Here’s what Grann gives away, right at the beginning of his tale.

Across a span of work writers tend to reveal patterns, purposefully or not, and Grann seems drawn to people too obsessed for their own good, grinding themselves away, so focused on each step they never look up to see the horizon. In Killers of the Flower Moon, he wrote of Oklahoma’s Osage tribe, whose members were murdered for their oil money. In The Lost City of Z, he told the story of Capt Percy Fawcett, who in the 1920s disappeared into the Amazon searching for a hidden civilization. But Grann is one of America’s most meticulous narrative nonfiction writers, whether describing a septuagenerian bank robber for the New Yorker, or a French serial impostor, or a man trudging alone across Antarctica. And in some hands the story might have heaved along like the ship itself: a relic of the 18th century, worn and worm-eaten, wearing only a new coat of paint. The following is with one of the great living narrative non fiction writers, David Grann.ĭavid is a staff writer at the New Yorker and author of one of my favourite stories of all time… the incredible life and adventures of Percy Fawcett and the Lost City Of Z.ĭavid has of course, many other credits to his name, not least of which is authoring Killers Of The Flower Moon, which is a violent and horrifically true story from Americas wild west that has actually been turned into a movie featuring Leonardo DiCaprio & Martin Scorcese to be released this summer.ĭavid Grann has also authored the unbelievably rich and incredible story from the 1700s called The Wager, this story is confirmation of the project brazen tagline, that sometimes the truth really is stranger than fiction.Ġ0:00 – Introduction02:14 – David’s Mum’s Influence On Him Becoming A Writer07:22 – Introducing David To Nassim Taleb’s Black Swan & Publishing + David’s Experiences In Mexico14:30 – Narrative Building + Sheer Body Of Research27:02 – The Wager43:14 – Sheer Body Of Research52:16 – Working With Leonardo DiCaprio & Martin Scorcese56:31 – The Role Of Serendipity In David’s Life1:02:19 – Conversation Between Any Two People Of History + Great Stories Not Being Told🍻☕: Ĭurious Things Mentioned During The EpisodeFrom a distance, The Wager looks like an old-fashioned thing.

The wager grann