Welcome to My Newsletter
Let’s agree up front: this is not my natural medium.
I’m a fairly (by which I mean very) private person, I eschew (the mildest word I could think of) social media, I have precisely zero recipes for sourdough bread or the world’s greatest roast chicken, and I wouldn’t think of subjecting anyone to my latest Wordle score or trip to the grocery. And, though the pleasures of my local hardware store are many and varied, I know this isn’t the format to do them justice.
If any doubt remains, let it be dispelled by the laughter that issued from my nearest and dearest when I told them I was doing this. I tried to interpret it as their way of saying: Awesome—sign me up, though I suspect it was something closer to: Did I somehow miss hell freezing over?
But enough with the disarming self-deprecation! The fact is, I do spend a bit of time, when avoiding work or the lunacy of current events, thinking about writing and writing-adjacent topics, and some people might share my interests. If that’s you: welcome!
A Secret About a Secret
I’m advised that I should mention that I have a new book coming out. Which I do, on June 7.
It is described as a hypnotic mystery about a murder at a secluded research facility and the secrets that it exposes, which is quite apt, if I do say so myself.
You can learn more about the book–and order it–by clicking here.
Thoughts About The Dropout
So, I made it to the end—all eight episodes of The Dropout, the Hulu series based on the ABC News podcast of the same name, about the ill-fated biotech start-up Theranos, and its founder, (now disgraced) girl-boss Elizabeth Holmes. It’s a crazy tale of greed, deception, self-delusion and other kinds of vice and excess, and a story I’ve followed for years.
Let me say up front that it’s not terrible. It has an excellent cast (Amanda Seyfried is amazing, and Naveen Andrews, William H. Macy and Laurie Metcalf are also standouts). Despite some violence done to the timeline, and a jumpy focus, it’s often engaging and even fun. So, I didn’t find myself clamoring for those eight-ish hours back. On the other hand, I can’t say I was satisfied.
My problem, is not so much with this production as it is with the genre (Docu-drama? True-ish crime?) as a whole, which often seeks to make something entertaining from the facts, but rarely seems to reach for deeper truth. The Dropout found entertainment in moments of zany, cartoonish humor, and in episodes of shrieking melodrama, but never really engaged what are the really compelling questions. How did Elizabeth Holmes become Elizabeth Holmes? How was her character shaped? How did that crazy capacity for self-delusion arise? How did she choose her (investor) victims, and why did they believe her line of bullshit? How did she bring the dark magic of FOMO to bear on her victims and—for awhile—on the press? So much left on the table.
I had a similar issue with the docu-drama treatment of another case I’d followed closely—that of Bernie Madoff. His long, supersized Ponzi scheme raised many interesting questions, but the adaptations (ABC’s mini-series Madoff and HBO’s The King of Lies) only skirted these issues. Easier to find dramatic traction in the sweaty, panicky time just before and just after the fraud was revealed than to peel back layers of character and motive.
Which is why, I think, fiction is the better vehicle for this kind of probing. It’s the classic battle of truth vs. fact, I suppose. These adaptations are bound (more or less) by the constraints of what actually happened, and unless their subjects sit for tell-all interviews (still waiting on Holmes; Madoff is beyond that), facts only get you so far. Free of those pesky things, a novelist can go deeper, can begin with the facts and extrapolate from there. She can speculate (wildly, if need be), and perhaps get at something closer to truth.
Hope springs eternal, though: Adam McKay (The Big Short) is bringing Carreyrou’s Bad Blood to the screen, with Jennifer Lawrence as Holmes. Completist that I am, I’ll be watching.
A Word from Our Sponsors
Remember how I said above that I’m not a fan of social media? That’s true, but it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be. With some able assistance, I have a (recently resurrected) website and channels on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, each of which you can find at the links below.
On My Nightstand
Clarice Lispector – The Complete Stories
85 stories by the Brazilian-Ukrainian sui generis genius. “Luisa remains motionless, sprawled atop the tangled sheets, her hair spread out on the pillow. An arm here, another there, crucified by lassitude.” Never gets old—whenever I read that, I wish I’d written it.
C. Thi Nguyen – Games: Agency As Art
A kind of brilliant philosophy of games that explains why they’re so compelling, so manipulative, and also why social media sucks.
Charles Simic – Dime-Store Alchemy: The Art of Joseph Cornell
These are really lovely meditations, in poems, prose poems, and (very) brief, impressionistic essays, on the work of Joseph Cornell (one of my favorite artists), by Charles Simic (one of my favorite poets). It’s a twenty-year-old book, perhaps not easy to find but worth the search.
In My Playlists
Podcasts
Scriptnotes
A longstanding podcast about screenwriting and related topics, hosted by John August and Craig Mazin, two smart, funny, insightful and experienced screenwriters. Interesting to writers and creative people of all stripes, I think.
The Future of Everything
From Stanford Engineering. It scratches my science and engineering itch. Interviews with researchers in a range of fields, from genetics, AI and robotics, to chip design, climate science and beyond. Never dumbed down, the episodes are brief, but they go deep (be warned).
Hidden Brain
The weird and counterintuitive realm of human behavior. There’s no escaping it—we’re deeply strange creatures. Hosted by Shanker Vedantam, an excellent storyteller and interviewer.
Music
I’ll be doing some events (both online and in-person) to celebrate the launch of A SECRET ABOUT A SECRET; click here for all the details. I hope to see you at one of them.
Thank you for reading!
–Peter