January 5, 2026 • 48 mins
Midcentury New Yorkers who couldn't sleep found a friend in Jean Shepherd, the iconoclastic radio personality whose middle of the night monologues made him a cult comedy figure and leader of the underground Night People movement. When he proposed to prank the book world by demanding a novel that didn't exist, the title became so popular his followers more or less willed it into being.
SOURCES
https://web.archive.org/web/20020427051336/https:/flicklives.com/Articles/Wall_Street_Journel/8-1-56/8-1-56.jpg
https://www.theawl.com/2013/02/the-man-behind-the-brilliant-media-hoax-of-i-libertine/
Excelsior, You Fathead! By Eugene B Bergmann
I, Libertine by Theodore Sturgeon
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/aug/25/handbook-for-mortals-by-lani-sarem-pulled-from-nyt-bestsellers-list
https://www.pajiba.com/book_reviews/did-this-book-buy-its-way-onto-the-new-york-times-bestseller-list.php
https://www.vulture.com/2017/09/handbook-for-mortals-lani-sarem-23-hour-new-york-times-bestseller.html
https://www.billboard.com/music/music-news/lani-sarem-blues-traveler-manager-novelist-bestseller-list-7957648/
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
You're listening to Hoax, a production of iHeart Podcasts. Folks,
it's a hug. No one I haven't seen, when us
to see the last. Welcome to Hoax, a podcast about
(00:22):
the lies we wish were true and truths that sound
like lies. I'm the ghost of Danish Swartz and I'm
the evil twin of Lizzie Logan. Welcome to the show.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Dana.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
You're a New York Times best selling author twice over.
Think yes, thank you. These are fact. These are facts.
These are just the truth. Can you tell me how
that happened? Uh?
Speaker 2 (00:46):
Yeah, I mean it happened that. I just wrote a
book that called Anatomy, a love story about a girl
who wants to be a surgeon in nineteenth century Edinburgh,
because I love like gross stories about surgery and things
like that and Frankenstein inspired stories. And then I wrote
this book and then kind of like just the miracle
(01:07):
of like the editor liked it, the publisher liked it,
I got a great cover design, which.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
Is a beautiful cover, and it's also a rock and book.
It's thank you very much.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
And then one day your agent just gives you like
the best Oh and it was a Reese Witherspoon was
nice enough to choose it for her book club. The
first the first one, okay, which like is really nice.
And then you just get a really nice call from
an agent one day that says it is number one on.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
The list, amazing, on the YA it was on the
YA card cover New York Times list, Okay, amazing. And
then the sequel to that, Mortality, also hit number one.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Hit number one, another really nice phone call from an agent.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Okay, great? And what is that? Like? I don't want
to ask you, like, you know, gross numbers, money questions,
but what is that? Like, you know, for the listener
at home who has never heard of book, Like, what
does that mean? Does that just mean like a lot
of people bought it? Like, does that mean you're rich
and can retire? No? It does what I mean? What
does that mean? It does not mean I'm rich and
(02:07):
can retire.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
It means I mean, honestly, every week for the New
York Times List, it's like you could have a lucky
week or an unlucky week, like you could be going
up against like I don't know what, like the hot
like Dragon, but the new Hunger Games book, and then
it's just like you're just not gonna Those are on
a different level. So I was probably lucky that like,
no big Ya book was coming out the week I
(02:28):
was released. I don't ask about numbers because it stresses
me out. But what it means is a lot of
country other countries want to publish it because they look
at the New York Times list. So it's been translated
a bunch, and it means I get royalties. So yeah,
it's it's really nice. It's a big ego boost. I
get to say New York Times bestseller. On everything else
(02:49):
I write, it's great.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
I yeah, no complaints, done out of ten. Yeah, good experience.
But it's also like, even if you can still sell
well and not.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Make the list, especially for really competitive categories like nonfiction,
where there's always like some like I don't know a
diet or like podcastro book like that you'd just be
going up against, or some like I don't know republican memoir,
And also like hardcover nonfiction is really hard, so our
hardcover fiction as well.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
So you can also sell.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
Really well and be you know, a really well received
book and not make the New York Times Top ten
just because it was a kind of a fluke of
a week.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
And also because like if you sold like half that
many books but like every week, yeah you know what
I mean, you can be a sleeper hit one really
good week versus like several pretty good weeks, you could
actually sell more books. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
Like, I truly don't know what the subject of today's
episode is. So thank you just for letting me have
this ego boost moment.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
But like the.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
First week that a book is released, it also counts
pre orders. Yeah, so they can all go into it,
I mean. And so if you're inclined to want to
pre order my new book coming out in May, The
Arcane Arts by sd coverly, which is a fun little pseudonym,
please please pre order it.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
But you know, not to brag. Anatomy stayed on the
New York Times bestseller list for nine weeks.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
Number I stayed at number one the whole time. Stay
number one for like for a few weeks at least
a few weeks. Stayed on the list for a little while.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
And if anyone out there, like can make this happen,
I still want a movie with Sadie sink Is Hazel.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
I would love that someone someone has bought the rights,
But if you want to pay them to make the movie.
