Here's Where It Gets Interesting - Make Magic with Brad Meltzer

Episode Date: March 10, 2025

Want to know the secret to getting more out of life? Sharon McMahon chats with #1 NYT best-selling author Brad Meltzer about his latest book, “Make Magic,” based on his viral commencement speech from last year. Brad shares the four things you can do to lead a more kind, empathetic life full of wonder. And because Brad doesn’t have enough to do, he has written another new political thriller, “The JFK Conspiracy.” During their discussion, he tells Sharon about a lesser-known plot to assassinate JFK and how his marriage to Jackie Kennedy saved the president’s life. Credits: Host and Executive Producer: Sharon McMahon Supervising Producer: Melanie Buck Parks Audio Producer: Craig Thompson To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello friends, welcome. Delighted to have you with me today. My guest is my good friend Brad Meltzer who just keeps on writing books. Every time I talk to him I'm like, are you just sitting at your house writing books all day? Apparently the answer is yes. He has a couple of new projects out, one called the JFK Conspiracy, which is not about Lee Harvey Oswald, it's about another plot to assassinate JFK,

but also a book that I really think you're going to love so much called Make Magic. So let's dive in. I'm Sharon McMahon, and here's where it gets interesting. Brad, there are not very many people that I invite back to this show over and over again. So you are in like a special club now, the specialist club. Do we get like jackets like Saturday Night Live? Yeah.

Uh-huh. Pins. You have to do one you get a five. Pins. The five pins. A pin is good. Yeah, a pin. Yeah, the five pin.

Thanks for coming back. So good to be back, Sharon. You just keep writing books and you just keep doing things that I want to talk to you about. What are you, just sitting around your house writing books all day? The funniest part is this year, as you know, we are doing three books in three months, which in 27 years I've never done anything as crazy. That's crazy. Which is crazy, but one's a kid's book, one is an adult nonfiction book, which takes two

years to do. The kid's book takes less. And then this inspiration book obviously wants to be timed for graduation season. So they're like, we're sorry, we're going to do all three at once. And I was like, I need a nap. Everyone wants a piece of you, Brad. You just have too many good ideas. I don't know about that. I don't know. You clearly don't understand my family. My kids do not. They've had it. No, I do understand. My kids are like, that's nice. Right. Well, the funny part is when I go to events, my kids will sit in the audience of my book events.

And when they know whatever joke I'm making, they'll mouth it along with me because they've been to so many. And now I won't do the same bit. They forced me to up my game. So every time you come see me now, I'm like, oh, there has to be all new material. And I blame them. And they're like, well, why didn't you do that old joke? I'm like, because you would make fun of me.

Right. I don't need to be mocked from the nosebleeds. Give me a break. That's right. 16 year old exactly. And you know exactly fun of me. Right. I don't need to be mocked from the nosebleeds. Give me a break. That's right. A 16-year-old, exactly. Yeah. And you know exactly right. Totally.

Hope and Tim Walz made a TikTok about the books they're reading as a family. And they're on vacation somewhere. It looked like Hawaii. And Hope and Tim are like, okay, so we're reading two books. And the first one they talked about is Demon Copperhead. Great book. And then the second book they talked about is my book. Oh, I love that.

And so Tim is like, she's national treasure and the book's so amazing and Gwen gave it to the First Lady for Christmas and blah, blah, blah. Like I don't personally interact with Tim Walls. So I've never asked him to do anything like that. And it's not like he would anyway. But a lot of people sent it to me, like, did you see this? So of course I sent it to my children, and they're like, that's cool. Oh yeah.

Like that's the sum total of the reaction. That's cool. Oh, you just reminded me of a great story. So Seth Meyers was coming to Florida, and I know him because I've been on the show a number of times, and I said to my daughter, do you want to come and see Seth Meyers? And she says, nah. And I said, well, what if you can go backstage and meet him? Because he had said come backstage and hang out with me after.

And she said, it's okay. And I told Seth that story and I sent him the text. I said, if you ever think you're so popular, here's how you're doing with 18 year old girls who are freshmen in college. And he laughed and he said, is your daughter home tomorrow morning? He said, yeah. He says, I'm coming over for brunch. And he comes from his event to my house and he knocks on the door.

I told my daughter so she was ready for it. And he literally says, so what were you doing last night? She's like, I was busy. He's like, I know you weren't. And then we went on. You can look it up. If you put my name in, Brad Melcher and Seth Meyers, I went on his show, invited my daughter to the event, because now she wanted to go.

