New York Times bestselling author Don Winslow of City of Dreams

00:00:00:15 - 00:00:24:07 DAVID Hello and welcome to the Thriller Zone. I'm your host, David Temple. Thank you so much for joining me on today's show. I would reach over here and grab any number of books, any one of a number of books of my guest today. But it would 12 here. Let's do this. Here's a favorite of short story compilation is broken.

00:00:24:14 - 00:00:43:23 DAVID Here's another one, one of my favorites in the Force. Just powerful, powerful book. And I could go on and on. There's so many. One of my all time favorites and I have it in paperback. It's just it's so cool because it reminds me of home here in San Diego, The Gentleman's Hour. But the book that really started Turning My head and many other viewers as well.

00:00:44:10 - 00:01:07:02 DAVID City on Fire, which is part of his city trilogy. And then, of course, his latest is City of Dreams. Who am I talking about? Of course. Don Winslow is on the show today. I have been thinking about and daydreaming about this for over a year. June of 21. Yeah. Hello. I remember when I was starting out this podcast, I thought, Man, if I could get anybody, who would they be?

00:01:07:06 - 00:01:26:22 DAVID Don Winslow was one of the very first ones that popped online. So today is a very, very big day. You're going to see me geek out a little bit. You know, that just happens because he's one of the greatest writers, I think, of our generation. So without any further ado, put your hands together, get comfortable, pour yourself a drink, whatever it takes.

00:01:27:12 - 00:01:46:18 DAVID If you've got on your headphones, you're kicked enough watching this on YouTube. Just relax and enjoy an hour with the masterfully talented Don Winslow right here on the Thriller zone. All right. Well, I have I was told I was told by your people that Mr. Winslow only has 59 minutes.

00:01:47:01 - 00:01:48:02 DON No, I don't care.

00:01:49:22 - 00:01:54:20 DAVID Hey, speaking of which, let's just be official. Welcome, Don Winslow to the Thriller zone.

00:01:55:02 - 00:01:58:23 DON Well, thank you, David Temple. I'm thrilled to be here.

00:01:59:06 - 00:02:00:07 DAVID I see what you did there.

00:02:00:07 - 00:02:03:17 DON Yeah. Yeah. Not bad for someone who hasn't had any sleep.

00:02:04:06 - 00:02:18:09 DAVID Oh, all right. We're going to get to that right now, because know for my listeners who followed me for almost two years now, they've heard me geek out over your work time and again. So now you get to endure this for the next 58 minutes.

00:02:18:12 - 00:02:28:19 DON Oh, man. I think I think I think I have a heart out. 15. I think that's what my people. Wait a second. Yeah, Yeah, That's what I'm saying to.

00:02:31:15 - 00:02:34:18 DAVID Shane's on the inside. The IFB. Yeah.

00:02:34:21 - 00:02:37:07 DON Yeah. You have 17 minutes to shoot that out.

00:02:39:00 - 00:02:49:17 DAVID All right. We're going to jump into this beautiful book, City of Dreams, of course, very shortly. I want to save all my all my juice. The heat is the juice.

00:02:49:21 - 00:02:56:02 DON Yeah. All right. Uh huh, yeah. Is the juice worth the squeeze? That's always the eternal question.

00:02:56:18 - 00:03:03:02 DAVID Is the juice worth it? You know, nine times out of ten, Don, the juice is worth the squeeze.

00:03:03:02 - 00:03:04:08 DON All right. All right. I.

00:03:05:03 - 00:03:07:04 DAVID I think you would say the same thing, wouldn't you?

00:03:07:08 - 00:03:16:05 DON Yeah, I would, actually, I would. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I don't know if we're just chatting. I mean, or should I be waiting for you to ask questions, but.

00:03:16:05 - 00:03:18:02 DAVID No, no, no, dude, this is the thing about me.

00:03:18:12 - 00:03:39:18 DON Most of my philosophies in lot of the things that Gene and I say to each other all the time in regard to the juice versus the squeeze is when in doubt go. You know, like, do we feel like going for a five mile hike? When in doubt, go. Yeah. Do I feel like jumping in the ocean? When in doubt, go.

00:03:39:18 - 00:03:42:10 DON And almost always it's the right decision.

00:03:43:15 - 00:03:45:22 DAVID That is a great way to live.

00:03:46:06 - 00:03:46:17 DON Mm hmm.

00:03:47:02 - 00:04:07:16 DAVID There's a theory in standup. I studied at the Groundlings in Hollywood in my first tour of duty in L.A.. And there's a rule called. Yes. And so whenever you're in a scene, Don would say to me, David, quick, take this gun. I'm always supposed to say yes, and you know what I'm going to do with it versus a lie?

00:04:07:18 - 00:04:14:08 DAVID Yeah, a lot of guys would go, that's not a gun. That's a banana. Well, now what I've just done is stopped your mojo.

00:04:14:08 - 00:04:17:08 DON Right, right, right. You know, Yes.

00:04:17:08 - 00:04:18:12 DAVID And yes.

00:04:18:12 - 00:04:19:15 DON And when in doubt, go.

00:04:19:22 - 00:04:36:06 DAVID When in doubt, go. So let's talk about this. You said you have been without sleep. I have seen you. We saw you tambien. I saw you. Then it works. You and your lovely wife, Jean in La Hoya there in bookstore. And you were? That's the first time I've seen you. Just like, okay, I'm here. Where am I next?

00:04:36:06 - 00:04:41:09 DAVID You're your people. We're going. We're going over here, folks. There are no people here.

00:04:41:09 - 00:04:41:23 DON No people.

00:04:42:02 - 00:04:44:00 DAVID What's the tour been like for you, Don?

00:04:44:01 - 00:05:05:14 DON It's been good. It's been good. You know it. You know, listen, airports are killers. You know, there's, I don't know, few places more depressing in the world, but but the tour's been great has been great to get out and see people. I mean that sincerely. You know, I owe those readers everything that I have materially in the world.

00:05:05:14 - 00:05:11:23 DON And so it's been good. It's been fun, you know, But, yeah, you know, it's it's an effort.

00:05:12:17 - 00:05:24:08 DAVID Well, I know it's exhausting. I can only imagine because I haven't had one yet. But what what never gets old for you. What's the one thing you like? You know what? This never gets old right here. What's that thing?

00:05:24:12 - 00:05:41:15 DON You know, it. It never gets old on tour. When people come up to you and say that. That you've meant something to their lives, you know, that they have enjoyed your work or there was something that you wrote or said that was meaningful to them that never gets old.

00:05:42:00 - 00:06:03:06 DAVID Yeah. Yeah. I'm trying to remember the first time. I think my first time meeting you was at war weeks, maybe two years ago. And it sounds. Yeah. And I've seen you there a number of times. Nancy and Julie in the gang. Mm hmm. Then I saw you up at Mysterious with Adrian McEntee back in 19 during Thriller first.

00:06:03:07 - 00:06:04:03 DON Yeah, that's right.

00:06:05:08 - 00:06:27:07 DAVID And here's one thing I wanted to say to my readers and my listeners that here's the one thing about Don. If you've never hung out with him, first of all, it's two things. There's a genuine and palpable enthusiasm that that you have for your books and your friends, your people, your your viewers and readers. And the other thing is the way you tell a story.

00:06:27:07 - 00:06:37:06 DAVID And I've heard a couple of your stories several times, and each time, Don, it's as fresh and as exciting as the very first time. How do you do that?

00:06:37:08 - 00:07:00:09 DON Well, that's nice of you to say. You know, look, I. I take those evenings really seriously. You know, I sincerely feel that if people are going to spend their time to come out and see me, you know, because time is valuable, time is life that, you know, that's it. There's nothing else but time. Yeah. I want them to have a really great experience.

00:07:00:09 - 00:07:21:20 DON I want them to feel accurately that they've made a connection, that we've connected with each other. I want to, if I can a little bit, make them laugh, you know, and amuse them or interest them and I want them to come away from that thinking, you know what, I don't go to I want to go to more of these things.

00:07:22:02 - 00:07:41:13 DON Yeah, let me go see this guy or that woman, you know, because that was a really good evening. And so, you know, I grew up with literally at the feet of one of the great Raconteurs ever, My my old man. You know, I probably told you this story. You know, he was a sailor, career Navy guy, and he'd have his buddies.