That would be fantastic. Sadie Sink would be so good
as Hazel.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
I just think, I just want that, I just want it.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
Should we just send a copy to Sadie Sink? If
anyone knows Sadie Sink, let me know.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
Yeah, okay, so spoiler for I don't know ten minutes
from now. Today's hoax is about like a book hoax
that has to do with not strictly the bestseller list,
but like lists in general.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
Oh, I can't wait, And it's a little bit of
a shorty. People do hoax the New York Times bestseller list.
They scam it all the time. And if you ever
are reading the New York Times list and see a
little dagger next to it, it means bulk bys, which
is usually like politicians because it means they basically just
bought a million copies of their own books to like
(05:26):
sell or give away at like events, So bulk like
that's like, okay, you're on the list, but like with
a with a with a dagger.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
With a dagger, which is their little version of an asterisk.
And also like there are other versions of this where
you know, if you go to like a book signing.
A lot of times the ticket to the book signing
will include the cost of the book and you, so
it like it forces you to buy it. So even
if you've already purchased the book, you can't just bring
your own copy. You have to whatever. So all of
(05:56):
which is to say, we're going to get to the
hoax in a second. But I wanted to start with
talking about your book, which I think very much legitimately
earned its place on the New York Times Best Selle,
thank you very much. Then I want to talk about
one of these dagger scandals that I think is really fun,
and then we're going to talk about the hoax, just
(06:18):
because I like talking about all this time.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
I mean, it's a fun the ego boost to get
to say New York Times bestselling author. So I get
why people want to scam the system.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
And I also think it's like a little bit of
a victimless crime because it's like, you know, I'm.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
The victim one, I'm the victim because it dilutes the prestige.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
Well, let's get into it, Okay, Dana, do you remember
the twenty seventeen handbook for mortals scandal. I don't know
what this is at all with a author named Lanny Saram.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
The name Handbook for Mortals sounds familiar, but I wouldn't
be able to say anything else.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
This has been lodged so deep in my brain of
my like chronically online like I think twenty seventeen was
the peak of my Twitter addiction, and all of this
went down on Twitter, and I just I'm so excited
to have a reason to talk about this, because all
this knowledge has just been bouncing around in my brain
(07:20):
for the better part of a decade now, and I'm
just so glad that we can just talk about it.
I can't wait. I can't believe I missed literary Twitter drama. Well, yes,
so it was hya Twitter drama, but it all took
place over the course of like twenty three hours. Okay,
so at least tell me it was just a nutty
thing that happened. So in twenty seventeen, there was a
website called geek Nation. Okay. It was founded by the
(07:44):
actress Claire Kramer, who you probably would know she played
Glory on season five of Buffy. Okay, and her husband,
and it was like not even that popular of a website.
They announced that they're starting like a publishing arm. Okay,
and they're going to start with this planned five book
(08:07):
fantasy series by this author Lannie Saram. The first is
called Handbook for Mortals. Good it's a good name. Yeah,
I like it. And it's about this like young woman
who can do magic. She comes from a magical family
and she like moves to Vegas and is part of
(08:28):
a Vegas act. I mean it sounds like a good
ya book. And also they're going to make movies of
it and she's going to star. She Lannie is going
to star in the movie what the author huh? And
it's going to be co produced and co star thomas
Ian Nicholas, who you would recognize his face. He was
(08:50):
like in the American Pie movies and he was in
Rookie of the Year and a kid in King Arthur's Court,
which is that like Disney movie where.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
He Okay, I see, I see who this this kid is. Yeah,
I know who he is. I can also picture now
the cover of the book. Are there cards on it?
Speaker 1 (09:12):
It's a woman who is blindfolded and she's sitting in
front of a big target. Oh yeah yeah, and there's
like knives like a throwing ass. Yes, okay, it will
later come to be revealed that the cover was like
plagiarized from another piece of art. Sure, yeah, gaya. They
announced this movie with like a sort of child that
(09:35):
has been movie star. Yeah, they're like, oh, this guess
what we're like launching a whole thing. They like, run
this announcement in the Hollywood Reporter, which doesn't usually comment
on like publishing news, but somehow they get it in
the Hollywood Reporter. You can do that. Nobody really takes
notice until all of a sudden. So this is like
(09:56):
summer twenty seventeen. Do you remember that book That Hate
You Give? Yeah, Angie Thomas. Angie Thomas has been at
the top of the YA bestseller list for I think
like six months. Yeah it is. It was a rock.