I told the story and he took a picture with her that day. And what she didn't know, she's watching from backstage, she's with my sister, and she's like laughing, laughing, laughing. And I cleared it with her, of course, first to make sure she would like the joke and she loved it. What she didn't know though is that I had screenshot her texts. While she was watching, my sister said, she goes, they have my texts. And I said to Seth after I said, you gave me one of the best lessons ever for my kids,

which is don't put anything in writing. Totally. So yes, if we could do nothing else is to try and impress our kids unsuccessfully. Please note that you are a lawyer and you could not think of a better setup for the lesson of don't put anything in writing than that one. You can say that 25 times a day over breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and they're still going to be like, yeah, dad, okay, we get it. Nope.

That's the lesson. That's the lesson they needed. Go on national television with a screenshot. My daughter loves, it's her favorite thing. She sends it to all her friends now. She thinks she looks cool in it, but I don't think she realized that it started with her just completely as always being unimpressed with her dad.

Totally unimpressed. And by the way, that's how it should be. No kid should be impressed with their parents. If I liked the song and my parents liked it, I was like, that song is dead to me. So I feel like it's okay. I feel like it's good to keep us humble. The hope is when they get to be old enough and they have a little perspective, that they

will be able to look back on the retrospective of your life and career and be like, dang it, dad actually was really cool, you guys. But they need that time to separate from you and to think you're deeply uncool. That's right. It's their own identity form, of course. I do think that's part of the process. I will say the first time I ever saw any love for anything I did professionally was this commencement address, because my kids were obviously in the audience. I thought my son would like it, it was his graduation, but it was my daughter, the hardest to impress, and she will never give

me a good word, a good review. After the the speech was done, I mean, it's a commencement address at the University of Michigan in front of 70,000 people. It's a stadium. And afterwards I go back and I look at her and she says, can I see the speech? And what she wanted was to read it. And she wouldn't say you did well. She wouldn't say that was great, but she was like, let me see it. And then she sat there and I watched her read it and I was terrified. I was like, what is she doing? And she's just so smart and so

sharp and she's just picking it apart. And she said to me, this is some writing. Like you didn't just put this together. And it wasn't that I was cool. It wasn't that I was smart. It wasn't that I was anything, but she appreciated the hard work that she knew had to go in to produce something to entertain a stadium of people that's the size of Wembley Stadium. I literally was in tears later that night when she left the hotel room because I thought it was the first time I ever saw her have that moment you just spoke about, which is that realization that maybe dad's not always a buffoon.

Mostly, but not today. Occasionally, his intellect comes out. That's so fantastic. The only person that my children are impressed that I know, there's only one person and it is Mark Rober. Oh, that's me being in my house. It's Mark Rober. I mean, yeah, you have smart kids.

That's why. If you know Mark Rober, I mean, that guy was a legend in our house for many years. Yes. Like Mark Rober has more YouTube subscribers than Taylor Swift at this point. Yeah. No, it's crazy. I mean, he's amazing. And again, kudos to your kids. That's a real talent.

They have taste. Yes. He's not just eating pizza and making ASMR videos. He's really doing interesting and cool stuff. But the idea that like, oh my gosh, you have Mark Rober's phone number. You talked to Mark Rober in real life. Like, you know Mark Rober. They don't care about presidents or anybody, nobody.

Right. I was going to say, they don't care about Tim Walls, but the only one in my house is I know the impractical jokers. And that's what impresses my kids now. The impractical jokers are like, that's who's in your phone? Get him on here. I'm like, we're not calling him now. I think it's not how it works.

But it's amazing, as a parent, I'm happy I have someone. I can't impress you mostly, but I got at least one person in there. Yes. My 12-year-old is like, can we invite Mark Rober to my birthday party? Oh, that's so sweet. I love that. Like that one, she would have endless amounts of school clout. If Mark Rober came to your birthday, he'd be the most popular human alive.

Of course. Think of the Monday morning discussions in your daughter's name. Oh my gosh. Yes. It would be like epic. Yes. It would have like a yearbook page dedicated to it, as it should. That's very true. You know, I watched your commencement address to, as you mentioned, the University of Michigan,

which is a really challenging audience. It is. People of course are excited to be there. They're excited to see their loved one graduate. But having been to a number of commencements as a long time teacher, I've sat through many commencements. They can be long, the weather can be annoying, it can be a little bit like, okay, we got to sit through this to be able to hear little Johnny's name called.

That's what you're really there for. It can be one of those things where you just kind of endure it. You endure the commencement speaker. I listened to one commencement speaker at my sister's college graduation in which he spent at least half of the address talking about a collapsible broom that he found at a store and what a great invention it was. And I left being like, what it was the bit about the broom? Why did we need to talk about that for 20 minutes?" So it can be a really, really challenging thing to get right. And then your speech went viral all

over social media. And people were like, this needs to be more than just a video on the internet. This needs to be like a book we can hold in our hand. This needs to be something that we can have on our shelf or our coffee table and refer back to. And one of the things that really struck me about this idea of making magic, I was having a discussion with somebody recently like, does magic really exist? And I would love to hear your take on that. I'll just let you take it away.