00:07:41:13 - 00:08:06:03 DON He was an NCO. He was a chief petty officer. And you have his buddies over. And they, you know, I think some beer was involved and they'd they'd pretend to sink. I'd gone to bed and I'd literally get under the table and sit there and listen to these guys tell these great stories, you know, of their brawls and their craziness and stuff that had happened all over the world.

00:08:07:07 - 00:08:13:00 DON And so, you know, I think I got a good education on on being a verbal storyteller there.

00:08:13:21 - 00:08:19:20 DAVID That is such a great story. And so they they would literally just kind of pretend. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:08:20:05 - 00:08:37:06 DON Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because of course they knew I was there, you know, But I was like, real sneaky, you know, kid stuff, you know, and sneak under the table and try not to laugh and all of that kind of thing. And then I heard these stories, you know, Hong Kong, Singapore or Egypt, Israel, you know, all over the world.

00:08:38:10 - 00:08:41:02 DON And it was great stuff. And they were very funny, you know.

00:08:42:05 - 00:08:47:20 DAVID You know, I could go down and list all your books. It would take too long because.

00:08:47:20 - 00:08:48:10 DON I do that.

00:08:48:10 - 00:08:55:14 DAVID You know. Yeah, we just don't have the time. I'm going to show them on the screen. But I mean, there's 20 to 23. It's nearly two dozen, right?

00:08:55:15 - 00:08:56:13 DON Yeah, somewhere in there.

00:08:56:17 - 00:09:20:08 DAVID And many of them have become blockbusters. Everybody knows this. And for for many of our listeners and viewers who don't know Savages, I think that was one of the very. Yeah, that was the first film I saw of yours. Oliver Stone did it. And that was that was a ride. Let's see, Bobby Zee was made a film. Your entire cartel series is being adapted to TV coming up this year.

00:09:20:20 - 00:09:23:18 DON Yeah, yeah, yeah. This year. Yeah.

00:09:24:10 - 00:09:33:15 DAVID Let's see what else we got The force with Matt Damon. If you could. Next time, could you get a movie star just with a little more heft? Maybe try? Yeah.

00:09:34:01 - 00:09:34:08 DON Yeah.

00:09:34:14 - 00:09:51:20 DAVID But the biggest of all, I mean, come on. This guy right here. Austin Butler City on fire. When I saw this, this came out. DEADLINE, I think you dropped it. You dropped it a couple of weeks ago. I was like, Tell me about this. It can't get any bigger than this.

00:09:52:02 - 00:10:13:01 DON Crazy. I mean, huh? You know, Elvis, listen, it's it's funny. You know, Gene and I were watching Elvis, you know, one night at home and and were blown away as as was everyone by that performance. And then it was the next day or the day after, you know, my agent called up and said, you know, guess who I've got for Danny Ryan?

00:10:13:12 - 00:10:34:19 DON And I said, You know who? Well, Austin Butler. So it was crazy. And then I think the following day I was on the phone was with Austin, you know, talking about the part. And he's passionate and obviously very talented, smart guy, you know. Yeah, but, but also my impression of him is it's just a really good guy, you know, which.

00:10:34:19 - 00:10:35:20 DON Which means something.

00:10:36:13 - 00:10:51:11 DAVID Well, everything I've heard and read and seen and I've watched him speak to in a number of different places, he's just grounded and real and feels unaffected when he should be pretty bent out of proportion. When you think about it playing Elvis agreed.

00:10:51:11 - 00:11:11:23 DON Agreed. And, you know, I think it's that grounded ness. Is that a word David would say? It is now. Yeah, that's it. The dictionary, I think, is what makes him so great for Danny. Yeah. You know, that kind of down to earth, regular guy kind of thing, you know, I think will will play well in that role.

00:11:13:00 - 00:11:32:14 DAVID Oh, speaking of Danny. Right. And we're going to come back around to that just one of easily one of my favorite characters you've come up with. But and I hope this is this is feels like a silly question, but I would love to be kind of in the in that room, my listeners with you in that room when Shane says to you.

00:11:32:15 - 00:11:41:08 DAVID Shane Salerno Story Factory thank you very much says Austin Butler. I mean what you what did your mind do? Did you just go, Oh, wow, cool. That's nice.

00:11:41:09 - 00:12:06:23 DON No, no, no, no. I didn't. You know, I'm not that blasé or that arrogant, by the way. You know, I can be arrogant, as we all know, but not in that case. No. You know, I was blown away by it, David. It was like, wow, that that's really cool. And then I could see it, you know, because I never, ever picture actors when I'm writing a book because only bad things could happen to me.

00:12:07:00 - 00:12:25:11 DON You'd write either a bad novel or a bad film treatment, you know? So I never have, you know, an actor in mind. And and so then when when Shane brought up Austin Butler, I went, Oh, yeah, that makes absolute sense. And that'll be great. Just blown away. Yeah.

00:12:26:10 - 00:12:36:05 DAVID I wonder I was when I was researching all your books. There's a few things I learned about. I thought I'd known folks. I thought I knew everything about Don. Pretty much. Yeah.

00:12:36:05 - 00:12:37:05 DON Because we hang out, right?

00:12:37:06 - 00:12:57:04 DAVID Well, yeah, yeah, yeah. But, I mean, there's certain things that I did not know. Like, I did not know. Your first series, this Neil Carey character, is being. I went to research. I'm like, Oh, I want to read those because I've read just about everything else except the Neil Carey series, which was the launch of his career, focused like the first five books.

00:12:57:04 - 00:13:09:00 DAVID But Blackstone, I'm just talking to reply was sort of Blackstone. They'd ask, Is it true? Did I hear that they're picking up these the 30th anniversary read launch.

00:13:09:00 - 00:13:18:13 DON Wow. 30th anniversary. Jesus. Yeah, it's true. Yeah. Yeah. They're they'll be back old Neil. You know, my my first ever character.

00:13:18:13 - 00:13:22:08 DAVID So you started that. You must have been, what, eight, nine years old when you started.

00:13:22:17 - 00:13:43:20 DON Man, I wish. You know, David, I didn't get started, you know, really, Seriously writing crime fiction until my mid-thirties, early thirties, I guess, you know? So I was just trying to make a living the the, the world at large didn't agree that I should be a writer, you know? So I was running around doing crazy things, you know, just making a living.

00:13:43:20 - 00:14:12:11 DON And I was directing Shakespeare and Oxford at the university there in the summers. And then I'd leave Oxford and I'd go to Africa and lead photographic safaris. And I heard Joe Wambaugh, a great San Diegan, Joseph Wambaugh, say that when he was a murder cop, you know, in L.A. He wanted to be a writer, that he determined he was going to write ten pages a day.

00:14:13:16 - 00:14:38:16 DON So I just left Oxford. I'm sitting in, in the outside of a tent in Kenya with a malaria relapse. It's, you know, prior to dawn because we get up very, very early to get everything ready for the clients, and I'm sitting out trembling with a cup of coffee by the fire. And I thought, you know, man, you better do this.

00:14:39:14 - 00:15:01:19 DON You know, you've been talking about it for years. You've been flirting around it for years. Maybe you should get, you know, serious. And I remembered the interview with Juan, though, which I'd heard on the radio in England, and I said, I can't write ten pages a day, but I can write five. And so that's that's how Neil got started.

00:15:02:18 - 00:15:33:11 DON And four years prior to that, I'd been in England chasing runaways. And I was it was the hottest, hottest recorded summer in English history at that time. And I was in a tube stop the underground. And inexplicably, I still can't explain it. This cool breeze came up the the tunnel and I had this phrase in mind. A cool breeze on the underground.

00:15:33:11 - 00:15:54:05 DON Yeah. It's stuck in my head. And so what? I thought, okay, let's write a book. I still had that phrase stuck in my head, and then I had to ask the question, Well, who's on the underground to feel this cool breeze? Why is he there? What's he doing? Who is this guy? And that's when I started to write Neil Curry.

00:15:54:15 - 00:16:11:00 DAVID Wow, that is such a great story. I lived in New York twice and I remember in the depth the summer you're going down to get on the subway and you're and every part of you is sweating and all of a sudden there'll be this little breeze that it's not smell. It doesn't smell pretty.

