And now admittedly, I was a little bit more focused on pre nineteen seventy, Elvis, than I was on the Elvis of the seventies.

Mhmm.

But what I thought was interesting about the death of Elvis was just like the idea that he did symbolize something. And I actually drew upon a great documentary by one of the DIRECTi brothers for some of my Elvis and and other acknowledgments in the back, so nobody should think I’m not giving credit to people. Their acknowledgments in the back of But but elvis elvis picked money over quality, over and over and over. It happened all the time. His movies are a great example.

His movies are with maybe the possible exception of, like, three or four of them just horrible. They’re just horrible movies. And so he he represented something about American culture not just how much people loved him and how cool he seemed and all the good qualities he had, but also some of the negative qualities he had about how he was encouraged to do what was profitable almost every time at every turn in his career.

Yeah. No. I mean, that is oh, this is also one of the takeaways from. I don’t did you enjoy Boss Lerman’s Elvis biopic from last year?

I did. I did. I liked it a lot. I thought it was beautiful. Yeah.

And I thought that that kid did a great job. I forgot his name.

Yeah. Austin Butler.

Yeah. He did a fantastic job. Although, I can’t I don’t know that I’m ever gonna be able to see him and not think of Elvis ever again because they look so alike.

I I I wanna I wanna jump back to something you had mentioned before. You gave the book to a friend who actually rides motorcycles. He knows he knows what he’s talking about. What was was there anything he picked up on was like, alright, you’re you’re talking about this wrong. This is not correct.

What was what was that actual process like? Because I was like, one thing I really enjoy hearing is when somebody gets something wrong and how they fix it because I get things wrong all the time and people are not shy about telling me how to fix it. So how was there anything that he When he was reading, it was like, alright, it would actually be more like this than the Yeah.

I mean, he he’s not a he’s not a a a friend per se. He’s a he’s a guy I found online after reading his writing about motorcycles, and I hired him to edit

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Mhmm. — the motorcycle parts. And he was I mean, that was just I I have found as this is my sixth book and I have found it’s much better to get the edits before publishing than after. Yes. So I, you know, I just didn’t he he just he said he would just rewrite sections and say no.

He would be doing this. He would be doing that. He, you know, he would just he would do his due edits on on the technical stuff. And and and I would just accept the edits. At most I think I accepted, like, nine out of ten of them.

I mean — Mhmm.

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percentage wise. It was just it was He knew he knows motorcycles. I don’t. And I just I wanted it to read correct. And I also find that when you’re a reader, even if you don’t know about motorcycles, if you’re convinced that the guy writing about it does, you go along with it.

So there are times in the book that I will read when I’m rereading the book, where chart were Ike, the character who the the book is written in first person in alternating chapters. Ike writes a chapter, then Lucy writes a chapter, then Ike then Lucy. So Ike knows about motorcycles. So Ike has to know about motorcycles when he’s riding. So you just have to believe that Ike knows what he’s talking about.

And so I’ll read I’ll reread the sections. And I’m like, well, Ike knows what he’s talking about here. Because Mark helped infuse him with an expertise that I don’t have.

You mentioned the structure of this book, which is different from from your previous books, and I was curious why you made that shift from kind of a more third person

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Yeah. For a new and third person.

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to to a to a first person like here’s this is from their perspective. You know, and the chapter Even the chapters themselves are kind of structured differently, you know, IKES is more colloquial and familiar, I think, whereas, you know, Lucy’s has footnotes because she’s it’s like she’s writing a chapter in a book. What was what was your thinking there in terms of the the, I don’t know, authorial intent?

Trying something new, setting a challenge for myself, to see if I could do it, to see if I could achieve it, to see if Writing in third person is, you know, more traditional and it’s it’s easier in some ways. And I wanted to try something new, and this was it seemed I don’t use the word bold, but what challenging. It was it was a challenge. You know, can I write a book in first person and can I write in first person for two different people alternating? And how do I do that?

How do I do it so IKE sounds like IKE, And Lucy sounds like Lucy, and you you don’t need to check the beginning of the chapter to see who’s writing. Like, you can tell I curses more. He talks about music. He talks about motorcycles. He’s riding like a twenty year old dude.

