Patrick Radden Keefe on a Mysterious Death in London
The New Yorker writer tells a twisty tale in his latest book.
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This Week on the Next Big Idea Podcast
Patrick Radden Keefe on a Double Life, a Gilded City and a Mysterious Death
n 2023, Patrick Radden Keefe met a man who told him, “I might have a story for you.” When you’re Patrick — New Yorker staff writer, author of “some of the most memorable nonfiction books of the last decade” (that’s the New York Times talking) — this is a hazard of the trade. But he heard the guy out. Patrick Radden Keefe
The guy said he knew a family whose 19-year-old son had died in mysterious circumstances. “He went off the balcony of a luxury apartment building overlooking the Thames.” When the boy’s parents started looking into it, they made an astonishing discovery: Their son — a nice, upper-middle-class Londoner — had been running around the city posing as the son of a Russian oligarch.
“This guy said only about that much,” Patrick tells us in today’s episode, “and I knew if the family would talk to me, this was my next thing.” His new book is London Falling: A Mysterious Death in a Gilded City and a Family’s Search for Truth.
Listen to our conversation with Patrick on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or watch it on YouTube.
Book Bite of The Week
What does it take to fund a creative life?
Making a life in art means chasing what you love without any guarantee it will pay off, and learning to survive along the way. Those struggles shape the work of art itself and remind us why we need artists more than ever. Author Mason currey has worked as the managing editor of Metropolis, the executive editor of Print, and a senior editor at Core77. Pick up a copy of his new book Making Art and Making a Living on Amazon or check out the key insights on the Next Big Idea app.
This edition of Book of the Day is sponsored by Granola. Get three months free at granola.ai/idea.
🎉 Happy Publication Week! 🎉
The following Next Big Idea Club Must-Read authors got to celebrate the publication of their books yesterday--congratulations to them all! 📖 Join us in reading and discussing these exciting new releases:
Josh Owens, The Madness of Believing: A Memoir from Inside Alex Jones’s Conspiracy Machine
Oliver Sweet, The Rules That Make Us: How Culture Shapes the Way We Act, Think, Believe, and Buy CultureStack
Sarah Isgur, Last Branch Standing: A Potentially Surprising, Occasionally Witty Journey Inside Today's Supreme Court
Jon Acuff, Procrastination Proof: Never Get Stuck Again
Peter H. Diamandis & Steven Kotler, We Are as Gods: A Survival Guide for the Age of Abundance
Stefan Al, Dwelling on Earth: The Past and Future of the Places We Call Home
Mark Prell, What Are the Odds?: A Statistical Guide to Certainty in an Uncertain World
Audun Dahl, Between Fixed and Fickle: Why Our Moral Views Keep Changing