00:16:11:02 - 00:16:12:01 DON No, no, no.

00:16:12:10 - 00:16:12:23 DAVID But it can.

00:16:12:23 - 00:16:16:16 DON Be a factory treat by any means. But.

00:16:16:16 - 00:16:18:14 DAVID But it can be a little cool relief.

00:16:18:14 - 00:16:40:05 DON Yeah, well, you get a little of the sweat off of you. Yeah. You know, and I lived in New York. A number of those hot summers, you know, once rooms 104 and, you know, and I was, as you know, a street operative. So I remember that gritty, hot, steamy feel. And you know what, David? This is strange. I I'm nostalgic about it.

00:16:40:05 - 00:16:42:06 DON I miss it in some ways. Yeah.

00:16:42:06 - 00:16:44:08 DAVID You mean the stink? Yeah, the whole.

00:16:44:08 - 00:16:51:07 DON Gritty, soulful feeling of it, you know, which. Which I don't know. The city has anymore.

00:16:52:06 - 00:16:55:14 DAVID That's right. You were there pre. I call it the Priddis knee area.

00:16:55:14 - 00:17:06:22 DON I call it the same thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was on Times Square before Mickey Mouse. Yeah. Yeah. When it was crack vials and and sex workers and, you know, pimps and all of that. Yeah.

00:17:07:04 - 00:17:15:06 DAVID I remember those days. Not as vividly as you, but. Yeah. And you go there now and you feel like you're at a Disney, right?

00:17:15:06 - 00:17:36:17 DON So yeah. Yeah, it feels like real estate to me. Look, I still love it, but, you know, when I walk in, it's one thing I try to do when I, when I go to the city, I really have time. But I try to take a long, nostalgic walk on Broadway on the Upper West Side, where I used to live 104th and Broadway back in the day when that was small arms fire.

00:17:36:22 - 00:18:08:18 DON You know, continually, you know, when you when you told friends, you know, you were moving to 104th and Broadway, they looked at you like you were already dead. You know, it's like, well, let's hold the wake now. And it was nice knowing Don and and all of that. And there was some reality behind that. But I, I miss those days and I, I can't really articulate or rationalize what what it is about them that I missed because they were dirty and dangerous and I was poor, you know, hungry a lot of the time.

00:18:10:01 - 00:18:18:20 DON But there was a a certain soulfulness, I don't know, another better word. I know I'm not doing this well about it that I miss.

00:18:19:04 - 00:18:39:07 DAVID I think it's this Well, you know, you've heard the phrase city never sleeps and or the universe. And I did two tours of duty there. And both times I and my my favorite recollection is, was coming home from the radio station and then opening my window. I was at 89th and West End. Oh, wow.

00:18:39:07 - 00:18:41:07 DON We were I was at 87th and West End.

00:18:41:13 - 00:18:44:07 DAVID Oh, that's cool. This was 95.

00:18:44:08 - 00:18:48:08 DON Oh, no, I was there much earlier. Okay, so but yeah, I was just two blocks up from you.

00:18:48:14 - 00:19:08:21 DAVID The best thing ever is opening the window. I would I remember just sitting there listening to the sounds of the city, all the different sounds and the aromas. And then it became very easy to turn to my typewriter and just bang out words. I don't know. There's something. Yeah, well, I'm annihilated as badly as you are, because I can't think of the word.

00:19:09:00 - 00:19:28:17 DON You know, one of my favorite memories was coming off duty on Easter. Walk home. You know, take half an hour to an hour, depending on where I was. Sure. And and this is, you know, late at midnight, one in the morning, two in the morning, sometimes. But one night in the summer, hot, you know, classic, hot, steamy New York July nights.

00:19:29:17 - 00:19:32:21 DON And I do know somebody else, Shakespeare and Company Bookstore.

00:19:32:21 - 00:19:33:06 DAVID Oh, yeah.

00:19:33:11 - 00:20:01:14 DON Both on Broadway there and near Zabar's and all of the teachers bar. Yeah. Yeah. And they had the windows, you know, there were floor to ceiling windows upstairs and they were all open and they were blasting Edith Piaf records out the window. And people were sitting in the center island and Broadway just listening and enjoying. And it was just one of those moments.

00:20:01:14 - 00:20:03:08 DON Yeah. You know. Oh.

00:20:04:06 - 00:20:12:14 DAVID For some reason, when you said Zabar's, although this is not the name of the shop and I can't remember, but I used to pick up bagels on the way to the station every morning.

00:20:12:19 - 00:20:13:06 DON And h.

00:20:13:13 - 00:20:24:14 DAVID Thank you. Oh, nobody. Everybody thinks like in San Diego. Somebody was just asking recently, Hey, where I go for a bagel? I'm like, in San Diego and New York. Yeah. Catch a flight. Get a good one.

00:20:25:00 - 00:20:54:05 DON I'll tell you about each and bagels. It's what we served at our wedding reception 38 years ago yesterday. The. Oh, I didn't. My best man and his. His wife was a minister. Uh huh. My best friend from childhood, Margaret Bensky, who was the stage manager for little shows like Miss Saigon and Phantom of the Opera Broadway, and his wife was a Presbyterian minister and they were coming where we were to get married in Nebraska.

00:20:54:23 - 00:21:16:21 DON So we didn't have any money, you know, and and our wedding reception was at our house. And we're doing very, very casual and so I said to Mark, could you go to H and H bagel and fill two suitcases? You don't need luggage, You know, you can be there for two days, fill your suitcases full of bagels from h h And that's what we served at our reception.

00:21:16:21 - 00:21:41:21 DON Except my wife is Swedish. She comes from this little town in northeastern Nebraska, where the street signs are still in Swedish and English, and they're all Swedes. It always felt like Annie Hall. Every time I went to dinner there, you know, and. And all her aunts literally balked at the bagels. They literally stopped in line and go, What are those?

00:21:41:21 - 00:22:04:16 DON What they know? And we had to send out someone running out for Wonder Bread. And we we had bagels in our freezer for like almost a year, you know, trying to eat through the supply of each and each bagels. Oh, my God. It's what I, of course, is famous from the Seinfeld episode of Festivus. Yeah. Oh, yeah, Yeah.

00:22:04:17 - 00:22:09:02 DAVID Oh, man. Nothing like those with a schmear. Can I get a schmoe?

00:22:09:06 - 00:22:37:08 DON Yeah, but how about you? Listen, I'm an Irish guy of an, you know, Anglo Irish, half, half wasp and half Irish. So I'd eaten with butter. I have to confess, it's. I know, I know. It's an abomination unto the Lord. But I. Yeah. A toasted h and h bagel with butter, black coffee and the New York Times in the ink would rub off on your fingers or, you know.

00:22:37:10 - 00:22:41:10 DON Yeah. So we sound like two old men. Now, this is not good.

00:22:41:15 - 00:22:57:04 DAVID You know what? I don't give a shit. Because I got to tell you something. I like those. Those little visceral memories that have literally evaporated. I said to somebody, they said, Dude, go. I should share this CD with you. They said, Oh, what's that? I'm like.

00:22:57:12 - 00:22:57:23 DON Yeah.

00:22:57:23 - 00:23:00:02 DAVID Oh, wow. I know.

00:23:00:02 - 00:23:18:13 DON But you know, David, two nights ago, I was on an airplane and there was a guy in front of me, in front, across the aisle, reading a physical copy of the New York Times. I almost took a photo and, you know, I thought, yes, that's great. And, you know, folding the paper during that whole thing we used to do, you know.

00:23:19:03 - 00:23:27:23 DAVID Yeah. The tri fold so that you could sit Subway and be able to. Yeah. So you could write it without doing this because you don't have that extra room in the subway.

00:23:28:07 - 00:23:56:10 DON You know, in newspapers that the classic news story style, you probably know this was written for the subway because editors would say you never know when the guy's going to get off or what. Stop. And so the lead, you know, the headline, the lead. And then, you know, first it's, you know, man bites dog. And if he gets off on 57th Street, at least he knew that the man bit the dog.

00:23:56:10 - 00:24:14:01 DON But if, you know, if he goes down to 14th Street, he's you know, he'll know the breed of the dog and where it happened. And that classic, you know, inverted pyramid style, which I often use, you know, in writing narrative fiction comes comes from the subways. Well, commuter trains.

