May 21, 2025 • 30 mins
Roger becomes a literary darling, and he finds it increasingly difficult to balance his new life while writing about his old one, behind bars.
A Campside Media & iHeart Podcast production. To connect with the team and gain access to behind the scenes content, join our community at joincampside.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Campsite Media.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
When Roger's book Go Boy was released into the world
in April of nineteen seventy eight, it was a time
for celebration, and on this most unlikely of publication days,
our newly minted author, Roger Karan, spent the day at Disneyland,
well not the real Disneyland, but rather Colin's Bay, a
(00:29):
prison in Kingston.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
They called Colin's Bay Penitentiary Disneyland because when you look
at it from the distance of a mile, it looks
like a disney Land.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Roger and his beloved typewriter had been transferred to the
relative comfort of medium security in Colin's Bay, and he
was elated by the thought that he wouldn't be here
much longer. His mandatory release date was still five years
in the future, but hoped that as soon as he
found himself in front of the parole board any month
(01:04):
now as as soon to be best selling author of
a soon to be well reviewed book, they'd set him
free on the spot. That was his dream. Anyway, On
his publication day, I don't imagine many couriers arrive at
Collins Bay Penitentiary to deliver a box of books from
a prestigious publisher to the author. But that's just what happened,
(01:28):
and Roger was keen to start moving copies.
Speaker 4 (01:31):
And he'd be very quick on calling you and say, okay,
it's out, now you can get it.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
He called his sister Sue, talking even faster than usual.
Speaker 4 (01:38):
Go to this store, call this store. He would make
them ship me some and I said, well, I'll call
you as soon as I get it.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
The publisher had done a good job drumming up interest
ahead of its release. In the months leading up to
pub day. Go Boy was blurbed and excerpted in just
about every major newspaper in the country. They were getting
behind it because it was a story that made for
a good press release. They seemed genuinely to believe in
the power of Roger's story, and they needed it to
(02:06):
make enough money so that they wouldn't regret paying Roger
in advance for book number two. Since his original manuscript
had ballooned to over a thousand pages, his editors and
publisher must have thought it wise to try to get
a second book out of it, and it was a
no brainer when they honed in on the Kingston Riot section.
There's great public interest still lingering from the riot, and
(02:30):
Roger promised to deliver a unique point of view to
a story that no one else could offer. He's going
to call the book Bingo, which is prison slang for
a riot. So as the publisher would be keenly watching
the sales figures of Go Boy, Roger would be judging
it success by a different metric. Could this book earn
(02:53):
him his freedom? From iHeart podcasts and campsite media. I'm
Sam Mullens and this is Go Boys Episode seven, The
Golden Boy of Rehabilitation. Roger had been getting little tastes
(03:27):
of freedom in the form of pre release, and every
hour he spent outside the prison walls was exquisite.
Speaker 5 (03:34):
Every twelve days they released me into the community for
seventy two hours on a very strict structured conditions.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
On these three day stints, he traveled to Hull, Quebec,
where there was a halfway house in the three story Victorian.
Speaker 5 (03:49):
I have to work eight hours a day in a
government sponsored shop operated by ex inmates and sociologists and parole.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
Officers and all that you know.
Speaker 5 (03:57):
And then I finished work at four o'clock.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
And then after work I can.
Speaker 5 (04:02):
Go out into the city from five o'clock to midnight,
but I have to be back at it exactly and
precisely midnight. They're very strict about that, or I turned
into a punk. And like Cinderoai, the.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
Stories I've told you about Roger in the series focus
a lot on his escapes and his brief times on
the outside. But by the time his book came out
in nineteen seventy eight, he was forty years old and
in the sum of his entire adult life, he'd been
free for only sixteen months, and he'd just been in
(04:35):
for the longest stint of his life. So now on
the outside, the world burned brilliant and knew. At the
Halfway House, they made him a soup that had broccoli
in it. He'd never had broccoli before. He'd never tried
wine or heard of a credit card, and even though
(04:55):
it was the late seventies, he didn't have the slightest
idea what Dia was. There's a lot to catch up on,
like how to use a bank properly. For the first
time in his life, he had money coming in, but
it really messed with a sense of self. Roger wrote,
it was hard to walk into a bank to make
(05:17):
a deposit instead of a hasty withdrawal. He had to
take things slow. Roger spent a lot of time in
the shopping mall near his halfway house, in part because
it offered a stark of contrast to the prison life
he could find. He'd ride the escalators and drink in
all the smells, all the colors of the displays, a
(05:40):
far cry from the gray walls he was on loan from.
And most novel of all was the simple pleasure of
hearing women and children's voices, sounds he'd grown completely unaccustomed to.
When the three days would be up, Roger head back
early to Colin's Bay, ensuring that he gave him self
extra time. He knew that if he reported to the
(06:03):
gate even one second late, he'd be in violation of
his parole. And also he liked to make sure he
had enough time to get some McDonald's.
Speaker 3 (06:12):
So the taxi would put into McDonald's and I'd order
being back, and the girls got to know me after
six months of every two weeks that go there, and
they hurry up, give me my big mac in my
frain fries and melt shake.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
Noing, it doesn't, don't.
Speaker 6 (06:24):
I'm standing and booking the window to penitentiary and gun tiredly.
Oh God, I gotta go back there, you know. And
for twenty four years I was a goat boy in miscaping,
and I was always running away from the place, saying
here I am in a hurry to get back.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
When time was up, Roger would always buzz back in
with an extra burger or two in his pockets and
an extra story or two for his buddies on the range. Eventually,
Roger was finally allowed to move into the Halfway House
full time, and like that his home address no longer
had the word penitentiary in it. His book seem to
(07:00):
have made a difference. The day Roger got out, he
was greeted on the other side of the gate by
a gaggle of smiling reporters, all anxious to get cracking
(07:23):
on their feel good pieces about the inmate author who
was being released ahead of schedule. He was still looking
down the barrel of nine more years of parole, but
he was thrilled to be living in the whole Halfway
House more permanently, where he didn't even have to work
in the upholstery shop anymore. Instead, he would remain as
his typewriter in his room that Nodawa Citizen reporter described
(07:47):
like this.