Whereas, Lucy is more, like, an annoying reporter because that’s what she is, an annoying reporter like I am. And more likely to correct people’s misuse of the word ironic, more likely to provide footnotes. And your and the footnotes are they’re ninety five percent as a character device, not not as an informational device. I could’ve, you know I I mean, I I guess I could’ve just in you know, included stuff in the within the body of the text, but I thought it would be I thought Lucy’s character would would be as a journalist, as a print journalist, as kind of a know it all. She’d want to provide these footnotes to people so they know who this congressman is that if there was a fleeting mention of.

Mhmm.

I I don’t know. I I I I think it was just a a bar I set for myself and saw and, you know, wanted to see if I could clear it.

When you were when you were writing it, were you imagining it as See, I’m always fascinated by framing devices. I, you know, this is one one reason why I struggle a little bit with the new West Anderson movie, because it has a very strange framing Oh,

I didn’t see it. Yeah. Did you like it?

I I didn’t I didn’t love it, but partly for for it’s like a play within a play, but I think the whole thing might be the play. I’m still struggling with it. It’s a it’s a neither here nor

there. A little precious. I mean, I love his I love his stuff, but it does get a little tweet.

Yeah. It can it can be. But this but so so here, I I’m curious. When you when you’re putting it, when you’re putting it together and again you have this kind of very specific voice for both of them, but also stylistically. Are you imagining it like they have written this book together, or she is writing a story about it.

What’s what’s the what is the framing device from your from your perspective as the as the author of these two authors.

I’m thinking of Ike as just telling the story of what happened to him. He’s not sitting down and writing it. He’s this is just him talking or thinking. I mean, all the chapters do start with Every chapter starts with an Elvis Lyric because he loves Elvis. But it’s not it’s just him telling a story to somebody.

And Lucy’s a journalist. This is her she’s submitting this somewhere. That’s just kind of how I pictured it in my head.

Yeah. Yeah. Alright. So let’s let’s talk a little bit about influences here. When you as an author, who are who are some of the writers that you were, I don’t know, philosophically or artistically indebted to?

As you were you’re sitting down to write these these books.

There’s so there’s so many. So I mean, just I loved as a kid, I loved Roald Dahl. But in terms of, like, stuff I’ve read and as as an adult, Pete Dexter and Richard Richard Price are huge influences. Matt Klam is a friend and a writer who I admire a lot, Gillian Flynn, I admire a lot. I there are a lot of thriller writers that I think do an amazing job who I admire David Baldwin and and Harlan Coben and Don Winslow and TJ Newman and Michael Connelly, I love I love the Lincoln Loyal TV show.

I haven’t seen the second season yet. Mhmm. But he’s done a really good job. And also Bosch, I’d love that show too. So there are there are a lot of people like that, but I just I’m a ravenous reader.

I’m constantly reading I’m usually reading, like, three or four books at the same time, you know, one is unaudible in my car, one is on Kindle on my phone, one’s graphic novel and one’s a print novel, you know. And it’s so there are too many to name, but those are those are a few.

Yeah. I Will Saletan this does these books do fit kind of firmly into the thriller Beach read mode, if you’re headed out to if you’re headed out to the beach this this summer for for a week, you know. I mean, I Will Saletan do not have to have read the Hell Fire Club or the Devil May dance before reading all the demons are here. Jake is right, you can. I think you could probably get most of what’s going on in the demons are here without having read them.

But I would recommend reading them because they’re interesting and you do get a lot of background on congressman Carter and his wife, Margaret, that it will be that will pay off a bit in in the third book. Let’s let’s I I I wanna talk a little bit about the Devil May dance because it is it’s very much a a book about the intersection of Hollywood and politics

and and all that. And for a for a film guy, the the manchurian candidate and the filming of the manchurian candidate. And the filming of other movies, including the Birds and and others, are are major parts of the book.

Exactly. Exactly. So what were what were I don’t know, what were some of your resources aside from just watch watching the birds or or the manchurian candidate, great movies, of course. But what were what was your research like there? What were you reading to to kinda get prepped for that?

I read a lot of great books on the rat pack, Nick Tatchas, there’s a great one on Dean Martin called Dino. The I read Caplin, I forgot his first name. Richard Kaplan, I think. But he he he wrote a couple biographies of Synatra that were great. I read Sonatra’s Valet wrote a book.