00:24:14:11 - 00:24:37:09 DAVID I want to drill down on that because Don and I got so many notes and I would be super respectful of your time. But when I was reading City of Dreams, which by the way. Well, let's start with City on Fire. When that came across my desk, I went, wait a minute, is it my imagination or is Don kind of evolved his style a little bit to a to a whole new thing?

00:24:37:09 - 00:24:59:13 DAVID And it's if you haven't experienced it, you have to read the book so that you just can appreciate the stylization. And I don't mean stylization that gets in the way of the story, but it facilitates your eye the ability to just move through it. And you're you're you're flying through the pages and you don't realize it. How do you do that?

00:25:00:04 - 00:25:32:07 DON You know, David, Look, hopefully you get better at what you do and not worse. You know, over the years you mentioned 23, 24 books, you know, But I think, yeah, in the past few years I've become more aware of economy and efficiency and trying to use the fewest words possible. But I am also really aware, look, we sometimes forget that reading is is a physical experience as well as an intellectual experience.

00:25:32:07 - 00:25:57:17 DON All right. So that when someone's reading, I looked very closely at what it looks like on the page. Right. Right. As if it were a painting or a photograph or a film shot. Because if I want to, for instance, just grab the reader by the shirt and drag him around for a while, you know, in an action scene and not let him go, I'm not going to allow white space on that page.

00:25:58:02 - 00:26:22:12 DON I'm going to make the I just keep doing that, right? Yeah, till I'm done with that sequence usually, but not exclusively action sequences. Other times, though, I want to slow the reader down or I want to focus the reader's attention on just one or two words that maybe stand in for a lot of other things. In that case, there needs to be a lot of white space.

00:26:22:12 - 00:26:25:19 DON I guess what photographers are painters would call negative space.

00:26:25:19 - 00:26:26:02 DAVID Right.

00:26:26:13 - 00:26:51:08 DON Around those words. So sometimes, you know, if I'm reviewing chapters, you know, in late in the afternoon, that's all I do is go back and kind of rewrite and revisit things. I'll lean away from the screen so that I, I can't see the words anymore. I can just see the shapes. And then I ask myself, does it look like what it is?

00:26:51:08 - 00:27:07:08 DAVID I remember the first time I really grasped that movement, this lyrical movement, and it was in Savages and it was maybe the opening lines. I mean, you would have like something like, Oh fuck. And my, that might have been one chapter.

00:27:07:08 - 00:27:07:17 DON Yeah.

00:27:08:03 - 00:27:25:05 DAVID And then you turn the page and you're on to the next thing, but it might just be sentences. And that's the first time I had seen that. And I thought, why, why, why that? And then I realized, well, talking about a punch in your face, do I have your attention yet? Oh, let me do this.

00:27:25:05 - 00:27:25:23 DON Let me do that.

00:27:26:01 - 00:27:35:02 DAVID Yeah. And I used to think Elmore Leonard was the master of stripping it away. And then you read your stuff and you're like, Elmore, you chatty bitch. I mean, we just.

00:27:35:04 - 00:28:03:10 DON Well, Elmore, Listen, Mr. Leonard was the master, you know, the irreplaceable apple. Yeah. Elmore Leonard and I still mourn him. I learned that technique from jazz. Yeah. Okay. Okay. You know, you went through the bebop era, and I love bebop. Bebop was a lot of notes. Yeah, right. It was. It was the Mozart of jazz, Right? It's a lot of very, very fast notes.

00:28:04:06 - 00:28:37:01 DON And then, you know, Miles Davis and the recently deceased, sadly, Ahmad Jamal, came out of bebop, but they started to something else and they started listening to the silences. So they could still play those fast, long riffs that I loved to picked up. But now increasingly, they and some of their successors started to play one or two notes, followed by silence.

00:28:37:09 - 00:29:06:13 DON Yeah, or one or two notes on the trumpet, or maybe Sonny Stitt on the alto sax, and then let the piano chords and the bass chords underneath carry the feeling. So there are times when I'm when I'm writing and I think about that, you know, is that I tend to be a rapid fire guy. I tend to be a bebop kind of guy and writer.

00:29:06:13 - 00:29:23:18 DON But there are times, I think, when when you've got a slow it down and and again, just that one or two notes, there's one or two little images or words and then let some silence do the rest of the work, let some reflection do the rest of the work.

00:29:24:00 - 00:29:29:21 DAVID Man I'm thinking about Miles Davis. Some kind of blue and blue green, and I'm just thinking of all.

00:29:29:21 - 00:29:33:01 DON The kind of blue is still the selling jazz album ever.

00:29:33:10 - 00:29:50:16 DAVID Yeah. And and then I think about Are you a Dave Brubeck Quartet fan? Sure, sure. Okay. Yeah. My very first album I ever got, I was turned on to it was in 1964. Brandenburg Gate Revisited.

00:29:50:20 - 00:29:51:18 DON Or Gate Revisited.

00:29:51:18 - 00:30:08:20 DAVID Yeah, that's the first time I heard. Wait a minute, You have jazz and orchestra Nation and you have all that five, five, six, seven, five beat with these long interludes of singular notes. And I was like, But my mom and I used to dance in the living room to that.

00:30:08:20 - 00:30:41:14 DON Oh, that's fun. That's why. You know what we don't realize I think generally the public doesn't realize about so many of these jazz greats is that they were real students of classical music. Oh, yeah. You know, we tend to think of jazz in nightclubs and improvization and all of that. And that's accurate to to a great extent. But when you look at Ahmad Jamal, you look at Thelonious Monk, you look at, you know, any of these guys, they had a very heavy background from like junior high and high school on.

00:30:41:23 - 00:30:55:19 DON They really studied classical music and they knew what they were talking about and they knew how to draw the analogies between Stravinsky and what, you know, they were attempting to do in the in the the jazz genre.

00:30:55:19 - 00:31:18:02 DAVID And, you know, it's that lyrical sense that the undulating rhythm is the same thing when I read your work, like one of my favorite things is when you have Danny, you have Danny thinking and then Danny speaking and that moment of like, I feel like I'm on an inside. That's one of the things I love about your writing.

00:31:18:02 - 00:31:31:06 DAVID You're like, inside his head, but inside the conversation. So he think, he says he thinks, yeah, like that would ever happen. And all those little moments and it's the way it's laid out on the page. Anyway, I'm going to give you your technique.

00:31:31:06 - 00:32:05:16 DON Yeah, thank you. But, you know, I mean, jazz is, is the soundtrack of, of crime fiction movies, you know, especially in the noir genre. And one of the great albums is is Miles Davis is backdrop for Elevator to the Gallows the great French noir film you know and and he recorded it in one session. He got his group together and they were in Paris and in the studio and they they put the movie on and they just played to it.

00:32:05:21 - 00:32:40:22 DON Oh, you know, I mean, he had composed, but and, you know, I have that album, of course, But if you watch that movie, you know, Le censored I forget what Gallows is in French. But anyway, you know, it's classic, isn't it? It's the voice of of noir. And I think because both art forms are really about the underclass, you know, they're both art forms come from what Mr. Springsteen calls the darkness on the edge of town.

00:32:41:02 - 00:33:02:21 DAVID Yeah. Oh, good. Poor. Very nicely done. Let's go ahead. So that we make sure that we don't miss out on City of Dreams and, of course, City on Fire. I. I'm wondering about you know, I heard this. I remember the first time I heard the news about you retiring. I think it was Jeff Glor on CBS and Tammy.

00:33:02:21 - 00:33:23:01 DAVID Yeah, Tammy and I are sitting there having coffee and we're like, we looked at each other like, No, this pinch me. That's not happening. So it made me think, what's he what's going to be his swan song, you know? And then when I saw this come out, I'm like, Is this the swan song and why So why did you decide on this trilogy now?

00:33:23:02 - 00:33:32:03 DAVID Because I know that you you're famous for saying this is a story I've been working on for 28, 30 years, and I'm like, So why now?

00:33:32:06 - 00:34:00:03 DON There's an old surfing expression that you probably know it. Sometimes you ride the wave and sometimes the wave writes you. It's also a rodeo expression about horses and bulls, I think. Yeah, and ex-wife's fortunately don't know. Yeah. So there's there's a couple of things in terms of me riding the wave. This has been the work of my life.