Speaker 7 (07:48):
It's small, but he has it fixed up as a
compulsively neat teenager. Mit kmart. Rugs are tacked up as
improvised doors on the clothes closet, jackets, shirts, shoes and
pants are placed with military precision. There's a desk, a chair,
a narrow bed and very dim lighting. Karen can't stand
bright lights. They remind him of prisons where nothing is
(08:08):
in shadow.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
One of the conditions of his parole was that he
wasn't allowed to buy anything over two hundred dollars without permission.
But luckily he was able to pick up a tape
player for his room, update his wardrobe a little bit,
and get a bicycle to zip around the neighborhood. On
(08:31):
April nineteen seventy nine marked one year since the book
Go Boy had come out. It was also the month
that Roger became a known name. One day, someone called
him on the Halfway House community line.
Speaker 8 (08:47):
I got a phone call a week ago Thursday morning
from the Canada Console and this gentleman, mister Renoga, got
on the phone and he says, you just won as
soul matter of factory, you just won the government General's
Award for the Best Book of nineteen seventy eight.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
The Governor General Awards are among Canada's most prestigious prizes
for creativity. All of your favorite Canadians have one, Joni Mitchell,
Sandra O, Ryan Reynolds, and of course our literary giants
like Margaret Atwood and Michael and Datci. And in nineteen
seventy eight, the award for nonfiction went to our man
(09:24):
in the Halfway House. The guy from the council said
to keep this news between them, so Roger would have
to keep it under his hat until the official announcement
one week later.
Speaker 9 (09:35):
After the call, I ran back downstairs in the halfway
house I was living in and said excitedly to all
the guys in maw our housekeeper, you'll never guess what's happened.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
What they all asked.
Speaker 9 (09:45):
I can't tell you for another week, but it's fantastic, unbelievable.
I called my siblings and told them the same thing.
Speaker 4 (09:52):
Roger calls me and he was talking double time. He
was so excited on the phone. I knew he hadn't
the bank because he'd never call him tell me that,
so I knew something happened.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
What followed this life changing news for Roger was a
week of sheer pain. Roger was built to endure the
worst things, to withstand unfathomable punishment and suffering. But good news,
great news that sent him spiral. He went to visit
his sister that week, and she could tell as soon
(10:26):
as he walked in that something was wrong. He tried
to put on a happy face, but it was obvious
as he was wrestling with his nephews that he was preoccupied.
He was consumed by the thought that he was being tricked,
that someone was going to pull the rug out from
under him. Surely, someone in a tweed jacket somewhere would
(10:47):
catch wind of the council's plan to reward a criminal
and kibosh it. Surely, like every big score he'd ever
been close to grasping, this too, was going to end
in disaster, but he couldn't deny it. Winning this award
would be a definitive victory in his life, and he
wanted it bad and then mercifully. A few days later,
(11:13):
Roger was scooped by the Ottawa Citizen, who announced in
print that Roger was an official recipient of the illustrious
Governor General's award right away. He called David Schleike, his
friend who'd been with him since go Boys' first draft.
Speaker 10 (11:31):
The day I heard that he was the winner was
from Roger. He called me and said, I got it.
I got it, I got it, And he said I
got ten thousand dollars. I said, they give you ten
thousand dollars. They're going to let you keep ten thousand dollars.
Because he was still in the halfway house at the
time up in Hull, and he was extraordinary excited.
Speaker 11 (11:48):
He wanted to buy a car right away.
Speaker 4 (11:49):
The amount of money you would get that was going
to help him out, and he was very He was
very excited, and you're going to come and I said, oh, yes,
I'm going to come.
Speaker 3 (11:58):
He invite me to the Governor General's bench. He said,
we're throwing a party in your honor and the Governor
General is going to be there in all the big week.
Speaker 10 (12:05):
And he was looking forward to it. But he said,
I only have one suit, and should I get another suit?
And do you think I look good and darker? And
should I wear a tie?
Speaker 11 (12:12):
That kind of thing.
Speaker 10 (12:13):
He was very aware of being in the public eye
and it was on his mind.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
The big night was held at Rideau Hall, the Governor
General's residence in Ottawa. Roger remembers he was allowed to
bring up to seven guests, but for Roger, seven guests
wasn't going to cut it. I went there with twenty
one guests. Twenty one guests, and I.
Speaker 6 (12:35):
Refused to go.
Speaker 3 (12:36):
I put invite three parole officers.
Speaker 12 (12:39):
The lady did the cook as a halfway house two
x times. With helped me get out to the cole
or Bernie my sister two.
Speaker 6 (12:45):
Brodriend O Ganiel drove up the Governor General's nation.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
After all his sartorial freddys, Roger ended up going with
an outfit that held a special significance to him. He
wore his prison suit, the suit the Institution gave him
upon his release, because.
Speaker 11 (13:07):
It looks so different from everybody else.
Speaker 5 (13:09):
Ever, he's saying, you, you look great, You look great.
Speaker 11 (13:11):
Where'd you get your suit?
Speaker 1 (13:12):
Is sprom Colin's babe.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
As they mingled ahead of the ceremony in the opulent
tent room, Roger, who almost never drank, allowed himself a
couple glasses of wine to steady himself in what must
have felt like the most surreal of dreams. In the
footage of Roger's big moment, he seems so remarkably grounded.
(13:38):
Often when cameras are pointed at him, he seems wound
up like a spring, like he's about to jump the
fence and run away from the attention. But in this moment,
as the Governor General presents him with a specially bound
copy of his book with a red cover, you can
see that he wants to stay here forever. He clutches
the book to his heart as he lets the applause
(14:01):
wash over him. The camera then pans to Roger's entourage,
where his sister Sue is taking polaroids and is looking
at her brother with such pride it makes my eyes
misty every time I watch it. When Roger got his
(14:22):
original advance on his book, he used it to buy
gifts for his family, and when he got his big award,
he handed it to his sister for safe keeping.
Speaker 3 (14:32):
I've won the prize I gave to my sister.
Speaker 13 (14:34):
She took it.
Speaker 6 (14:34):
Almost got all my books on the shovel and flanks,
and English and British and and some of the tokens.
Speaker 3 (14:39):
Of having support is the most important making in the world.
Speaker 4 (14:42):
It was like he was proud to make his family
proud like I've done this, you know, and so it's
something no one can ever take away from him. It
was a proud day. It was riti. It was a good,
good day.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
Beyond the accolade, Roger saw this recognition as a piecemate
making opportunity between him and the country and society that
had cast him away as a teenager.
