Patrick Radden Keefe (investigative journalist)
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What is discussed at the start of this section?
Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert, Experts on Expert. I'm Dan Shepard. I'm joined by Lily Padman.
Hi.
Today we have an award-winning investigative journalist. He writes for The New Yorker on staff. Patrick Radden Keefe is a writer for The New Yorker. He's also written a couple of... well, several incredible books, Rogues, Empire of Pain, Say Nothing, The Snakehead. And he has a new book out now that we're talking about, London Falling, A Mysterious Death in a Gilded City in a Family's Search for Truth. I fell in love with Patrick.
He's fantastic, and he's such a good writer. I loved Empire of Pain.
Yeah, he's also stunning to look at.
He is a handsome man.
And very charismatic. And then he has stumbled upon this absolutely mind-blowing story that took place in London. So please enjoy Patrick Radden Keefe.
He's an object expert.
Dax. So good to meet you. Yeah, great to meet you. Patrick.
Okay, good. I was going to say, you're whatever. Pat or Patrick? No, it's funny. So to this day, if I'm walking down the street and somebody says Pat Keefe, I know it's someone I went to high school with. Okay, sure, sure, sure.
You're a Massachusetts. Dorchester? I'm from Dorchester. What's the vibe in Dorchester? We certainly know what it is in Boston.
Dorchester is its own kind of very specific place. It's the biggest neighborhood in the city of Boston.
Oh, it's in Boston proper?
It's in Boston proper. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
How did Patrick Radden Keefe's upbringing influence his writing?
I was a city kid. I grew up a block from the end of the Red Line, basically. Dorchester is very ethnically diverse, very socioeconomically diverse. It's just a weird place. It's a weird, wonderful place. I loved growing up there. At times, it has had a kind of a bit of a reputation in Boston. What's the bad rap against? Violent crime. Oh, great. I love that. Yeah, that kind of thing. But the thing is, I grew up in a great big Victorian house. They could afford that house in Dorchester in 1979. Yeah.
Do you remember what the price of that house was? It was less than $40,000. Isn't that mind blowing? Yeah. Our neighbor is just a thousand feet behind us is our first house. And next to us, I can see the tax record and their house was $48,000. So they're paying tax on a $48,000 house. That's probably worth $4 million. It's so wonderful. Incredible.
What did your mom and dad do? My dad sort of had two careers. He got into urban planning. And so he was in Lowell, Massachusetts, which is where I was born.
I know this. And he worked for Dukakis. Yeah, exactly.
And so he was like director of city planning for Lowell, then director of city planning for Boston, then director of state planning for Massachusetts. And then he ended up kind of working for Mike Dukakis. And then Dukakis lost in 88. And my dad went into the private sector and did real estate stuff.
Was he a part of any of the planning of the big dig? He was. He was. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which was the biggest thing to hit Boston ever, right?
The Big Dig? Well, and it was funny because at the time, so I, in what was probably a nepotistic arrangement, I spent two summers in college working for the Big Dig when it was still in process and everybody hated it. It was like the biggest construction project imaginable. And everyone was irate about it, right?
It was a nightmare. People hated it.
There was an elevated highway that ran through the city of Boston and really divided the city in two. It was an eyesore. If you see old movies, you see it. And we used to drive on it when I would go back to Dorchester when I was a kid from the city. They basically took it down and built a tunnel underneath it. And it was massively expensive and all these kind of cost overruns and took forever. And everybody was incredibly angry about it. And the funny thing is, the closer you were to the alignment of it, So I worked in like community relations.
Oh, wonderful.
Go to the north end and there'd be these irate old Italian grandmas who had an apartment that like abutted this construction site. And we would have to pay for soundproof windows and all that kind of stuff. But the funny thing is, of course, the day they cut the ribbon, they were the ones who benefited the most.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is discussed at the start of this section?
0:00–1:35
2
How did Patrick Radden Keefe's upbringing influence his writing?
1:35–3:52
3
What challenges did Zach Brettler face growing up?
3:52–6:08
4
How does the story of Zach Brettler unfold in London?
6:08–1:01:15
5
What insights does Patrick share about wealthy individuals and their internet presence?
1:01:15–1:02:06
6
What details surround the mysterious death discussed by Patrick?
1:02:06–1:02:34
7
How does Patrick approach storytelling in his writing?
1:02:34–1:02:53
8
What reflections does Patrick have about empathy and loss in his work?
1:02:53–1:53:13