00:34:01:20 - 00:34:41:16 DON And when I was reaching the completion of it, having doubted by the way, for years my ability to do that, whether I had the chops to pull this off. Yeah, it felt like a transitional phase. It felt like the end of something in terms of the wave riding me. We don't get to choose the times we live in, you know, And we're living in a time, unfortunately, where democracy is under threat in ways it hasn't been since the Civil War.

00:34:41:16 - 00:35:04:10 DON And so I think that the issues that we're facing now require a more urgent response and a constant response not only urgent but constant, and that the novel form is simply not amenable to. And so the confluence of those two things coming around the same time really informed the decision.

00:35:05:12 - 00:35:11:04 DAVID Well, it is a if indeed the retirement's going to happen, it's a great way to go out. I got to tell you that I'm.

00:35:11:04 - 00:35:12:01 DON No, thank you, you.

00:35:12:03 - 00:35:30:16 DAVID Know, beat the bad. Now I want to know this. I know you grew up on Rhode Island. I'm trying to think and you lost your we both lost our mothers in the not too distant past. And I'm wondering, what did mom think about and did how was she got to see a pretty much a lot of your big accolades, didn't she?

00:35:30:16 - 00:36:05:08 DON She did. My dad didn't. You know, my dad passed away. I think I'd written maybe one novel, you know, the first Neil Carey novel that sold eight copies or whatever. So but but my mom did, and she was very proud. There's a funny story about her. She went on her own to see Savages, which is 83 year old woman who took herself to a matinee at the local little theater to see this tough, sexy, you know, violent movie.

00:36:05:13 - 00:36:21:06 DON Yeah. And and of course, the theater, you know, it's those matinees. It wasn't full, but there were people there and mostly 20 somethings who, when the lights came off, just kind of looked at her. And one of them literally asked what? What are you doing?

00:36:23:09 - 00:36:30:17 DON And she said, My son wrote that movie. You know, she got on her cane and walked out. Oh.

00:36:31:07 - 00:36:32:13 DAVID That is awesome.

00:36:33:00 - 00:36:40:01 DON You know? And listen, I mean, I wrote most of this trilogy on my mom's porch in Island.

00:36:40:05 - 00:36:41:23 DAVID That's right. I love this.

00:36:41:23 - 00:37:09:09 DON Story because, you know, as I think we discussed, I, I start work at 530 in the morning and I didn't want to wake people up. And, you know, Jean and I would sleep upstairs. This old house in New England I grew up in. And my mother by that time was sleeping downstairs. And so I tiptoe around and I sneak into the kitchen and make a cup of coffee and then go out on the porch and sit on this old futon.

00:37:09:15 - 00:37:34:09 DON Yeah. Which is still there. I won't let Jean throw it away, you know. Yeah. And an old coffee table or sometimes a broken surfboard it actually as a table and and Right. You know, and then we remodeled the house because it was literally falling apart. And Jean said, well you know, we're doing a remodel. Why don't we make you an office?

00:37:34:09 - 00:37:43:14 DON And I said, No, no, no, no. I've written some pretty decent stuff out here and I like it. And, you know, I'm happy on my futon. So I kept it.

00:37:44:01 - 00:37:51:07 DAVID You realize that years from now, there's going to be like Ian Fleming's and Hemingway. There's going to be this this porch.

00:37:51:07 - 00:37:52:23 DON That's what I dealt.

00:37:53:06 - 00:37:59:03 DAVID Preserved in this and that little coffee table in the futon. And Don Winslow sat here.

00:37:59:10 - 00:38:29:14 DON And wrote his first book. I Have scars on the Inside of my my left knee because it so often because I'm a clumsy, you know, old fish kind of person. And I it's like something would happen or it was needed right away in the phone. I'd get up and I'd bang my knee into the side of this coffee table inside, you know, blood coming down, you know, pant and, you know, nasty.

00:38:30:13 - 00:38:37:22 DAVID At which time you would just smeared across your paper. And when you went to hand it into your publisher, you'd say, by the blood, sweat and tears.

00:38:37:22 - 00:38:57:18 DON You know, that's not true. But I'll tell you a secret, because does it matter now? Sometimes you know about the fourth version of the manuscript they sent back in the days when they did it on paper? Yeah. You know, the ultra, ultra, ultra copy, you know? EDIT Yeah, I'm not reading that thing. Yeah, I'm not. I don't. I don't care.

00:38:57:18 - 00:39:16:00 DON I buy that time. I hate the book, right. You know, And so what I would do without blood stains, but I take coffee cups every, you know, 30 or 40 pages and leave it on that page or like a little bit of jelly or something, you know, mustard or something. So it looks like I'd been working on that manuscript.

00:39:16:00 - 00:39:17:08 DON And then I'd send it back in.

00:39:18:09 - 00:39:18:14 DAVID Yeah.

00:39:18:15 - 00:39:22:11 DON No, Daisy told you, you can't do that on the computer now. No, no, no.

00:39:24:02 - 00:39:34:14 DAVID Let's see. All right, So we know that you get up at 530, you write for, like four or 5 hours, and then you're famous for, like a six hour or a six mile hike, Right? You start doing that every day, right? That's how you stay in such sexy shape, right?

00:39:34:20 - 00:39:37:01 DON Well, and sexy, but in decent shape.

00:39:37:05 - 00:39:41:03 DAVID Call it what you will, sir. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

00:39:41:07 - 00:39:43:02 DON Oh, yeah, Thank God. Yeah.

00:39:43:22 - 00:39:54:04 DAVID So when did you would has the 5 a.m. curtain call always been the same for you? Has this been. You know, I'm fresh at that hour, so let me just do it that way.

00:39:54:12 - 00:40:17:07 DON Well, just listen. I was seven books, I think, into my published books into my career before I could quit my day jobs. So in those days, I was writing whenever I could find an hour or 20 minutes or whatever, when when I was finally able to be a full time writer. Yeah. Then that was a constant because it simply required that much time.

00:40:17:13 - 00:40:52:11 DON Yeah. You know, and, and I was raising, you know, a kid who, you know, required and time, which, you know, was not a burden and I loved it. And so yeah that, that early start time had more to do with you know you just need time on the mat There's there's no substitute for it. I'm sorry there just isn't you know I've never been wandering through a field of flowers and had the muse land on my shoulders and whisper, you know, sweet plots into my ear.

00:40:52:11 - 00:41:10:19 DON It's. I'd love it. It'd be better. Sure, you know, than you know. Then working from can't see to can't see. But yeah, you know it feels weird to me sometimes if the sun is up before I am. Yeah, it's alarming to me. It's like, ooh, something you know, makes me anxious.

00:41:11:06 - 00:41:30:02 DAVID I like it because someone asked me recently why I do that, and I said, It's the only time the world is quiet. Yeah, I mean, think about it. Especially in this town in New York was the same way. But I mean, that that hour you're just in your mind. You have the monkey mind hasn't come in and kept you on the shoulder going.

00:41:30:10 - 00:41:32:03 DAVID I guess I got some stuff for you.

00:41:32:10 - 00:41:52:12 DON Got 57 emails and 38 YouTube videos of cats that. Yeah, around watermelons or something. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. And then, you know, it becomes a routine, it becomes a habit. And just a way of working. But you know, that first cup of coffee in the morning, still the best, you know.

00:41:52:18 - 00:42:10:23 DAVID Doesn't get any better. All right, Let me let me tell you something that happened with me, because I want to make sure we you know, we all know that we're here pimping your beautiful book, City of Dreams. But there's something that and this is going to sound like I'm blowing hot air up your skirt, and I'm not, because I know that you don't wear skirts anymore, Delta.

00:42:11:11 - 00:42:18:12 DON You don't know what I'm wearing because this is just, you know. But I put on the jacket for you in a shirt with a collar and everything, man. Oh.

00:42:18:19 - 00:42:19:06 DAVID Okay.

00:42:19:06 - 00:42:20:00 DON Well, yeah.

00:42:20:17 - 00:42:38:15 DAVID Let me ask you this or let me tell you this. This is what has because I you know, I study things, I make notes, I put sticky notes in the books, and I go, right, I oh, yeah, I take a sentence and I might read it three or four times. And I'm like, Why is that so good? What's the significance of that piece in that beat and so forth?