Speaker 12 (15:06):
If Governor jenner Is Award represented the Canadian public, and
the Canadian public saying me, Roger, for twenty five years,
you did a lot of things to us, and for
twenty five years we did a lot of things to you.
Speaker 3 (15:17):
Now we're scratched.
Speaker 12 (15:18):
Now where this is your homecoming party, make the visit.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
Roger was the feel good story of the night, end
of the year in Canadian publishing, and in the aftermath,
everyone wanted to talk to him. Everyone wanted to hear
how that second book was coming along, and he was
more than willing to share his happy moment with the world.
Speaker 5 (15:42):
I feel good in my flesh for the first time
in my life. I don't have no hang ups, I
got nothing to prove.
Speaker 13 (15:51):
I just feel so durn.
Speaker 5 (15:52):
Good and being able to wake up in.
Speaker 14 (15:54):
The outside world in the morning, it is so fantastic.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
Almost overnight, in TV, radio and print, Suddenly Roger's name
was everywhere. Sue had seen her brother's photo in newspapers
many times before, so it took some adjustment to get
used to seeing articles about him that didn't include a mugshot.
Speaker 4 (16:21):
Now he was also hit in the headlines. But this
was good stuff, and he liked the headlines.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
Roger was saying yes to everything. In the two years
following his big win, he did over one hundred and
fifteen interviews and was written about in two hundred articles.
If you were in Canada, you couldn't miss.
Speaker 11 (16:40):
Him, and he was instantly a celebrity.
Speaker 4 (16:46):
You go from not being out there in yourself and
then all of a sudden, you're like Hollywood. So, I mean,
how somebody can even adapt to that is unbelievable. I
don't know how he sanely came out of all that.
Speaker 10 (17:01):
So he was very excited about being a celebrity. He
was very excited about having an identity.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
And with the fame, Roger suddenly had lots of money
coming in from different places. His book Go Boy sold
hundreds of thousands of copies. He got a nice advance
to write book number two, and he not only sold
the movie rights to his book for a tidy sum,
but it was going to be the biggest budget film
in Canadian history. These were Roger's salad days.
Speaker 10 (17:31):
He was very excited about having money and having freedom
of movement.
Speaker 14 (17:35):
Roger is just starting to enjoy the things that were
kept from him for so long. He recently bought a
new Pontiac Firebird, which he affectionately calls his muscle car.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
Obviously, yes, Roger went with the Firebird.
Speaker 14 (17:48):
His apartment is full of electronic hardware some of us
might never see, like the home videotape recorder used to
record the interview shows he appears on, or the high
priced stereo cassette deck.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
But perhaps the most meaningful opportunity that came Rogers way
was when he was offered a long term gig from
the most surprising of places. He was approached by the
Solicitor General's office about the possibility of doing paid public
speaking gigs. The Solicitor General is in charge of overseeing
public safety corrections and policing, and they saw a great
(18:22):
opportunity with Roger to use his story to engage with
the public about the rehabilitative challenges and successes available to
Canadian inmates. Basically, the same government that had tortured him
for decades was paying him handsomely to speak on their behalf.
They were giving him between five hundred and twenty five
(18:43):
hundred dollars a speech to speak to high schools and
university students, the John Howard Society, the Prison Arts Foundation.
He'd even be paid to go and speak to law
enforcement and rooms filled with corrections officers. His message about
the flaws in the penitentiary system and the toxicity that
(19:05):
exists between guard and inmate was an important one, and
he was a great advocate for prisoner rights. Roger's friend
David reminded him not to forget that the most powerful
part of his story was about his journey as a writer.
Speaker 10 (19:19):
And I said to him, Roger, you got to talk
to teachers, and that's an important audience for you because
you embody the very thing we English teachers love, which
is that literature and writing can really be useful in life.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
David obviously knew that Roger could write, but what he
didn't understand until he watched Roger at one of these
speaking gigs was that he was even better at telling
his stories on stage, and.
Speaker 10 (19:45):
The Jellybean story just electrified them. I'm not being hyperbolic
or exaggerating when I said there were a number of
people there who wept, the teachers, they were really moved
by that story. And Roger had that self conscious little
bit of a laugh of his and he saw and
felt that he could pick up the vibe from the room.
(20:06):
And then when he was finished his story that included
many of the anecdotes from Go Boy, that was a
standing ovation.
Speaker 11 (20:13):
It was electrifieder. It was a powerful moment.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
Roger eventually was allowed to move out of the halfway
house and into his own apartment. Well is more of
a penthouse, a bonafide bachelor pad, filled with gadgets such
as a wireless TV converter, and it featured a breathtaking
view overlooking the canal. Roger loved to invite his family
(20:40):
over to show it off. Here's his nephew Todd.
Speaker 15 (20:44):
He would be on the balcony and the building was
almost directly across from the Prime Minister's residence in Sussex Street.
Speaker 2 (20:51):
Of the many new things that had emerged into Roger's life,
perhaps the thing that brought him. The most joy was
that he was finally able to fully and properly step
into his role as an uncle.
Speaker 15 (21:01):
I knew him as the uncle who did well. He
had come out of prison, he had written this incredible book,
he had won a Governor General's award.
Speaker 11 (21:12):
I had nothing but pride for him.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
This was the golden age of being Uncle Roger.
Speaker 16 (21:17):
You could feel that he loved us.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
Here's his niece, Diane.
Speaker 16 (21:21):
You know it wasn't just fake it. You could feel
a family thing. It was very, very art warming.
Speaker 15 (21:28):
He always wanted to play with the kids, wrestling, taking
us fishing, going out for drives in his trans am.
Speaker 16 (21:35):
When I had children of my own, my boys, they'll
remember him as that. They remember how strong he was
and how much fun they had with him.
Speaker 15 (21:42):
You know, sometimes you have adults that don't pay attention
to the kids. But he really was there and really
wanted to interact with us a lot.
Speaker 11 (21:51):
So it was a ton of mine.
Speaker 2 (22:02):
Beside Roger's typewriter was an always tall stack of fan mail.
On average, he'd get eight letters a day passed along
from his publisher and his sister Sue remembers well. The
general tenor of the correspondence.
Speaker 4 (22:16):
You had girls just throlling themselves at him. He was
reading on a roller coaster ride there. You know that
I wasn't thrilled about.