Does magic really exist? Of course the answer is yes. Not in the way we think, but when they asked me to speak at this graduation, I knew one thing. I asked all of my friends, tell me what you remember about your commencement speaker, anything they said. And not a single person, not one, could tell me anything that was said. What they could tell me over and over was, I remember I was sitting with my friends. I remember I was hungover from the night before. I remember my girlfriend and I had just broken up or we were about

to break. They were all personal experiences. And so I knew going in, no one will remember anything I'm going to say. So I'm going to create instead of just a speech and experience. And I was like, and what's the ultimate experience is a magic trick. And I remember this detail because I want to believe in magic. And I remember starting to talk to magicians and they told me and explained to me,

there are only four types of magic tricks. If you take away escapes and illusions, which are a category around themselves, there's only four types of tricks. One, you have to make something appear. Two is you have to make something disappear. Three, you have to take two things and make them switch places.

And four, you have to take one thing and make them switch places. And four, you have to take one thing and turn it into something else, which is the hardest trick of all. And I was like, oh, that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to use that as my model for how to teach people. Because we all think in life there's so many things that science and math can explain, but sometimes you can't explain it all. And that's what magic is. And that to me is the definition of it. And I said, and that's where I'm going to go. And my wife and I, it was so funny because I kept saying, well, what should I have appear and what should I have disappear and I can do this.

And she said, Brad, stop messing around with it. Just give your best advice of what you think should appear. And I said, you, your honest, true self. And she was like, that's great. And then I said, and we can talk about each of these individual, but I said, you, your honest, true self. And she was like, that's great. And then I said, and we can talk about each of these individual, but I said, what about fear? And you have to make your fear disappear. That's the disappearing part.

Get rid of your fear. She's like, that's good. But then I got to the one about two things that have to switch places. And I started talking about empathy. And when you give these big speeches, Sharon, your book events, which have been so incredible, those events, you know at some point where the laugh is going to be, where everyone's going to go, ah, where everyone's going to clap. You kind of get a feel and a rhythm to it.

And I delivered this speech so many times to different friends, I had in my head where I thought they would react. And there's a line at the end that says, if you really want to change the world, unleash your kindness. And I thought people would like that. But as I'm talking through the speech, in this empathy part, I say these words. I say, cruelty and venom on signs of strength. There are signs of petty insecurity.

And what really takes strength is showing kindness and empathy. And the audience started clapping. And usually you can kind of control the audience a little bit. You surf it like a wave and I can kind of calm it down. And I couldn't. And if you watch the speech, I had to say that line again, because the crowd just went bananas. And my wife said to me after the speech, you tapped a vein you didn't know was there. That the culture right now, we're so tired of cruelty and venom, we're starving for empathy and kindness, and it just hit something in this vein.

And that's what took off on the internet. We're starving for empathy and kindness, and it just hits something in this vein, and that's what took off on the internet. The only thing I take from it, it wasn't anything I did, it was just the world and the moment we were in, and the fact that people wanted to now take it and turn it into a book, or that all these famous people were sharing it around the internet, that's great.

What I take away from it is that all of us out there, regular people, were just starving for kindness, and that to me is a good sign, not a bad sign. It shouldn't be so challenging to find a therapist you can trust, and it also shouldn't cost a fortune. And that is why today's sponsor RULA was created. RULA helps connect you with high quality, vetted, licensed mental health professionals who are suited just for you. They take most major insurance plans so instead of paying hundreds out of pocket you could

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someone who cares. Hey, it's me, Jeff Probst. I'm excited to share that Survivor's back with our 48th season and alongside it, we're bringing you a brand new season of On Fire, the only official Survivor podcast. If you are a Survivor super fan, you will not want to miss the deep dive into every episode. and we do it from 3 different points of view first you have me the showrunner survivor answering how and why we made the sometimes controversial choices we did then you have Jay Wolf my co

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visibility at indeed.com slash podkatzca. Just go to indeed.com slash podkatzca right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring Indeed is all you need. Yeah. I mean, I think even in this sort of like post-election period, whether somebody is happy about the outcome of the election, distraught about the outcome of the election, it really was in many ways a referendum on acceptable ways to conduct ourselves in the public square. And I heard from so many people that they were disheartened by the

tone of candidates during the election. Again, whether you liked what they were saying or not, those moments, press little buttons in our brain where we like knowing that other people dislike the person we dislike. You know, like if you have candidate A who's ripping on candidate B and you hate them too, it feels really good in our minds to find solidarity with a group who feels the same way that we do. And our minds also really enjoy being right. It pings little things in our brains. We're like, we're correct. My assessment that candidate B was terrible was correct.