00:42:38:15 - 00:42:56:16 DAVID And I'm that big of a nerd. But I when I finished this last book and boy, the ending grabbed me, but I didn't see it comin. I should have seen it coming. And all of a sudden I went to turn that page and it was over and I'm like, rabbit turds.

00:42:56:18 - 00:42:57:16 DON You're right.

00:42:58:16 - 00:43:26:14 DAVID All right, I'm back. All right. I thought, All right, Don has now you've now officially ruined me. Here's why. My attention span is short and big surprise there. Thank you. Twitter and everything else that comes our way that goes does like this. Constantly scanning, but because of the shorter time, it's the way that you you cut to a chase in a way that doesn't leave anything out.

00:43:26:16 - 00:43:43:13 DAVID If that makes any sense whatsoever. So you cut to the chase, you're there. I don't feel it. And here's why I say this. You know, I read a lot of books for this show. I'm picking it. I've got I've got stacks and stacks and stacks to try to read. I try to read every single book that comes through here.

00:43:44:03 - 00:43:58:02 DAVID And I go to pick up the other books and I'm like, This is terrible to say, people are going to hate me for this. They're going to write in and go do it. You're an asshole. But I'm like, Yeah, but can you just get to the chase and give me, give me the meat? I don't need the potatoes right now or the greens.

00:43:58:02 - 00:44:02:06 DAVID Just give me the steak. Look, it's a long winded.

00:44:02:21 - 00:44:27:21 DON Yeah, but I know exactly what you mean. I know exactly what you mean. I feel the same way as a reader, by the way. And a viewer, actually. Yeah. You know, look, there's an old martial arts expression, and I. I've been educated that Michaelangelo said something quite similar. It's about it. It's about a defensive maneuver. But that's not important.

00:44:27:21 - 00:44:51:22 DON But it asks the question, how do you carve a tiger? And the answer is, you take a big block of wood and you cut away everything that doesn't look like a tiger. So yeah, in the early drafts, I'm not thinking about any of that stuff. I'm just wailing away and the reader's not in my head. Nothing's in my head except what interests me.

00:44:52:11 - 00:45:19:15 DON Yeah, but then in the late drafts, you know, ten, 12, 14, all I'm thinking about is the reader. All I'm thinking about is the reader. It's no longer about what I like, what interests me, or what I think's was really maybe good. It's all about carving that tiger for the reader so that and you got to be careful.

00:45:19:15 - 00:45:46:01 DON Don't cut away too much. Right? Right. Still has to look like a tiger, right? Don't cut away the claws. Don't cut. You know, don't get crazy with it. Right. But that's all I'm trying to do. Write Tyger, tyger, tyger. The two mixed metaphors. Other thing that I say to myself is that every word has to pay rent or at least do the dishes, right?

00:45:46:01 - 00:45:49:15 DON But there are there are no freeloaders in this house, you know.

00:45:50:08 - 00:46:06:18 DAVID You know, it's so funny. Tammy is taken that from you. And every once in a while, I'm I want to get to a question about this in a second. I she's the very first person I turn to. I'm like, okay, tell me if this just sucks balls completely or if it's still salvageable.

00:46:07:04 - 00:46:10:01 DON Did you just say sucks balls that you really just look.

00:46:10:01 - 00:46:30:20 DAVID At my apologies for the sensitive people, but yeah, which by the way Tammy have never told you are opening story when we very first met. I don't think so. We'll do that another time. Sorry. Because I think my listeners may have heard it but they haven't heard the the the key phrase it nailed it, but she will say, you know, Dave, she'll read a sentence.

00:46:30:20 - 00:46:35:14 DAVID You go, honey, this sentence has got to pay rent.

00:46:36:12 - 00:46:37:09 DON Oh, that's fine.

00:46:37:09 - 00:46:49:16 DAVID And I'm like, Oh, you're pulling the DWI? She goes, Yeah, pulling a Don Winslow. But this has to I mean, do you need all of that? Yeah. And damned if she isn't right every single time. And I'm like, I thought I'd narrowed that down enough. She goes, No.

00:46:50:09 - 00:47:08:16 DON No. Yeah. You know, in rewriting is mostly a matter of cutting again. You got to be careful. You don't cut too much. And sometimes you have to do a graft. You have to add some things in because of what you cut, you know? But. But that's it. I mean, at the end of the day, I'm just picturing that reader.

00:47:09:06 - 00:47:25:18 DON Is it making sense? Is it moving along? Is it pleasing to the eye? Is it pleasing to the ear? Because We forget it when we read even silently, you know, audiobooks being another issue entirely that we're hearing it in our heads. Yeah. Yeah.

00:47:25:18 - 00:47:33:05 DAVID And isn't it funny, if you will stop and you think it sounds really good in your head and then you stop and you read it aloud, you're like, Well, that's kind of chunky.

00:47:33:12 - 00:47:57:14 DON Yeah. Clang. Yeah, Yeah. It's it's dragging the concrete block across a parking lot. You know, it's awkward, you know? And isn't it funny that you can be by yourself in a room and be embarrassed? Yeah Yeah. It's like, Oh, did I really write that? Yeah. Look around. If anyone see, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:47:58:09 - 00:48:15:02 DAVID Well, I don't, I there's a couple of things I want to make sure I get. I've got all your books. If I had a ability to move the camera around, I would do it. I have all your books that I own spread out here, and I was going to ask and there's such a loaded question and you're not going to give me an answer, so I'm going to ask you anyway.

00:48:15:04 - 00:48:15:14 DON All right.

00:48:15:19 - 00:48:39:16 DAVID But I'm like I said to myself, Tammy, you came in here one day. She goes, What's your favorite book? And I'm like, Oh, I, I was like, Well, the border, I mean, the cartel series, which we could talk about forever. I'm like, Oh, that's good. The Force. No, no, not the force. It's absolutely the no, no. Broken came along and it was because it was such a great little smorgasbord, a buffet of snacks.

00:48:39:16 - 00:49:03:10 DAVID Like I've told you this before, over lunch crime one on one. One of my favorite stories averages maybe 40 pages. And I'm like, but then comes along your trilogy and I'm like, God damn it. Right. When I think that he couldn't get any better or pull me in any further, you along with this. So just huge kudos.

00:49:03:15 - 00:49:06:16 DON Thank you. That's very kind. I'm coming for you. It means a lot.

00:49:07:01 - 00:49:32:00 DAVID You know. Well, because I'm such an authority on great writing. All right, Now, here's a question before we go. I would like to know every anyone who follows your nose and this is it took off done it took off like a rocket on a summer lawn when you started hitting Twitter with the I don't even like to say his name, but I'll go with I'll go with Trump.

00:49:32:08 - 00:49:49:06 DAVID Yeah. So when you started that campaign and to to believe someone on the sidelines that blaze take off, did you ever imagine it would go I mean what do you up to like triple digit millions viewings on some of these videos?

00:49:49:09 - 00:50:22:16 DON Yeah, millions and millions. No, no, no, David. No, not not even close to that. Listen, I felt and you know, and, you know, I do the tweets and Shane and I do the videos that we saw it again, you know, life being what it is in the world, being what it is right now that whatever small platform I had, you know, that we would use to to comment on this and to fight back like I think some of the real motive this was that these right wingers and Trumpers are bullies.

00:50:23:07 - 00:50:48:18 DON Yeah. You know, there's classic schoolyard bullies, man. They're really tough talk, tough act, tough until you punch them in the nose. And then what's the first thing they do? They go crying to teacher, right? Oh, it was to me. And and, you know, Shane and I have seen similar personalities in some ways. We we can be a little pugnacious and we were I didn't know this until the other night.

00:50:48:18 - 00:50:56:13 DON We were over dinner late at night. After reading, we were each suspended from school for punching a bully.

00:50:56:16 - 00:50:57:18 DAVID Nicely done, sir.

00:50:57:23 - 00:51:21:21 DON You know, and so I think that the original impetus for that was, you know what we're going to punch back if these guys want to go in the alleys or if they want to take some very good people into the alley and beat on them, they're not going in alone. Right. You know, Kamala Harris perfectly capable of defending herself.