Speaker 11 (22:25):
He was pretty heavy in the dating scene.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
Roger writes about this period in his life in the
forward of one of his books.
Speaker 9 (22:32):
The thing I missed the most while in prison was
the exquisite pleasure of holding a woman in my arms.
Upon my release, I made up for lost time, and
on each occasion I felt like falling to my knees
and thanking God for having created such a wonderful partner.
Speaker 10 (22:48):
He was doing lots of talks. He was very socially active.
He loved dating lots of women.
Speaker 4 (22:56):
You know, I said, Roger, be careful. You know that
I don't know.
Speaker 11 (22:59):
They just came out of the.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
We found lots of photos of Roger from these years
with dozens and dozens of different women on his arm.
And when you line them all up beside each other,
it's obvious that Roger tended to attract a certain type babes.
They're all babes. And it makes sense, doesn't it, Because
(23:23):
what was Roger but essentially a fit, gentle bad boys
star of the Canadian literary scene. Not a lot of
those out there.
Speaker 4 (23:32):
And once his book even went to England girls sending
money clothes their own clothes. I mean, like, what is.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
This Roger's life that had felt so empty for so
long was now suddenly overflowing with attention and love and gigs.
And it wasn't exactly the ideal set of circumstances for
someone on a writing deadline. During this period, the worst
thing an interviewer could ask him was how's that second
book coming, Roger, a question people seemed to be asking
(24:06):
more and more. The way that Roger would talk about
writing changed around this time too. There were periods with
his original manuscript where the work felt therapeutic and writing
would fill him with purpose and joy.
Speaker 10 (24:20):
And then that started to erode, and so he depressed
him that he was losing what he called his mojo.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
He wrote his first book trapped in a room with
nothing but a pen and pencil and typewriter and time,
and it still took him fifteen years to write book
number one. But now he was supposed to make a
deadline in this version of his life. Good luck. He
started referring to his workspace as his torture chamber. And
(24:49):
he described bingo as the noose around his neck. It
took him every bit of willpower he had just to
sit at the typewriter. Roger says in one inn that
he can't even go to his workspace to answer the
letters on the filing cabinet. That's my twilight zone, he says.
His publisher would call him once a week to ask
(25:11):
him the question that would flood his body with cortisol,
how's bingo coming. He'd tell them that he was struggling,
that he was blocked, and then he'd promised that the
next week would be different. After he hung up, he'd
rush out the door to take a long, fast bike
ride to shed the shame of another week going by
(25:31):
without having written a single word. He couldn't figure it out.
It was as if some balance in his life that
had helped him in the past was askew, and he
began to develop a theory about what was missing.
Speaker 9 (25:45):
The lack of imminent danger and of the consequent gut
eating fear that had once been my constant companions. Realizing
that I had become addicted to fear, I cast around
nervously for a legitimate substitute that would scare me without
getting me into trouble.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
Basically, he needed to find a legal activity that would
make him fear for his life.
Speaker 3 (26:07):
So I see you signing shopping glad, that says the
Adventurers joined the Audibus sky Diamond Club. You don't pair shooting,
you know, I said, pair shooting. I see. I'm gonna
like you know it actoually be good.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
From when I found myself hurtening out of an airplane
at one hundred and twenty miles an hour, you know,
and doing the countdown and then shoot opening, and I
never wanted to end.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
Roger's publisher kept calling to check.
Speaker 13 (26:48):
In, How was the book this week? Roger? Were you
able to finish that chapter we were discussing? Okay, tell
Roger to call us back when he has a moment.
This is his publisher, all right, Roger. Tell you what
for every one hundred typewritten pages you turn in, we'll
(27:08):
give you an additional thousand dollars. How does that sound, Roger? Roger.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
Eventually, skydiving wasn't doing it for Roger anymore, so he
needed to up the ante.
Speaker 9 (27:25):
I pursued this thrilling sport for almost two years, and
when I gave it up. It was for flying school.
I always landed the plane a little too steeply, thereby
giving my instructors some anxious moments. I never did fully
understand all the gadgets on the instrument panel, as I
had almost no education.
Speaker 2 (27:42):
He says he likes it when the weather is rough.
Speaker 9 (27:45):
I only relax if it's violent and I'm scared. That's
when I fly the best.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
In a TV interview from the early eighties, one of
Roger's girlfriends is asked, is.
Speaker 11 (28:08):
He a happy Man's Roger a happy man?
Speaker 14 (28:12):
No?
Speaker 13 (28:13):
I don't think so.
Speaker 14 (28:14):
Like I mean, there's I'm not a firm believer of
happiness in any way. I believe in joy, and I
believe in peace, and I wouldn't say he has peace.
Speaker 2 (28:25):
Roger had ascended to such dizzying heights from where he began.
But no matter how high you get in your plane,
in your career, or in the pecking order, the ground
is still there trying to pull you closer. Soon for Roger,
his second book would be the least of his worries.
Speaker 4 (28:46):
And everybody's saying to me, didn't you hear about Roger?
And I said, what, oh my, what happened?
Speaker 6 (28:52):
A few minutes earlier, a gunman wearing a Halloween mask
robbed the store and briefly held a store for posta.
Speaker 15 (28:58):
I think Everybody's worst kind of materialized in my heart
just sank.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
Go Boy is a production from Campside Media in partnership
with iHeart Podcasts. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts. Go Boy was written
and hosted by me Sam Mullins. Our producer is Rob
Lindsay of Paradox Pictures. Laine Rose is our senior producer.
(29:39):
Sound design, mix and engineering by Garrett Tiedemant, original music
by Garrett Tiedemant. Fact checking by Michael Kenyon Meyer. Selected
archival clips are from CBC Licensing. The book Go Boy
was written by Roger Kuran. iHeart Podcasts executive producers are
(30:00):
Lindsay Hoffman and Jennifer Bassett. Excerpts from Roger Kuran's book
Go Boy, read by Jamie Kavanaugh, Spencer Rose, Voice s
Oard Ottawa Citizen Reporter. Campside Media's executive producers are Josh Dean, Vanessa, Gregoriatis,
Adam Hoff and Matt Cher. A special thanks to our
(30:21):
operations team, Doug Slaywyn, Ashley Warren, Sabina Marra, and Destiny Dingle.
If you enjoyed Go Boy, please rate and review the
show wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for listening.