Here's all the evidence that all these other famous and smart people agree with me. I mean, that's just human nature. That's how our minds work. And yet, I think in some ways people have found that type of discourse, even though it feels good in your mind at the time, it doesn't produce the kind of fruit in society that we want to consume. It doesn't make us smarter. It doesn't make us better, it doesn't create the kind of relationships we wish we

could have. What do you think about this disconnect between what we feel like we want? We want smarter, kinder, more empathetic, genuine world, and yet we love the takedowns. Yeah, no, that's not a bug. That's a feature, right? We are complex creatures. We are people who... We look at the algorithm, and the algorithm rewards what? Outrage, anger.

That's what goes the fastest. And boy do we love it. We click on it like it's pellets and it's feeding us water. But we also, and I take a little solace from, you know how many videos of kids that are deaf and are hearing for the first time, or they're blind and they're getting glasses for the first time, or soldiers returning home to their families that they haven't seen, those fly around also. We don't give them as much credit.

We like seeing them, but we love both of those things. It's not one group likes one and one group likes the other. We all like all of it. And I think for me, I started looking into empathy and what it takes. It's hard to show empathy. It's not easy. In fact, studies show that when we get too much bad news, our brains get overwhelmed. That's why we changed the channel and we swiped to a new app and we shut down.

One of the things I didn't put in the speech, but when I was researching it, I found they actually also studied how to be more empathetic. You know what it is? Is you have to think that you are more empathetic. Just the thought that I can do that makes you more empathetic. It's the first step. You and I right now just talking about the beauty of it and that it's possible, it opens us up to be more empathetic ourselves.

That's all it takes. It's nothing more complex. I think what we have to do is we have to fight. We are creatures of evolution and evolution put things like fear in us. It put wanting to fight in us. It's why people love football and watching violence. It is something evolutionary wired in us and that's why we survived. There's a great book called The Gift of Fear, and it says when you're walking down a dark

alley and you have that feeling in your stomach, that knot that says, I don't know if I should walk down this alley, listen to that fear. That fear is evolutionary. It's telling you don't go, and it let you survive your ancestors millions of years by listening to that fear. It's built in again as a feature. And I think in many ways, it's the same thing with anger. It's the same thing with those bad things.

But we have to fight that for the empathetic, beautiful side of ourselves. To me, that's the ultimate magic trick, is being better than what angers you. That's so interesting. I want to hear a little bit more too about how you even sort of conceptualized this idea of making magic. You could have talked about anything. You could have been like, go out there and live your dreams and make a difference. Yeah, I know.

The commencement address is the easiest cliche to fall into. I mean, I started watching them and they all fall into the same things, which is like, live your dream, be this, do that. When I graduated college, I was the first in my immediate family to go to a four-year college. So just being at college graduation was a miracle in my family's eyes. And I was so excited. The students, they always have a student speaker at Michigan when you graduate.

And I wrote the best speech, Sharon. It was like passionate and it was awesome. And if you get past the first round, you get to deliver the speech, and then they narrow it down and pick from there. And one of my close friends was on the committee. So I knew he was going to get me the second round, and I was like, well, if they're going to hear me speak, oh, please just give me the microphone now. I'm going to win this whole thing.

And I didn't make it past the first round. Even my own friend was like, that's terrible. That's hokey nonsense. And so I knew, you know what, when it comes to the experience, one of the things I did in the speech is I talked about how, and this is also true, when I graduated Michigan, it was the year that the football player Desmond Howard won the Heisman Trophy. And the speaker at the time, the graduation speaker, literally said, Desmond Howard, are you in the stands right now?

And stand up. And the guy stood up, this football star stood up in the stands and he was like 10 rows away from me. And I remember looking at him and going, oh my gosh, there's this guy who just won the Heisman Trophy. He's right there 10 rows away from me. Like, look at the excellence in one of my fellow students. And I was so amazed by that.

And at the end of my speech and this commencement address, my final magic trick, as I said, the great thing is a good magician always has another trick up their sleeve. If you really want to make magic, it's not about all the things about you. Making magic is always something you do for someone else. And so I want to do a final magic trick for you, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome my friend Desmond Howard. And then we had Desmond Howard 30 years later walk out on the stage with me and 70,000 people exploded.

To answer your question, I knew that what I was going to say in 30 years wouldn't matter. The only thing I remember from my graduation was how that made me feel seeing that amazing thing so close to me. And so when I came up with the whole thing, I was like, that's what I have to do. It doesn't matter what I say. I'm going to show people how to feel, and I'm going to give them a permanent memory right here, live on stage. And once I had that, that's where the magic came from. My wife said, you didn't give a commencement address. You did a magic trick that you couldn't practice. Desmond flew in right before it, so we never practiced it.

We didn't even know where it was gonna come on stage. And we did it with the highest level of difficulty in front of everyone, and we were committed to the bit and pulled it off. And that was where the whole concept came from, is forget about it as a speech, think about how to bring magic into the world, and suddenly that's where Make Magic came from is forget about it as a speech, think about how to bring magic into the world, and suddenly that's where Make Magic came from.