00:51:22:08 - 00:51:43:06 DON I didn't want her to think I've got to do it by myself alone, that there aren't people out there, you know, And growing up in Rhode Island, playing pond hockey with Fisherman's Kids and, you know, you dropped the gloves. That was it. If if if someone, you know, smacked a friend of yours, it didn't matter. You dropped the gloves, you went right.

00:51:44:11 - 00:51:56:09 DON And so that was the original impetus. But I don't think we Oh, I know. We never thought it would it would reach that that kind of audience, but grateful that it did, because I think had an impact.

00:51:56:21 - 00:52:15:04 DAVID Where you have had an enormous impact. And I wonder and I really don't spend a lot of time in politics on this show for any number of reasons. But I know that you're politically heavy. Do you what is your to over say the obvious, what your worst fear possible that could happen.

00:52:15:12 - 00:52:47:00 DON If the worst fears obvious. Yeah that that that criminal narcissistic sociopath wannabe dictator tin pot dime store Mussolini is I've said this before Donald Trump is Mussolini was worse hair and a lesser command of English but yeah that he that he gets reelected is my worst fear. Having said that, David, though, we cannot give counsel to our fears.

00:52:47:15 - 00:53:08:08 DON We can't underestimate the guy because we've done that to our horrible cost in the past. At the same time, fear doesn't matter. Do you know what I mean? I think we're back to where we began do it anyway. You know, we can be afraid of what's going to happen. We can be worried. We can at some mornings feel more pessimistic than optimistic.

00:53:09:20 - 00:53:23:01 DON None of that matters. I know this is not very you know, 21st century, but in a lot of ways, our feelings don't matter when it comes to this. What what matters is, is what we do.

00:53:23:11 - 00:53:38:18 DAVID Yeah, well put. Well, I have a I have a feeling you're going to spend some of this. It Look, I shouldn't spend so much time. Talk about retirement because you still have a third book to come out, which means more to read and so forth.

00:53:38:20 - 00:53:39:17 DON You do this again?

00:53:39:17 - 00:53:39:22 DAVID Yeah.

00:53:40:07 - 00:53:47:14 DON But I'll listen. I don't need a book to come out to do your show, man. You call me up. It's been a fun conversation. We'll just have a conversation.

00:53:47:14 - 00:54:08:18 DAVID You know, I'm going to tell you, I'm going to tell you something that I wouldn't going to mention, but I. I couldn't quite pull some of the details together exactly the way I had hoped. But I was I had a film crew on the ready. We were going to roll up to your house and just commandeer that place and turn it into an entire TV show.

00:54:08:18 - 00:54:09:23 DON Well, we'll do it someday.

00:54:10:04 - 00:54:10:12 DAVID Okay.

00:54:10:19 - 00:54:12:06 DON I'll do that. I do that with you.

00:54:12:06 - 00:54:29:18 DAVID Okay. Thank you. Two more things. I always closed with one question, and then you can you if you feel frivolous and carefree and want to play in the sandbox for an extra 90 seconds, should we this thing called Rapidfire question, you guys. Silly fun. Okay, let's do it. But here is first, my last piece. What is your best piece of writing advice?

00:54:29:18 - 00:54:40:15 DAVID You've given us a huge volume of great insights so far, but I know if you distill it down to the essence, Don Winslow is going to be so.

00:54:40:15 - 00:54:41:21 DON Pontificate.

00:54:41:21 - 00:54:46:11 DAVID Pontificate, this glorious piece of knowledge from Mount.

00:54:46:16 - 00:55:13:11 DON From my bald headed wisdom. What I tell aspiring writers lately is do the doable, do the doable. You know, usually long about January, hear from a lot of people. I'm going to write my novel this year. Oh, you're not. You're not. Not if you frame it like that, because you have a family, you have a job, you have responsibilities and longed about March.

00:55:14:04 - 00:55:33:16 DON You're going to look and go, I've done a page or two and then you're going to get down on yourself and you're not going write that novel. And then we're going to hear the same thing next year. Yeah. So what I try to tell people is don't say I'm going to write my book this year, say I'm going to write a page on Tuesday, main page on Wednesday.

00:55:33:20 - 00:55:59:23 DON Whatever is doable for you. Do you mean be realistic about it? You know, like for me it was five pages a day. That's not realistic for everybody, you know, because when those ten pages a day were not realistic for me. Right. But set a real cystic goal. But then do it. Yeah, then do it. You know, that's that's really the best piece of advice that I can give you if you think about it.

00:55:59:23 - 00:56:06:08 DON Do the math. If you write a page a day for a year, you're pretty much of a book.

00:56:06:16 - 00:56:09:05 DAVID Yeah, Yeah. There you go.

00:56:09:15 - 00:56:35:14 DON You know, but do it. But do it. It's a Nike kind of thing. Yeah, put. Just do it. Did you ever realize the. The very depressing, sad origin of that phrase? I didn't know about it. No. It was Gary Gilmore's words to the firing squad in Utah. What? Yeah. And he said, Just do it and got dumped it for this sort of very positive slogan.

00:56:35:14 - 00:56:40:01 DON But woe never nevertheless, you know, set a realistic goal, but do it.

00:56:40:08 - 00:56:45:08 DAVID Okay. Wise wisdom from Master Winslow.

00:56:45:18 - 00:56:46:22 DON Please calm in.

00:56:47:19 - 00:56:49:03 DAVID This lovely sound or means.

00:56:51:06 - 00:56:54:13 DON Rapid fire questions. How these things scare the hell out of me.

00:56:54:13 - 00:56:57:22 DAVID Go ahead. This one is so easy. It's ridiculous.

00:56:58:01 - 00:56:59:08 DON All right, So they all say, okay.

00:56:59:08 - 00:57:01:18 DAVID When writing free hand or keyboard.

00:57:02:03 - 00:57:02:15 DON Keyboard.

00:57:02:21 - 00:57:08:04 DAVID There you go. Library of silence or plenty of music.

00:57:08:09 - 00:57:11:14 DON Plenty of music.

00:57:11:14 - 00:57:20:14 DAVID Since I know you love the beach, but spend more time walking in near desert conditions, which is your favorite. If you could have only one beach.

00:57:20:14 - 00:57:21:02 DON Beach.

00:57:21:12 - 00:57:22:01 DAVID Thank you.

00:57:22:08 - 00:57:22:19 DON Easy.

00:57:23:18 - 00:57:30:22 DAVID There's a lot of chitchat going about about being a panzer or a plotter. Do you have one or favor one over the other?

00:57:31:01 - 00:57:31:11 DON Answer.

00:57:32:23 - 00:57:41:02 DAVID Ladies and gentlemen, are you listening closely? Don't be freaked out by the plot. Don't. Sorry, That was my $0.02.

00:57:41:02 - 00:57:59:21 DON I know, but you to said you. Listen, let's. Let's pause for a second because you $0.02 are extremely valuable. $0.02. We need to make a distinction between story and plot. Story is important. Plot is a party trick.

00:57:59:21 - 00:58:13:01 DAVID Oh, yeah? Yeah. We learned that a few books back. We'll say it involves a word girl. And it and it seems like everybody's kind of trying to duplicate the trick yet.

00:58:13:03 - 00:58:33:02 DON Listen, once. Once you've identified a trend, here's why you shouldn't chase trends. Well, there's several reasons. Yeah. One is write what you're passionate about, otherwise it's going to suck. Yeah, but even if you do chase a trend, by the time you've identified that trend, it's on its way out. Yeah, it's useless activity.

00:58:33:07 - 00:58:52:07 DAVID There you go. All right, let's see. Number five. I ask this next question because I love getting Tammy's feedback, as we've mentioned earlier. So first, has Jane read all of your books? It's a two part question, a don't answer yet, has she? And second, do you ever run stories by her for input?

00:58:53:13 - 00:58:54:12 DON No and no.

00:58:56:01 - 00:58:59:13 DAVID I he didn't waste any time with.

00:58:59:13 - 00:59:23:12 DON No, I know the answer. I mean, she would freely admit it. Yeah. Gina's is not Read all my books. I think she's reading City of Dreams now. At least she was last night when we fell asleep. Although she does have a habit of falling asleep reading my books. And. No, look, she's, as you know, a commercial interior designer.