Campsite Media.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
When Roger's book Go Boy was released into the world
in April of nineteen seventy eight, it was a time
for celebration, and on this most unlikely of publication days,
our newly minted author, Roger Karan, spent the day at Disneyland,
well not the real Disneyland, but rather Colin's Bay, a
(00:29):
prison in Kingston.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
They called Colin's Bay Penitentiary Disneyland because when you look
at it from the distance of a mile, it looks
like a disney Land.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Roger and his beloved typewriter had been transferred to the
relative comfort of medium security in Colin's Bay, and he
was elated by the thought that he wouldn't be here
much longer. His mandatory release date was still five years
in the future, but hoped that as soon as he
found himself in front of the parole board any month
(01:04):
now as as soon to be best selling author of
a soon to be well reviewed book, they'd set him
free on the spot. That was his dream. Anyway, On
his publication day, I don't imagine many couriers arrive at
Collins Bay Penitentiary to deliver a box of books from
a prestigious publisher to the author. But that's just what happened,
(01:28):
and Roger was keen to start moving copies.
Speaker 4 (01:31):
And he'd be very quick on calling you and say, okay,
it's out, now you can get it.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
He called his sister Sue, talking even faster than usual.
Speaker 4 (01:38):
Go to this store, call this store. He would make
them ship me some and I said, well, I'll call
you as soon as I get it.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
The publisher had done a good job drumming up interest
ahead of its release. In the months leading up to
pub day. Go Boy was blurbed and excerpted in just
about every major newspaper in the country. They were getting
behind it because it was a story that made for
a good press release. They seemed genuinely to believe in
the power of Roger's story, and they needed it to
(02:06):
make enough money so that they wouldn't regret paying Roger
in advance for book number two. Since his original manuscript
had ballooned to over a thousand pages, his editors and
publisher must have thought it wise to try to get
a second book out of it, and it was a
no brainer when they honed in on the Kingston Riot section.
There's great public interest still lingering from the riot, and
(02:30):
Roger promised to deliver a unique point of view to
a story that no one else could offer. He's going
to call the book Bingo, which is prison slang for
a riot. So as the publisher would be keenly watching
the sales figures of Go Boy, Roger would be judging
it success by a different metric. Could this book earn
(02:53):
him his freedom? From iHeart podcasts and campsite media. I'm
Sam Mullens and this is Go Boys Episode seven, The
Golden Boy of Rehabilitation. Roger had been getting little tastes
(03:27):
of freedom in the form of pre release, and every
hour he spent outside the prison walls was exquisite.
Speaker 5 (03:34):
Every twelve days they released me into the community for
seventy two hours on a very strict structured conditions.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
On these three day stints, he traveled to Hull, Quebec,
where there was a halfway house in the three story Victorian.
Speaker 5 (03:49):
I have to work eight hours a day in a
government sponsored shop operated by ex inmates and sociologists and parole.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
Officers and all that you know.
Speaker 5 (03:57):
And then I finished work at four o'clock.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
And then after work I can.
Speaker 5 (04:02):
Go out into the city from five o'clock to midnight,
but I have to be back at it exactly and
precisely midnight. They're very strict about that, or I turned
into a punk. And like Cinderoai, the.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
Stories I've told you about Roger in the series focus
a lot on his escapes and his brief times on
the outside. But by the time his book came out
in nineteen seventy eight, he was forty years old and
in the sum of his entire adult life, he'd been
free for only sixteen months, and he'd just been in
(04:35):
for the longest stint of his life. So now on
the outside, the world burned brilliant and knew. At the
Halfway House, they made him a soup that had broccoli
in it. He'd never had broccoli before. He'd never tried
wine or heard of a credit card, and even though
(04:55):
it was the late seventies, he didn't have the slightest
idea what Dia was. There's a lot to catch up on,
like how to use a bank properly. For the first
time in his life, he had money coming in, but
it really messed with a sense of self. Roger wrote,
it was hard to walk into a bank to make
(05:17):
a deposit instead of a hasty withdrawal. He had to
take things slow. Roger spent a lot of time in
the shopping mall near his halfway house, in part because
it offered a stark of contrast to the prison life
he could find. He'd ride the escalators and drink in
all the smells, all the colors of the displays, a
(05:40):
far cry from the gray walls he was on loan from.
And most novel of all was the simple pleasure of
hearing women and children's voices, sounds he'd grown completely unaccustomed to.
When the three days would be up, Roger head back
early to Colin's Bay, ensuring that he gave him self
extra time. He knew that if he reported to the
(06:03):
gate even one second late, he'd be in violation of
his parole. And also he liked to make sure he
had enough time to get some McDonald's.
Speaker 3 (06:12):
So the taxi would put into McDonald's and I'd order
being back, and the girls got to know me after
six months of every two weeks that go there, and
they hurry up, give me my big mac in my
frain fries and melt shake.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
Noing, it doesn't, don't.
Speaker 6 (06:24):
I'm standing and booking the window to penitentiary and gun tiredly.
Oh God, I gotta go back there, you know. And
for twenty four years I was a goat boy in miscaping,
and I was always running away from the place, saying
here I am in a hurry to get back.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
When time was up, Roger would always buzz back in
with an extra burger or two in his pockets and
an extra story or two for his buddies on the range. Eventually,
Roger was finally allowed to move into the Halfway House
full time, and like that his home address no longer
had the word penitentiary in it. His book seem to
(07:00):
have made a difference. The day Roger got out, he
was greeted on the other side of the gate by
a gaggle of smiling reporters, all anxious to get cracking
(07:23):
on their feel good pieces about the inmate author who
was being released ahead of schedule. He was still looking
down the barrel of nine more years of parole, but
he was thrilled to be living in the whole Halfway
House more permanently, where he didn't even have to work
in the upholstery shop anymore. Instead, he would remain as
his typewriter in his room that Nodawa Citizen reporter described
(07:47):
like this.
Speaker 7 (07:48):
It's small, but he has it fixed up as a
compulsively neat teenager. Mit kmart. Rugs are tacked up as
improvised doors on the clothes closet, jackets, shirts, shoes and
pants are placed with military precision. There's a desk, a chair,
a narrow bed and very dim lighting. Karen can't stand
bright lights. They remind him of prisons where nothing is
(08:08):
in shadow.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
One of the conditions of his parole was that he
wasn't allowed to buy anything over two hundred dollars without permission.