I want to talk about why you decided to make this into a book, and who is this book for? The truth was I never thought it was going to be a book. And I do think, I'm curious how you would answer this, my best projects in life, and I think even as a parent, I think the greatest days of me being a parent are never the ones I'm prepared for. They're the ones that completely catch me off guard. Everything I plan for never works out the way I want. Right? I plan this great day for my children where I'm going to inspire them and they're like in a bad mood and everyone's hangry and they're all like, dad, so stupid that it stunk.

But those moments that are just magic are the ones that you're not prepared for. They're the days that catch me off guard. And that's what this was. I didn't plan it to be a book. I planned it just to be something special I was doing for my son who was a graduate in this audience, and here we go. And then once it went viral, I got all these different publishers calling me up and saying, we want to do a book of this.

And I was like, what do you mean? And they're like, we want to capture that in book form. And I realized all these parents started emailing us, all these people that had their kids at different schools started emailing me, can I have a copy? I've never in all my life had more friends, relatives, neighbors emailing me and texting me saying, can I have a copy of that speech? Nothing that I've ever done in 27 years as a writer had more people saying that, I realized that's what we all want to hold. Not my words or anything like that, but we want to hold magic.

We want to believe that there's good in the world. We want to remind ourselves that we have to bring our true self to everything. We want to get rid of our fears. We want to feel that kindness. We want to transform into something better. And I said that I only will do it if we can do it in kind of a beautiful visual way so it becomes like an art book that is a gift you can give. Some people I'm sure will buy it for themselves, but it has to be a gift that you give to someone you love to inspire them. And suddenly we had a book.

When's the last time you experienced magic? You know, I'll tell you this. I never thought I was going to say this. So I had to go for an MRI yesterday. I had tinnitus in my ear. That's what happens when you get old. And the doctor says to me, I got to see if you have a brain tumor. And trust me that when you hear those words, everything becomes magic.

On the way to this silly MRI to find that if I'm going to live or if it's going to kill me, God knows where my life is going to turn in this moment. I rolled down my windows. I wanted to feel everything. And it was a seven minute ride from my house to go to this place. I was on the highway, by the way, one exit, and I wanted to feel the wind there too. That's magic. There's an old Buddhist saying that if you want to really experience the world and the

beauty of it, tell yourself before whatever you're doing, this is the last time I will blank. If you are going and cleaning up your dog's poop and you say, this is the last time I'm cleaning up my dog's poop, I promise you it will be magical. And that was magic to me. Having it all potentially go away. Now thank God I can tell you I got my results. I'm clean.

I'm fine. I have no tumor. I'm clean. I'm fine. I have no tumor. I just have tinnitus. But to answer your question as honestly as I can, there's no sure way to find magic than to think that it's all going to go away. Do you intentionally live your life that way? Do you look for magic in small moments? Is that something that's difficult for you to do and you have to sort of force yourself

to do it? I think sometimes people are inclined to look at the world with a sense of awe or wonder. And I don't know if that is a product of nature or nurture, but I think some people are naturally inclined to it. And sometimes it's harder for people who live in their prefrontal cortex, it's harder for them to look at the world through those eyes. My dad did not see magic. My dad was just a thunderous personality who whatever was going on that was stupid, that was dumb, he just had a chip on his shoulder and would get into fights

and arguments. And I think that when you have self-destructive parents, or at least one of them, and he loved me, my mom loved me too, but he was self-destructive. And the military will tell you that the kids that are the best for finding mines, like in finding IEDs, explosive devices, they tend to be kids who grew up in really bad neighborhoods. Because those kids at a molecular level know what it's like when danger is coming. Because it's not a want anymore that they need to change, it's a need. It's self-protective, right? They have to. If you don't learn that skill, you're in major trouble. And I think for me, I learned that skill at a very early age of what it's like to read that molecular level. Is my dad going to be off the charts hot or is he coming in happy? And I could tell it in the first step through the door. I could tell it, I felt like in the key turn of the door, I knew this is going to be a

bad day, this is going to be a good day. It's not natural. I work hard to find good. When I find my stories, I work hard to find that good part. And it doesn't come naturally, but I think my father's raising me taught me the skill set I need to find it better. But if it was easy, everyone would do it. It's hard.

I work at it. I mentioned at the top too, I'm like, what are you just sitting around writing books for a living all day? And you have another book that just recently came out, The JFK Conspiracy, the latest installment in the Meltzer-Mensch conspiracy series. Yeah, no, listen, I love you. You are my favorite. The reason we're friends is our love of history, right?