00:59:23:12 - 00:59:39:11 DON She does, you know, very good as in restaurants and jails and all kinds of stuff. I don't tell her how to do that. Yeah, and she does not tell me how to read a book. Okay. And so our 30th anniversary was yesterday. And that's part of the reason, you know.

00:59:41:03 - 00:59:59:18 DAVID Fair enough. All right. Last one. Let's say, speaking of Jane, you and Jean joining Tammy and I and our lovely estate for dinner, you can invite three people. If that's a pressure, you can go to three people living or past to join us for the evening to kind of round out. I mean, Tammy and I would be enough for you, however.

00:59:59:18 - 01:00:01:05 DON Oh, of course. And have been.

01:00:01:22 - 01:00:09:13 DAVID To play the game where we're beaten up because I love knowing the people that really impress and or effect and or influence yourself.

01:00:09:15 - 01:00:11:12 DON Three people. I'd love to do that with.

01:00:11:12 - 01:00:13:09 DAVID Just the first three to pop in your head and.

01:00:13:11 - 01:00:32:08 DON Sure. Richard Russo Okay, I'd love to have. Jim Harrison Oh, although we should make him also cook the dinner. The late Jim Harrison Yes. Uh, Sonny Stitt, Jazz. Oh, yeah. Saxophone player.

01:00:32:21 - 01:00:35:09 DAVID He would have to bring the horn to play.

01:00:35:19 - 01:00:37:20 DON Yeah, that's. We won't make him work. Yes.

01:00:37:20 - 01:00:40:12 DAVID No. Okay, We can put it on in the background.

01:00:40:17 - 01:00:46:21 DON Yeah. Yeah. There you go. There you go. Okay. Yeah, but. But Harrison, we would have made cook. Yeah, Yeah.

01:00:46:21 - 01:00:49:00 DAVID Because you're not going to have me do it unless you're going to just throw it.

01:00:49:02 - 01:00:50:15 DON No, no, no.

01:00:50:16 - 01:00:52:12 DAVID You didn't have to agree so quickly, Don.

01:00:52:12 - 01:00:56:11 DON Yeah, listen, but you know, we're supposed to be honest and forthright in these things.

01:00:56:15 - 01:01:02:18 DAVID There you go. Yeah. All right. This was all just page one. So can you imagine if we had gone to my page to of.

01:01:02:18 - 01:01:13:21 DON No, no, I can't. But this has been fun. Man, I've really enjoyed it. Well, let's do it again. You know, it's it's easy to do. And now that I've conquered the technology, it's.

01:01:14:11 - 01:01:19:17 DAVID And, you know, next time I'm up there, I'm going to, I'm going to doll some of your electronics. And so it'll be very, very secretive.

01:01:19:17 - 01:01:41:03 DON Oh, would you. That'd be great. Don't be great. I appreciate that, because that the nightmare of touring, what really don't like about touring is, is that is this is the technology of everything and you're trying to do it from hotel rooms and people you know say well it's easy. Just flip it the floor it and, you know, blackens and then the screen saying, no, you can't do that.

01:01:41:03 - 01:01:43:06 DON And, you know, it gets tense.

01:01:43:06 - 01:01:53:17 DAVID So as we learned earlier, because on the other platform, I was going to I had all these great little video clips and I'm going to drop in. So I'm just going to figure out a creative way to drop them in in post-production.

01:01:53:17 - 01:01:55:17 DON So there's no better use in me now. Yeah.

01:01:55:18 - 01:02:16:04 DAVID So, yeah, well, folks, to learn more, visit Don Winslow dot com great looking website. Follow him on Twitter as I do at Don Winslow. Imagine that he's simply got 500 bazillion followers on Instagram at Don Winslow Films. But wait, there's more. You can go to Facebook at Don Winslow author Anything. Beyond that, I have no idea.

01:02:16:08 - 01:02:24:15 DON Yeah, that's it. Well, I'll be standing out on the street corner, you know, usually between five and six, just, you know, randomly reading things.

01:02:24:15 - 01:02:27:12 DAVID All right. Until we all gather up at Los Olivos.

01:02:28:01 - 01:02:28:20 DON Yes.

01:02:29:23 - 01:02:38:10 DAVID By the way, can I give you one piece of funny news? We went there. We took the grandkids when they were in town. We spent two days at Legoland.

01:02:38:20 - 01:02:39:11 DON Yeah, that.

01:02:44:02 - 01:02:49:17 DAVID They now charge for chips at Los Alamos? No, for the tortilla chips. You know, you have to pay for it.

01:02:49:20 - 01:02:54:23 DON Well, now the center cannot hold far right.

01:02:54:23 - 01:02:58:15 DAVID Don, thank you. Once again. This has been an honor.

01:02:58:22 - 01:03:09:02 DON I've enjoyed it. David, always great to talk with you. And, yeah, we'll get together soon. Listen, I'll buy the chips at LA Solis resentfully, but I'll do it. Okay?

01:03:09:18 - 01:03:34:04 DAVID Not sure if it gets any better than that. I really don't know. I'm not sure it's even possible. But I got to tell you something that was a highlight. Spending an hour with Don Winslow. Fortunately, and this is not to brag, it just happens to be a fact. Maybe it's you know, he's a great guy. He and his wife, Jean and Tammy and I have got together and just hung out.

01:03:34:04 - 01:04:00:10 DAVID And everything you see is exactly like it is. There's no pretense there's no big flashy. There's no star energy about it. He's just a real dude. And man, this was a highlight of my podcasting career. It's almost like if this were my last podcast, I could almost go out with this. But fortunately, I'm not going anywhere. Be sure you pick up a copy of City of Dreams.

01:04:01:15 - 01:04:20:00 DAVID Matter of fact, let me back up. Let me back up. You need to pick up City on fire first. I'm not getting paid anything for this. I'm just an avid fan, and I know good writing. This is probably. City on Fire is one of the best books of last year. There I said it. And then, of course, the follow up of City of Dreams.

01:04:21:06 - 01:04:42:20 DAVID City of Ruins is coming up next. But that'll be 24 folks before us. Good. I'm going to ask you to do me a favor. This podcast is growing pretty well. Personally, it's not growing as fast as I would like because I'm an impatient dude. I'll tell you what really helps, you know, helps if you're a YouTube viewer is going and subscribing.

01:04:43:04 - 01:05:00:18 DAVID Here's all you do. You click the red button. This is subscribe. P.S. If you'd like to get alerted to the fact of when a new episode drops, you can click the little bell. It'll go ding ding. It doesn't actually ring, but it'll alert you to the fact a new episode is trying. Other than that, you want to know what really, really, really helps.

01:05:01:17 - 01:05:20:21 DAVID If you listen to Apple Podcasts, for instance, which happens to be, I think, one of our biggest trending podcasts, if you leave us a five star review, you would be amazed. And I hate ask. Matter of fact, if you know one thing about me, I don't ask people for stuff very often. This is this is a reach for me, but it does help grow the show.

01:05:21:12 - 01:05:40:12 DAVID If you just leave a five star review on Apple Podcasts could be a sentence. Hashtag no pressure. Just just. How do you like the show? You like it? What do you like about it? That's it. And if you'd like to get in touch with me, write the Thriller zone at Gmail dot com. Of course, our Web site is the Thriller Zone dot com.

01:05:41:04 - 01:06:07:07 DAVID Would you like us to hang out for another year? We got so many people still planned for off for May. Oh my goodness. You see who else is coming? Well, this was just confirmed. Like literally 20 minutes before I went to record Don Winslow's. This just in. You're the first to know on next week's show. Jack Carr. Oh, yeah.

01:06:07:17 - 01:06:32:11 DAVID Only the dead. I've never seen anybody blow up quite like Jack Carr. So very excited to have him on the show next week. Please make plans to attend still in the month. Chris Hardy's on the way. Matthew Quirk is on the way and T.J. Newman wraps the month. I know. Pinch me. Pinch me. I can't even believe we've got this caliber of guests.

01:06:32:17 - 01:06:51:22 DAVID We also have plenty of brand new up and comers of pop people. I talk to everybody. I have fun with everybody. Thank you for your time. Thank you for watching today's show. Such an exciting time. Such a pleasure to have you with us. I'm David Temple, your host. I'll see you next time for another edition of the Thriller Zone.