But luckily he was able to pick up a tape
player for his room, update his wardrobe a little bit,
and get a bicycle to zip around the neighborhood. On
(08:31):
April nineteen seventy nine marked one year since the book
Go Boy had come out. It was also the month
that Roger became a known name. One day, someone called
him on the Halfway House community line.
Speaker 8 (08:47):
I got a phone call a week ago Thursday morning
from the Canada Console and this gentleman, mister Renoga, got
on the phone and he says, you just won as
soul matter of factory, you just won the government General's
Award for the Best Book of nineteen seventy eight.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
The Governor General Awards are among Canada's most prestigious prizes
for creativity. All of your favorite Canadians have one, Joni Mitchell,
Sandra O, Ryan Reynolds, and of course our literary giants
like Margaret Atwood and Michael and Datci. And in nineteen
seventy eight, the award for nonfiction went to our man
(09:24):
in the Halfway House. The guy from the council said
to keep this news between them, so Roger would have
to keep it under his hat until the official announcement
one week later.
Speaker 9 (09:35):
After the call, I ran back downstairs in the halfway
house I was living in and said excitedly to all
the guys in maw our housekeeper, you'll never guess what's happened.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
What they all asked.
Speaker 9 (09:45):
I can't tell you for another week, but it's fantastic, unbelievable.
I called my siblings and told them the same thing.
Speaker 4 (09:52):
Roger calls me and he was talking double time. He
was so excited on the phone. I knew he hadn't
the bank because he'd never call him tell me that,
so I knew something happened.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
What followed this life changing news for Roger was a
week of sheer pain. Roger was built to endure the
worst things, to withstand unfathomable punishment and suffering. But good news,
great news that sent him spiral. He went to visit
his sister that week, and she could tell as soon
(10:26):
as he walked in that something was wrong. He tried
to put on a happy face, but it was obvious
as he was wrestling with his nephews that he was preoccupied.
He was consumed by the thought that he was being tricked,
that someone was going to pull the rug out from
under him. Surely, someone in a tweed jacket somewhere would
(10:47):
catch wind of the council's plan to reward a criminal
and kibosh it. Surely, like every big score he'd ever
been close to grasping, this too, was going to end
in disaster, but he couldn't deny it. Winning this award
would be a definitive victory in his life, and he
wanted it bad and then mercifully. A few days later,
(11:13):
Roger was scooped by the Ottawa Citizen, who announced in
print that Roger was an official recipient of the illustrious
Governor General's award right away. He called David Schleike, his
friend who'd been with him since go Boys' first draft.
Speaker 10 (11:31):
The day I heard that he was the winner was
from Roger. He called me and said, I got it.
I got it, I got it, And he said I
got ten thousand dollars. I said, they give you ten
thousand dollars. They're going to let you keep ten thousand dollars.
Because he was still in the halfway house at the
time up in Hull, and he was extraordinary excited.
Speaker 11 (11:48):
He wanted to buy a car right away.
Speaker 4 (11:49):
The amount of money you would get that was going
to help him out, and he was very He was
very excited, and you're going to come and I said, oh, yes,
I'm going to come.
Speaker 3 (11:58):
He invite me to the Governor General's bench. He said,
we're throwing a party in your honor and the Governor
General is going to be there in all the big week.
Speaker 10 (12:05):
And he was looking forward to it. But he said,
I only have one suit, and should I get another suit?
And do you think I look good and darker? And
should I wear a tie?
Speaker 11 (12:12):
That kind of thing.
Speaker 10 (12:13):
He was very aware of being in the public eye
and it was on his mind.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
The big night was held at Rideau Hall, the Governor
General's residence in Ottawa. Roger remembers he was allowed to
bring up to seven guests, but for Roger, seven guests
wasn't going to cut it. I went there with twenty
one guests. Twenty one guests, and I.
Speaker 6 (12:35):
Refused to go.
Speaker 3 (12:36):
I put invite three parole officers.
Speaker 12 (12:39):
The lady did the cook as a halfway house two
x times. With helped me get out to the cole
or Bernie my sister two.
Speaker 6 (12:45):
Brodriend O Ganiel drove up the Governor General's nation.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
After all his sartorial freddys, Roger ended up going with
an outfit that held a special significance to him. He
wore his prison suit, the suit the Institution gave him
upon his release, because.
Speaker 11 (13:07):
It looks so different from everybody else.
Speaker 5 (13:09):
Ever, he's saying, you, you look great, You look great.
Speaker 11 (13:11):
Where'd you get your suit?
Speaker 1 (13:12):
Is sprom Colin's babe.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
As they mingled ahead of the ceremony in the opulent
tent room, Roger, who almost never drank, allowed himself a
couple glasses of wine to steady himself in what must
have felt like the most surreal of dreams. In the
footage of Roger's big moment, he seems so remarkably grounded.
(13:38):
Often when cameras are pointed at him, he seems wound
up like a spring, like he's about to jump the
fence and run away from the attention. But in this moment,
as the Governor General presents him with a specially bound
copy of his book with a red cover, you can
see that he wants to stay here forever. He clutches
the book to his heart as he lets the applause
(14:01):
wash over him. The camera then pans to Roger's entourage,
where his sister Sue is taking polaroids and is looking
at her brother with such pride it makes my eyes
misty every time I watch it. When Roger got his
(14:22):
original advance on his book, he used it to buy
gifts for his family, and when he got his big award,
he handed it to his sister for safe keeping.
Speaker 3 (14:32):
I've won the prize I gave to my sister.
Speaker 13 (14:34):
She took it.
Speaker 6 (14:34):
Almost got all my books on the shovel and flanks,
and English and British and and some of the tokens.
Speaker 3 (14:39):
Of having support is the most important making in the world.
Speaker 4 (14:42):
It was like he was proud to make his family
proud like I've done this, you know, and so it's
something no one can ever take away from him. It
was a proud day. It was riti. It was a good,
good day.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
Beyond the accolade, Roger saw this recognition as a piecemate
making opportunity between him and the country and society that
had cast him away as a teenager.
Speaker 12 (15:06):
If Governor jenner Is Award represented the Canadian public, and
the Canadian public saying me, Roger, for twenty five years,
you did a lot of things to us, and for
twenty five years we did a lot of things to you.