And that's how we met is we've done books about the secret plot to kill Abraham Lincoln, to kill George Washington, to kill FDR Stalin and Churchill at the height of World War II. We did the Nazi conspiracy for that. And this is the JFK conspiracy just came out recently. What I love about it, you know, we all know Lee Harvey Oswald

and the big plot that kills JFK, of course, but this is a plot. Before that, years before, in 1960, just as he's elected, there is an assassin who fills his car with seven sticks of dynamite. And then he goes and follows JFK to Palm Beach because he thinks that JFK's security will be less there, which it was. He knows that JFK goes to a 10 a.m. church service every Sunday. So just before the church service, he waits outside JFK's house and JFK's right on time

and all this assassin has to do is hit the gas and the little trigger device that he's built and boom. And I won't tell you what saves his life, I won't ruin it, but what saves his life in that moment has to do with his marriage. It's one of the craziest JFK stories you've never heard in your life. And best of all, it helps me feature Jackie. And Jackie Kennedy is really the star of this book and just is so amazing and incredible. Josh and I were like, we have to tell this story.

And Josh mentioned I again got to do another one together. You have a really fantastic way, you and Josh, of writing stories from history in a way that feels like you're reading a thriller novel, where you are just like, I got to know what's going to happen. And that's actually, I can tell you because I know from experience, it's hard to do. It is hard to write in a way that is true and is also page turning. That is a very singular skill. It's a skill not many people have.

Well, you have it. I've read your books. I read your stuff all the time. You know that. I think I did one of the first blurbs- You did. ... which I was very happy about because I love that book. I was very grateful. Thank you. I think I did one of the first blurbs- You did.... which I was very happy about because I love that book.

I was very grateful. Thank you. But the point is, I have one rule when it comes to scary, which is the moment it gets really, really scary and you want it to go fast, just slow down. There's a moment in fact, one of my favorite moments in the book is this moment where you see Jackie giving birth. And here's this marriage and we feature her, all the affairs and everything else. And the sad part is we've reduced Jackie into this beautiful and she's got style and she's

got grace, but it's just, we've turned her into a cliche. She's so much more complex and amazing than that. And as I'm reading through all the stuff, there's this moment where she comes and is told by JFK, is one of his best friends. After they're engaged, he comes up to her and says, Jackie, you know, Jack loves women. And he's going to continue to love them. Basically says to her face, he's going to sleep around on you. And then you see this kind of slow motion car crash of what she's gotten into.

I'm like, don't go faster here. Slow it down. Let's look at the affairs. Let's look at her life. Let's look where she's from. And my wife said when she was reading the JFK conspiracy, she's like, these Jackie scenes are unbelievable because she's so amazing. And again, you have the assassin who's closing in on both of them, but that's when you have to slow down and that's when you can really

make the thriller go up. Yeah. The moment you're on the edge of your seat and you're like, just get it over with. Your bams are band-aid. Right. You hit the plunger. That's right. That's what I say. But the other thing is what you're also seeing there though are my obsessions.

So I remember when I was researching the book, the whole time Josh and I are writing, I'm going, where does Camelot come from? Because we all associate Camelot with JFK and Jackie Kennedy. And it wasn't until we were writing the book that I finally realized that it doesn't come into the lexicon until after JFK dies. And after that, Jackie's obviously distraught, the nation's distraught. It's one of the most horrible days in modern American history. And Life Magazine says, we want to do an interview with you.

She says, I'll grant one interview. She has the reporter come to her house late at night. After eight o'clock, she's there until midnight and they're rewriting it together. And she tells him in that moment, this story about her husband JFK that when he was alive, when his back was hurting, he was in the White House and he was really in pain. What would ease his pain was she would put on a record, on the record player, about this amazing place that he loved called Camelot, and that will calm him down. And Jackie was a member of the press actually when she started.

She was a reporter back in her younger days. So she's a member of the press. She's hounded by the press. She's distraught by the press. She's crucified by the press, held up by the press, but make no mistake, Sharon, she is a master of the press. She's the one who inserts the word Camelot into how we think about that legacy. She's the one who very purposely puts it there because she's like, I'm going to write that

legacy and she says herself, so no one else can write it. And I'm like, this is the most savvy, amazing woman holding this all together with a grace unknown to anyone. And I felt like it was such an amazing story to tell, but what you're reading there is not just, oh, here's what happened. It's I'm blown away there. I'm going slow because I am floored by this woman who truthfully had just become this like fashion icon.

And to call Jackie Kennedy a fashion icon is, I mean, she's one of the great political players of all time. Yeah. She did the opposite of Eliza Hamilton. She didn't write herself out of the narrative. She was writing the narrative. And the thing that's amazing about her is that she's got no help, right? It's not like she's in the great marriage.

When she gives birth, her husband is nowhere to be found. He's on a plane going to Florida, and here she is. She gives birth, she hemorr nowhere to be found. He's on a plane going to Florida. And here she is, she gives birth, she hemorrhages, she has this surgery, she's exhausted. The whole country is obviously clamoring for her. She leaves to have the christening for John-John. She leaves the hospital. They're like, we got to go to Florida today. Imagine the day you left the hospital, Sharon, saying we're going to go to Florida now.