I I read that. I read a book. I read a Judith Exner’s book. The woman who allegedly had an affair with both JFK and Sam Gianna, I’ve read her book, which, you know, it’s tough to find because I some somebody got rid of a lot of those copies. I don’t know who it was, but somebody did.

And just I I read a lot of stuff about the the CD business of film, Tippi Hedran’s memoir and and others. Because one, as much as the Health Fire Club is about politics in the fifties and the all the demons are here. The new one is about kind of American culture and the rise of tabloid journalism in the seventies. The the the second one, the the devil may dance is really about Hollywood. And it’s about the intersection of Hollywood and politics definitely But it’s also it’s there’s all just a ton about how how gross hollywood is and how seedy it is and how how much people like Sinatra or Hitchcock or whoever get away with in that era.

Although hitch others, I should note that Sinatra is not he’s not a villain in the book at all. In fact, at the end of the day, he’s probably a rather sympathetic, if tragic character. He But I I want I they’re There are two books, a full of essays, about just the manchurian candidate, including one by Griel Marcus, that I read I read a lot of film criticism about. The manchurian candidate and about the significance of that film. We should note that we’re talking about the sixties version of the manchurian candidate, not that — Yes.

Not the one with Lyft Shriver.

Yes. The Den’s the Denzel, Washington League of Shriver one. The Yeah. I mean, I I it’s it it is an interesting kind of glimpse into that that that moment in Hollywood. Did you get any pushback from Sonatra fans for your portrayal in the in the book?

Because it definitely it is a Wharts and all sort of thing.

You know, I always prepare for that. I I thought that I would get push back in the first one. I wondered what the family of Estis Key Fauver would say or everybody in that book pretty much is dead. But I wondered what the family would say. And I did wonder if the Sinatra daughters were gonna say anything, but they didn’t I think they’re still even following me on Twitter if that’s even a mark of anything these days given what’s

happening to Twitter.

But but No. I haven’t yet. I I mean, everything I have in the book other than like Sonatra’s role in the plot of the book, which is, you know, obviously invented, is is pretty much based on on real things. I mean, like his love for Ava Gardner, his suicide attempts, his whatever relationship he had with the mob, it it there it was there. I mean and he was he got prouder and prouder of it as he as he got older and older.

But the the I mean,

there was this weird meeting in

Cuba in the forties that Sonatra went to. I mean, there’s just there’s a lot of stuff. Mhmm. So no but no. I haven’t.

I I don’t you know, it’s and it’s also like, I wondered what the Kenival family I still wonder if the cannibal family is gonna react to his betrayal and all the demons are here. And then his son, Robbie, can even die earlier this year, very sadly, I think he had a kidney problem or something. So I think there are still a few canevils out there, but I guess, I’ll hear from them or not.

Yeah. I feel like I mean, I I I I feel like knievel is probably a harder guy to defend because his all I mean, his whole shtick was was as we see here in the book kind of as a a showman, a big a big, big talker. Let’s you mentioned social media. I and since you are you are a social media guy, you’re on you’re on the services. Let’s just Many of

them.

I have to stop. It’s enough already. I got I’m on I’m on like eight of them now. And it’s like, please just stop. I can’t keep posting this.

Alright. So we’ve got we’ve got I want a quick quick reaction to Alright. What’s the vibe on blue sky?

Do you wanna be invited? I mean, I have an email.

I know I’m in. I’m in. I’m on blue sky. It’s not it’s I I I check-in every once in a while. It it doesn’t work for me because it’s very weird.

Too much alf porn in the early go in for me.

I do not You can avoid the alf porn. I have avoided all the weird there’s I think there’s one raunchy thread that that people are on, and it’s it’s been going on for for months now. And I I have yet to to look at it. But I’ve heard about it, but I’ve I’ve yet to look at it. I Blue Sky is see, you know, one of the problems with Twitter is that it became impossible to make a joke — Mhmm.

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without just horrible horrible reactions

And it all I mean, I’m not even getting into the Nazis, which is a problem. But but yeah. I mean, the Nazis are a big problem for a guy like that. But but but that the it’s just like, you know, so for instance, Ed Sheeran was found not guilty in that civil suit from the estate of Marvin Gay. And I went on blue sky, and I wrote, Ed Shearren’s walking the streets, a free man, w t f.