Speaker 3 (15:17):
Now we're scratched.
Speaker 12 (15:18):
Now where this is your homecoming party, make the visit.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
Roger was the feel good story of the night, end
of the year in Canadian publishing, and in the aftermath,
everyone wanted to talk to him. Everyone wanted to hear
how that second book was coming along, and he was
more than willing to share his happy moment with the world.
Speaker 5 (15:42):
I feel good in my flesh for the first time
in my life. I don't have no hang ups, I
got nothing to prove.
Speaker 13 (15:51):
I just feel so durn.
Speaker 5 (15:52):
Good and being able to wake up in.
Speaker 14 (15:54):
The outside world in the morning, it is so fantastic.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
Almost overnight, in TV, radio and print, Suddenly Roger's name
was everywhere. Sue had seen her brother's photo in newspapers
many times before, so it took some adjustment to get
used to seeing articles about him that didn't include a mugshot.
Speaker 4 (16:21):
Now he was also hit in the headlines. But this
was good stuff, and he liked the headlines.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
Roger was saying yes to everything. In the two years
following his big win, he did over one hundred and
fifteen interviews and was written about in two hundred articles.
If you were in Canada, you couldn't miss.
Speaker 11 (16:40):
Him, and he was instantly a celebrity.
Speaker 4 (16:46):
You go from not being out there in yourself and
then all of a sudden, you're like Hollywood. So, I mean,
how somebody can even adapt to that is unbelievable. I
don't know how he sanely came out of all that.
Speaker 10 (17:01):
So he was very excited about being a celebrity. He
was very excited about having an identity.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
And with the fame, Roger suddenly had lots of money
coming in from different places. His book Go Boy sold
hundreds of thousands of copies. He got a nice advance
to write book number two, and he not only sold
the movie rights to his book for a tidy sum,
but it was going to be the biggest budget film
in Canadian history. These were Roger's salad days.
Speaker 10 (17:31):
He was very excited about having money and having freedom
of movement.
Speaker 14 (17:35):
Roger is just starting to enjoy the things that were
kept from him for so long. He recently bought a
new Pontiac Firebird, which he affectionately calls his muscle car.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
Obviously, yes, Roger went with the Firebird.
Speaker 14 (17:48):
His apartment is full of electronic hardware some of us
might never see, like the home videotape recorder used to
record the interview shows he appears on, or the high
priced stereo cassette deck.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
But perhaps the most meaningful opportunity that came Rogers way
was when he was offered a long term gig from
the most surprising of places. He was approached by the
Solicitor General's office about the possibility of doing paid public
speaking gigs. The Solicitor General is in charge of overseeing
public safety corrections and policing, and they saw a great
(18:22):
opportunity with Roger to use his story to engage with
the public about the rehabilitative challenges and successes available to
Canadian inmates. Basically, the same government that had tortured him
for decades was paying him handsomely to speak on their behalf.
They were giving him between five hundred and twenty five
(18:43):
hundred dollars a speech to speak to high schools and
university students, the John Howard Society, the Prison Arts Foundation.
He'd even be paid to go and speak to law
enforcement and rooms filled with corrections officers. His message about
the flaws in the penitentiary system and the toxicity that
(19:05):
exists between guard and inmate was an important one, and
he was a great advocate for prisoner rights. Roger's friend
David reminded him not to forget that the most powerful
part of his story was about his journey as a writer.
Speaker 10 (19:19):
And I said to him, Roger, you got to talk
to teachers, and that's an important audience for you because
you embody the very thing we English teachers love, which
is that literature and writing can really be useful in life.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
David obviously knew that Roger could write, but what he
didn't understand until he watched Roger at one of these
speaking gigs was that he was even better at telling
his stories on stage, and.
Speaker 10 (19:45):
The Jellybean story just electrified them. I'm not being hyperbolic
or exaggerating when I said there were a number of
people there who wept, the teachers, they were really moved
by that story. And Roger had that self conscious little
bit of a laugh of his and he saw and
felt that he could pick up the vibe from the room.
(20:06):
And then when he was finished his story that included
many of the anecdotes from Go Boy, that was a
standing ovation.
Speaker 11 (20:13):
It was electrifieder. It was a powerful moment.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
Roger eventually was allowed to move out of the halfway
house and into his own apartment. Well is more of
a penthouse, a bonafide bachelor pad, filled with gadgets such
as a wireless TV converter, and it featured a breathtaking
view overlooking the canal. Roger loved to invite his family
(20:40):
over to show it off. Here's his nephew Todd.
Speaker 15 (20:44):
He would be on the balcony and the building was
almost directly across from the Prime Minister's residence in Sussex Street.
Speaker 2 (20:51):
Of the many new things that had emerged into Roger's life,
perhaps the thing that brought him. The most joy was
that he was finally able to fully and properly step
into his role as an uncle.
Speaker 15 (21:01):
I knew him as the uncle who did well. He
had come out of prison, he had written this incredible book,
he had won a Governor General's award.
Speaker 11 (21:12):
I had nothing but pride for him.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
This was the golden age of being Uncle Roger.
Speaker 16 (21:17):
You could feel that he loved us.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
Here's his niece, Diane.
Speaker 16 (21:21):
You know it wasn't just fake it. You could feel
a family thing. It was very, very art warming.
Speaker 15 (21:28):
He always wanted to play with the kids, wrestling, taking
us fishing, going out for drives in his trans am.
Speaker 16 (21:35):
When I had children of my own, my boys, they'll
remember him as that. They remember how strong he was
and how much fun they had with him.
Speaker 15 (21:42):
You know, sometimes you have adults that don't pay attention
to the kids. But he really was there and really
wanted to interact with us a lot.
Speaker 11 (21:51):
So it was a ton of mine.
Speaker 2 (22:02):
Beside Roger's typewriter was an always tall stack of fan mail.
On average, he'd get eight letters a day passed along
from his publisher and his sister Sue remembers well. The
general tenor of the correspondence.
Speaker 4 (22:16):
You had girls just throlling themselves at him. He was
reading on a roller coaster ride there. You know that
I wasn't thrilled about.
Speaker 11 (22:25):
He was pretty heavy in the dating scene.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
Roger writes about this period in his life in the
forward of one of his books.
Speaker 9 (22:32):
The thing I missed the most while in prison was
the exquisite pleasure of holding a woman in my arms.