And they're like, by the way, before to go to Florida now. And they're like, by the way, before we go to Florida though, you have to stop by the White House and meet Mrs. Eisenhower because today's the only day you can meet her that she'll see you. And so she goes to see Mamie Eisenhower and she's exhausted. She needs a wheelchair. It's just First Lady and First Lady. And they're going to meet each other for the first time and see the house for the first time. And Jackie Kennedy comes up in this elevator and the doors open up and Mamie Eisenhower is staring at her.

And it's like going to see Hannibal Lecter in that moment. She's so intimidated and so scary. And this woman is on her last leg. She's just giving birth and getting released from the hospital. And she's amazing and terrified and weak and strong and everything in one breath. And I just said, I can't believe what she's doing all by herself here. It's incredible. It is.

And Jackie's heartbreak throughout her life, her dead baby, and she loses more than one baby obviously. And she has to do this in the public eye. And the stories of Jackie are, they're very copious. You could write a thousand page book about Jackie. Yeah. And you know, I'm curious what you think. My take on her, and I'm still kind of in a weird way digesting her, because you spend

all this time in the book and then you kind of come out and you get to talk to people about her. But I feel like JFK and Jackie Kennedy are the first celebrity presidents, right? There's famous presidents always throughout history, but what we think of as celebrity, and especially that suburban celebrity where people in the suburbs are like, that's the life I want. I want to have that. It's a new kind of American dream.

It's not the Abraham Lincoln American dream, but it's this fame and beauty and money and powered American dream. Some people will say that's what Reagan was to them. Some people will say that's what Obama was to them. Some people will also say it about Trump. But I feel like everyone's just in a weird way sort of cosplaying what JFK and Jackie are doing. And I think what I take away from them now, I'm curious to your thoughts on this, but

is that it's not just a fake American dream, but it's not even a worthwhile one. That what we've been chasing all this time, this fame and celebrity and this, it's wasteful. It's a hollow thing that we're chasing. And until we realize that, I don't know how we get past that one. And obviously there are people who are amazing and who are wonderful presidents as we know, but there's something about them,

that celebrity that was associated with them, that I feel like we're still chasing after. And because it was gone so soon, we hold it up at a level of perfection that of course it was no Camelot. It didn't exist. It was completely something that was created by one of the most savvy out there. Yeah.

The siren song of celebrity and money and fame and power, it's again, I think it just really pings something deep inside the human mind. It represents safety and it represents the idea like, if everybody loves me and I'm famous, I'll never be in the out group. If I have money, I'll never lack for resources. If I have power, I'll never be unsafe from outside attackers. I think at the core of all of these things is this human desire for safety, whether we can articulate that or not. And of course, Jackie represents this notion of you can have it all. You can have a handsome husband and beautiful children. I think you're really savvy about that. I think that's on the money. Like, it's funny, I'm thinking about, like, I do think safety is a big part of it. I never saw it like that before. There's a story I told in the Make Magic book. When I was younger, my parents

lost everything and we moved to Florida. And when we got to Florida, we had no place to live. So we lived with my grandmother who lived in a one-bedroom apartment. And there were four of my family, my grandmother, my grandmother, six of us in a one-bedroom apartment that we were sleeping on the floor and on sofas. And all the people in the condo commandos that were complaining about us were like, you can't have six people in a one-bedroom. And they were all yelling at us. And this one older woman, who was my grandmother's neighbor right across the hall from her, said, you know what? I'm going to go sleep elsewhere. You can have my apartment. Just trying to give us a little feeling like we weren't being evicted.

And I remember her name was Mircey, which when I was younger, I always heard in my head as mercy. And make no mistake, mercy is what this woman was showing us. And when you were telling that story, it's funny, I never saw celebrity or fame as safety. I always associated safety with what Mercy was doing, was kindness. And as I get older and as I hope I get a little wiser, I realize it's the small things that are the big things. The big things are always hollow. The big things are always useless, but it's those little things, that one kindness from that one

woman across the way did more for me than whatever the Kennedys had in all the estates, and whether it was in Boston or DC or down in South Florida, that one kind person, and again, listen, small and mighty, right? Like is just so much more impactful to me than any celebrity or anything else like that. Yeah. I bet if you could have a frank and honest conversation with Jackie at the end of her life, and of course, she was very famously private and guarded with the press, especially later in her life, I bet if you could speak to her friend to friend, she would probably tell you that everything that she had acquired, the billionaire husband and the handsome president

husband and the beautiful handsome son and the fame and power and prestige that she had amassed, she would probably tell you that none of it had been worth it. I think you're right. And I think she would have said that during the presidency. I've heard great actors are described as the ones who give you a feeling that they don't want the camera. And I feel like that's what Jackie was. When she was getting married to this man, and when you read the JFK conspiracy, you'll

see it. She truly wants none of it. Everyone wants a piece of her. And she's like, the more they want her, the more she's like, I don't want any of this. And I think you're right. I think if she could trade places with anyone on the street and say, you can just have a calm life with nothing, I think she would take it in a heartbeat because that is just

not worth it. Yeah. I mean, I think it's one of the reasons Jackie spends so much time away from the White House, even though she's well known for all of the White House restorations and the redecorating and the parties. And she really has impeccable taste. And that's really what we associate with her, the White House Historical Society. But it's why she spends so much of her short time in the White House at her horse farm in Virginia.