Now, I’m joking. Like, I’m not actually upset. Like, I don’t care. Like, I mean, whatever. That’s he got his you know, the gays got their the Marvin Gay family got their day in court and whatever.

But that’s a joke. It’s just a stupid joke. And it made people laugh and it’s such a small community and and and pretty much everybody. Ninety five percent of the people there are like, this is just supposed to be fun. We’re not supposed to be here, like attacking each other.

And like, you know, so I got away with it. But if I had said that a joke on Twitter, it would have been like, so this is what you think is important and why aren’t you covering this? And it’s just like it’s just so tired or so. It’s not. It’s not, you know, it’s not it’s not some some personal burden.

It’s just like it made it just Twitter stopped being fun about for me, about five or six years ago.

Now what about threads? Threads is the hot new thing. Everyone’s on threads. What what what’s your sense of the the mod I’m trying to

figure out the vibe there. It seems like Twitter before the Nazis invaded. So it’s like, you know, nineteen thirty nine Paris. Okay. But I don’t know what it’s gonna be.

Like, I haven’t really made any I I I think I posted something, like, seriously, guys. I don’t want no scrubs. Just to see well, you know, whatever. Like, you just just What social media for a fifty four year old Anchorman should be and could be are two different things? Like, I want it to be someplace I can just go and make a joke.

And, like, play off like, that’s how I first met you, frankly. Mhmm. On social media, on Twitter, you were funny and engaging, and there were all these fun memes about how you’re always wrong, which you’re not. Obviously, you’re usually right. But it’s a but it’s a but it’s a it’s a funny meme.

And, like, I’ve met so many people. And then you know, it doesn’t matter how many quality filters you put up. Like, at a certain point,

the the bad faith actors

just make it not fun to like ex have exchanges with people anymore.

No.

Do you know what I mean? Do you agree?

Yeah. Totally. No. I’m this is this is one reason why I like threads for now, but anything that gets beyond a certain size?

Right.

That’s untenable. And it’s it’s hard. It’s hard to manage that balance. Because I mean, look, there’s the other there’s the other is here, which is the network effect of having a large network is great because you get more get more of those endorphins when you get the likes and the replies and retweets and whatever. But it comes at a real cost.

It’s an issue.

One of the things that I that is nice about Blue Sky is that it is a place where a lot of people who have been silenced by the Nazis feel comfortable and and and I don’t even necessarily mean Nazis, although sadly, in this day and age, when people say Nazis, they often mean it literally. But there are a lot of people there are a lot of women and journalists of color and activists of color and people trans community who are like on Blue Sky and like exhaling for the first time in like seven years because like people aren’t like they they post something about, I don’t know, their area of expertise on — No. — on let’s just say film or whatever. And like nobody’s saying, you’re a dude. You know, and it’s like Yeah.

People can think whatever they want about the trans community, but, like, they they should be allowed to, like, exist just like live their life. So that’s one of the nice things about blue sky. And it would be nice if threads were that for everyone. But again, we’ll see you’re right. It gets big enough, and then the bad faith actors start coming in.

There is a there is a contingent of people, not just Americans, and they’re left, right, center. They’re from all forces who are just determined to ruin joy. Who are just determined to, like, you might post something about a movie and they’re like, let’s say, like, you you didn’t I don’t even know what your view of Flash was because I’ve been on vacation for the last few weeks. But But let’s say you liked Flash and somebody wants to come in and start talking to you about Ezra Miller’s, you know, troublesome personal life.

Yep.

And like how dare you And it’s just like, I I agree with you that he shouldn’t have been doing these things. I’m not talking about that though. I’m a film critic. You know what I mean?

Like,

Yeah. Trust that that I’m very familiar with that that whole conversation. Don’t worry. Alright. Let’s let’s let’s bring it back to the books.

There has to be somebody in Hollywood circling these. We gotta well, there’s gonna be a Netflix series or a

There is I’ll tell you what’s I’ll tell you what’s going on. So there is a right before the writers strike, I we were working on and I can’t tell you the name of the showrunner. But a showrunner from a major streamer and an executive producer that was gonna take the job, we were all talking with about a streamer version of the devil may dance with Christian Slater as Charlie Sykes Slater is in and excited. I met him when we were filming. I don’t know if you saw a fleishman is in trouble.