Upon my release, I made up for lost time, and
on each occasion I felt like falling to my knees
and thanking God for having created such a wonderful partner.
Speaker 10 (22:48):
He was doing lots of talks. He was very socially active.
He loved dating lots of women.
Speaker 4 (22:56):
You know, I said, Roger, be careful. You know that
I don't know.
Speaker 11 (22:59):
They just came out of the.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
We found lots of photos of Roger from these years
with dozens and dozens of different women on his arm.
And when you line them all up beside each other,
it's obvious that Roger tended to attract a certain type babes.
They're all babes. And it makes sense, doesn't it, Because
(23:23):
what was Roger but essentially a fit, gentle bad boys
star of the Canadian literary scene. Not a lot of
those out there.
Speaker 4 (23:32):
And once his book even went to England girls sending
money clothes their own clothes. I mean, like, what is.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
This Roger's life that had felt so empty for so
long was now suddenly overflowing with attention and love and gigs.
And it wasn't exactly the ideal set of circumstances for
someone on a writing deadline. During this period, the worst
thing an interviewer could ask him was how's that second
book coming, Roger, a question people seemed to be asking
(24:06):
more and more. The way that Roger would talk about
writing changed around this time too. There were periods with
his original manuscript where the work felt therapeutic and writing
would fill him with purpose and joy.
Speaker 10 (24:20):
And then that started to erode, and so he depressed
him that he was losing what he called his mojo.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
He wrote his first book trapped in a room with
nothing but a pen and pencil and typewriter and time,
and it still took him fifteen years to write book
number one. But now he was supposed to make a
deadline in this version of his life. Good luck. He
started referring to his workspace as his torture chamber. And
(24:49):
he described bingo as the noose around his neck. It
took him every bit of willpower he had just to
sit at the typewriter. Roger says in one inn that
he can't even go to his workspace to answer the
letters on the filing cabinet. That's my twilight zone, he says.
His publisher would call him once a week to ask
(25:11):
him the question that would flood his body with cortisol,
how's bingo coming. He'd tell them that he was struggling,
that he was blocked, and then he'd promised that the
next week would be different. After he hung up, he'd
rush out the door to take a long, fast bike
ride to shed the shame of another week going by
(25:31):
without having written a single word. He couldn't figure it out.
It was as if some balance in his life that
had helped him in the past was askew, and he
began to develop a theory about what was missing.
Speaker 9 (25:45):
The lack of imminent danger and of the consequent gut
eating fear that had once been my constant companions. Realizing
that I had become addicted to fear, I cast around
nervously for a legitimate substitute that would scare me without
getting me into trouble.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
Basically, he needed to find a legal activity that would
make him fear for his life.
Speaker 3 (26:07):
So I see you signing shopping glad, that says the
Adventurers joined the Audibus sky Diamond Club. You don't pair shooting,
you know, I said, pair shooting. I see. I'm gonna
like you know it actoually be good.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
From when I found myself hurtening out of an airplane
at one hundred and twenty miles an hour, you know,
and doing the countdown and then shoot opening, and I
never wanted to end.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
Roger's publisher kept calling to check.
Speaker 13 (26:48):
In, How was the book this week? Roger? Were you
able to finish that chapter we were discussing? Okay, tell
Roger to call us back when he has a moment.
This is his publisher, all right, Roger. Tell you what
for every one hundred typewritten pages you turn in, we'll
(27:08):
give you an additional thousand dollars. How does that sound, Roger? Roger.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
Eventually, skydiving wasn't doing it for Roger anymore, so he
needed to up the ante.
Speaker 9 (27:25):
I pursued this thrilling sport for almost two years, and
when I gave it up. It was for flying school.
I always landed the plane a little too steeply, thereby
giving my instructors some anxious moments. I never did fully
understand all the gadgets on the instrument panel, as I
had almost no education.
Speaker 2 (27:42):
He says he likes it when the weather is rough.
Speaker 9 (27:45):
I only relax if it's violent and I'm scared. That's
when I fly the best.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
In a TV interview from the early eighties, one of
Roger's girlfriends is asked, is.
Speaker 11 (28:08):
He a happy Man's Roger a happy man?
Speaker 14 (28:12):
No?
Speaker 13 (28:13):
I don't think so.
Speaker 14 (28:14):
Like I mean, there's I'm not a firm believer of
happiness in any way. I believe in joy, and I
believe in peace, and I wouldn't say he has peace.
Speaker 2 (28:25):
Roger had ascended to such dizzying heights from where he began.
But no matter how high you get in your plane,
in your career, or in the pecking order, the ground
is still there trying to pull you closer. Soon for Roger,
his second book would be the least of his worries.
Speaker 4 (28:46):
And everybody's saying to me, didn't you hear about Roger?
And I said, what, oh my, what happened?
Speaker 6 (28:52):
A few minutes earlier, a gunman wearing a Halloween mask
robbed the store and briefly held a store for posta.
Speaker 15 (28:58):
I think Everybody's worst kind of materialized in my heart
just sank.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
Go Boy is a production from Campside Media in partnership
with iHeart Podcasts. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts. Go Boy was written
and hosted by me Sam Mullins. Our producer is Rob
Lindsay of Paradox Pictures. Laine Rose is our senior producer.
(29:39):
Sound design, mix and engineering by Garrett Tiedemant, original music
by Garrett Tiedemant. Fact checking by Michael Kenyon Meyer. Selected
archival clips are from CBC Licensing. The book Go Boy
was written by Roger Kuran. iHeart Podcasts executive producers are
(30:00):
Lindsay Hoffman and Jennifer Bassett. Excerpts from Roger Kuran's book
Go Boy, read by Jamie Kavanaugh, Spencer Rose, Voice s
Oard Ottawa Citizen Reporter. Campside Media's executive producers are Josh Dean, Vanessa, Gregoriatis,
Adam Hoff and Matt Cher. A special thanks to our
(30:21):
operations team, Doug Slaywyn, Ashley Warren, Sabina Marra, and Destiny Dingle.
If you enjoyed Go Boy, please rate and review the
show wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for listening.
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Special Summer Offer: Exclusively on Apple Podcasts, try our Dateline Premium subscription completely free for one month! With Dateline Premium, you get every episode ad-free plus exclusive bonus content.
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, And Charlamagne Tha God!
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.