Like, she just does not want it. Yes. And by the way, when she's in the White House, everyone always says, oh, she redecorates this. And of course she did those things. We got the Rose Garden, got the things. But what she also does is she brings art to the White House, artists to the White House. People come talk to us, tell us about interesting things, tell us about history, tell us about

new age art, tell us about all these wonderful things. What's she trying to do? She's trying to bring humanity into this museum that she's forced to suddenly live in. So, even when she's there, like you said, when she's not there, she's like, I'm out of here. When she is there, she's like, change it, because this is not working for me. What we tried to do in this book is give Jackie those new chapters so we don't reduce her. And we've done it with the Kennedys too, right?

Kennedy is the World War II hero. He's the guy who gave us optimism in a whole new way. He took us to the moon. All amazing things. He's also a completely reckless husband. So is he bad or is he like the rest of us, a little bit of both? And he's due to be turned into a complex human person rather than this idol. And she is due to receive all the accolades she deserves for

what she's done culturally, in her family, in her own life. That again, we've reduced to like, isn't she beautiful? Put her on Vogue. Like we do a disservice to her when we just turn her into that. Who are these books for, Brad? If I'm going into the bookstore and I'm like, who should I buy this for? Will I like this? Will I buy this for myself or somebody else? Who are they for? Listen, Make Magic, I have heard from grandparents, from parents, from kids, from students. That book is for anyone who needs some inspiration in your life. We literally made the title of it, The Little Book of Inspiration You Didn't Know You Needed, Because my God, we all need some kindness

and empathy right now. That book is for anyone. If you want to feel good, pick up Make Magic and just read any page in there. And for me, it's, I think, one of my favorite things I've ever written. And it came because people demanded it as a book, not because I tried to design it. So that's easy. The JFK conspiracy, you just got to love some history. If you love a thriller, of course, and if you love JFK, of course, but I think, and my wife will attest, if you love Jackie Kennedy, read the book. You're going to just see a new gear in her that you never saw before. And if you love history, it's just a slice into the Kennedy life that you've never seen. Because no one's ever written a book about this assassination attempt.

And it's not kooky crazy that it... If you want to hear my real theory, I don't know if I ever told you my theory on who killed JFK, but here's my theory is, and this will reveal I think as much about me as anything else. If you want to know who killed JFK in the 60s when he shot, it was the height of the Cold War. So we thought it was the Russians, we thought it was the Cubans, our great enemies at the time.

If you look in the 70s, as Watergate hits and distrust of the government reaches all new heights after Nixon, guess who killed JFK? Well, now the government had to do it. It was an inside job. CIA did it. LBJ did it. And then in the 80s, the Godfather movies peak. Who killed JFK?

It was the mob. So decade by decade, if you want to know who killed JFK, it's whoever America's most afraid of at that moment in time. And so to me, JFK has always been a mirror. Him and Jackie, you hold them up and you see what you want to see. And so the JFK conspiracy is anyone who likes looking in that mirror and finding something, the best parts of us are in that mirror and the worst parts of us are in that mirror.

And you can see it in this book. Thanks for being here, Brad. I'm sure you're going to just be like next year, six books a month. Welcome to the 72 book year with Brad Meltzer. I promise you, I'm taking a nap. I'm not doing anything until the next thriller. We have The Beatles coming out and then the next thriller and that's it. I'm taking off for a year.

I'm gone. As well you should. As well you should. As well you should. And come to Florida. I want to host you for an event here. That'll be fun. Yes, I need to. I'm going to.

I'm coming. Especially from, I mean, you're in the cold. We got the warm. Yes, I'm taking you up on it. You got it. You can buy Brad Meltzer's Make Magic and also the JFK Conspiracy wherever you get your books if you want to support your local bookshop, head to yours or go to bookshop.org. I'll see you again soon.

Thank you so much for listening to Here's Where It Gets Interesting. If you enjoyed today's episode, would you consider sharing or subscribing to this show? That helps podcasters out so much. I'm your host and executive producer, Sharon McMahon. Our supervising producer is Melanie Buck-Parks and our audio producer is Craig Thompson.

We'll see you next time.