It’s a really good show. I think it was on FX

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Yeah.

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based on a great book by by Taffy. And I met him. I’m like, for some reason, I’m in the scene. I I I don’t know what I’m doing there. It’s supposed to be the year two thousand or something, you know, when I was thirty one and didn’t own a suit.

But but I’m gonna see in interviewing him And and Slater and I hit it off as as he’s a wonderful guy and anybody, my age, you know, would be excited to meet him because he was the star of so many films that were so important to people in the, like, pump up the volume and Heather’s and broken arrow and just a million things from that era late late late eighties and early nineties. Anyway, not to mention like how good he was on mister Robot and stuff like that. Sure. Anyway, he and I hit it off. I said, you should read these novels because you’d be a good Charlie Sykes he he’s he’s I think he’s very well able to convey, like, being a good guy but struggling with demons, which is Charlie Sykes shtick.

And he also has a face that, like, I could see existing in nineteen fifty four, nineteen sixty two. You know, the way that Spielberg cast saving private Ryan. He was looking for, like, first generation American faces. Anyway, so Slider’s excited. He’s in and he liked the devil may dance and and we were talking about like very seriously with about getting some going and then the writer’s strike.

So — Yeah.

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as soon as that’s resolved, I’ll let you know and and and, you know, we’ll do a we’ll definitely we’ll definitely do a Bulwark as to Hollywood when we have more to tell you about that and I’ll bring this later with me.

Hey. Alright. Let’s well, we I I as you know, I always like to close these interviews by asking if there’s anything I should have asked, if you think there’s anything people should know about all the demons are here, any of your other books, anything else going on in the world? What what should folks know about?

No. I mean, you think you hit anything. The book is the book is I’m really excited about it. I worked really hard on it, and I think it’s fun. And the one thing I’ll say that’s different about this third book In addition to, hopefully, I became a better writer along the way because you do learn as you as you as you go when it comes to this sort of thing, especially learning how to as Faulner put it kill your babies and cut things, eliminate chapters, eliminate paragraphs, etcetera, kill your darlings, I guess, he said.

I know that I am competing not just with other books, but with podcasts and streamers and Twitter and threads and blue sky. Like, I know when I ask you to read my book, like, that I’m I’m asking you to, like, pay attention to something when you’ve got, like, a million things coming at you. And I wrote it. Thinking that. Like, I want people to dive into it and and really care about the characters and really turn the page to see what happens next because they don’t really know what’s gonna happen next.

And so I I hope that comes across, but I just wanna know that I want people to know I’m I’m trying to meet you where you are. I get how much of a demand there is for your eyeballs. And I’m really trying to I’m really trying to meet you where you are.

I I will say, again, these are compulsory readable books. They are I read all three of them in the span of time it took me to read Blood Meridian last month, So, you know, it is it’s they are they are good.

I do ask less of you than Corm Mc McCarthy does. Yes. I ask I ask less of you.

It it is good. And I do Look, I will say put on my I don’t write a lot of literary criticism, but I will throw on my credit card for a second, and I will say that I think I think all the demons are here. The it’s it is it is in the first in the first book in particular, there was definitely a little bit of And again, I don’t I don’t want this to come process too harsh, but a little bit of name dropping like, these are names I know from this from this era. And I and by the time we get to all the demons are here, I think that that that’s been worked out system. It is It’s it’s snappier, it gets gets really going.

But everybody should read the Hell flyer Club and the Devil May Dan in addition to this.

But right now, all you need to do is read all the demons right here. That’s that’s that’s assignment number one.

Yes. That’s picking up. Get it on the bestseller list. Books. Alright.

That is it for this week’s episode. My name again, Sunny Bunch from Coldreditor at the Bulwark, and I will be back next week with another episode. You guys in

Welcome to Talkville, the Ultimate Small Village Secret Podcast. Look, we have a lot of fans. We have a lot of people that watch the show. We have a lot of people that still watch Smallville up to the cons. They’re they’re glorious.

They’re awesome. They’re just loyal is the word. I guess I’m proud of the show. So I’m like, come on, man. Smallville.

So now everybody’s like, arrow and this. And these these great shows. I’m not knocking the shows. I’m just saying, don’t you remember us before the social media What do you mean? Name, mate.

Catch up with season one or start season two. On YouTube or wherever you listen.