It was a big, big hit, and everyone's wondering, like,
what is going to knock The Hate You Give off
of the top? Yeah, spot And all of a sudden,
(10:20):
Handbook for Mortals is the number one on the New
York Times bestseller list. And why a Twitter, which is
a group of people you don't want to piss off. No,
please don't be mad at me. Why Twitter? Oh my god,
Dana innocent never never come for her. They're like, there's
(10:40):
something little fishy going on here. Yeah, because this is
an author no one has heard of. This is a
book no one has heard of. This has a handful
of Amazon reviews, all of which are five stars, all
of which look identical.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
And I will also say, okay, so you know how
you can tell if someone has paid for followers on
social media if their engagement is super low. You can
like tell if a book is popular or not by
like if it has good Reads reviews, if it has
Amazon reviews. Like also, books come out. It takes so
long for books to come out that there is like
(11:16):
hype machines that happens, Like this book that's coming out
in May, the Rkane Arts is not coming out four months,
and I was at New York Comic Con in October
to promote that book. Like that's just a thing coming
out of nowhere. It happens, but it's.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
Rare, It's very rare, and everyone's like, what is going on.
It has a handful of Amazon reviews, all five stars,
all exactly the same, a handful of Goodreads review all
five stars, all exactly the same. It's listed as out
of stock on Amazon, and according to Nielsen BookScan, it
has sold eighteen thousand copies.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
Which is nuts for a random YA book like you
will hit the New York Times bestseller list on like
an off week with like four thousand five.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
Yes, everyone's like, does anyone else think that's weird? So
they start they meaning like the denizens of Ya Book Twitter,
start getting dms from booksellers being like, hey, all this
past week, we've been getting phone calls from people being like,
(12:21):
do you report your sales to the New York Times?
Because the way that the Times collects information it's not
like that scientific. It's basically like a good faith effort.
They have a secret list of bookstores that just self
report what they're selling that week. And they'd been getting
(12:43):
phone calls being like, hey, are you a Times reporting bookstore,
And if they answered yes, then the person would be like, Okay,
We're going to do an author event at your bookstore.
I'm going to I'd like to place a book order
for ninety copies, ohbook for mortals. Yeah. So they start
get dms from different booksellers and they like blow it
up on Twitter, and then things start getting really bad.
(13:09):
Just people coming out of the woodwork to like cancel Lannie,
just being like, so her day job had been that
she was the tour manager for the band Blues Traveler. Okay,
and also the actor who played Jasper in Twilight his
band Oh sure. So Blues Traveler comes out and is like, yeah,
(13:31):
we had to fire her because she was always doing
shit like this, And the actor who played Jasper is like, yeah,
she sucks. Oh my god. Yeah. The artist who did
the original artwork that the cover was play darized from
is like, this is really uncool.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
So she was calling these bookstores and like placing these
orders that like the bookstores, but like presumably people wouldn't
buy them from the bookstores, right.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
They were offering to like pay the bookstores. Oh they
were like, well buy it from you. Yeah, like we're
buying it. Yeah, everything is going wrong. And the fact
that it was knocking the Hate You Give off of
the top spot gave this whole thing sort of like
people are coming for her the hate like a social
justice way exactly.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
The Hate You Give is a young adult novel about
a young black woman who sees one of her friends
killed by the police. Yes, so it is a very
socially conscious book and to like sort of take it
down with like a scam would get eyeballs.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
Yes, And I to be very clear, I don't think
Lanny had anything against or maybe was even aware of
the hate you give. Yeah, it was entirely about self promotion.
But the fact that the hate you give was like
a beloved book that Angie Thomas was also like a
first time author. It it made people be like, Lannie
(14:51):
is white entitlement personified, and it's greed and blah blah blah, which, like,
with a little bit of distance, I find the whole
thing kind of funny and not necessarily so sinister. But
at the time people were like, you know, this is
like real moral bankruptcy, and really they were very very simple.
(15:12):
People overreacted on Twitter, Dana, You're never gonna believe people
found a way to make this about morality and not
just selling books.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
Yeah, not just like a kind of shitty scam. But
it's like, I don't think she did it out of racism.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
Who knows, But I wouldn't say that that was the
primary I wouldn't say that that was like the primary
driving force. At least part of this scheme, whether she
knew it or not, was run through a company called
result Source, which is still around. It's a company that basically,
if you pay them enough money, they will put you
(15:50):
on the bestseller list. They will get you that dagger.
It's like the company that does this, they'll coordinate all
of the bulk buys. They kind of got in trouble
a few years ago, not because like listen, if you're
a CEO and you publish a book about being a
CEO and you want to get it on the bestseller list,
(16:13):
and so you do both buys and then you give
all of your employees a copy of your book. Like whatever,
it's one week, what happens. Whatever. But they kind of
got like in a little bit of trouble because also,
like megachurch pastors would do this and they would use
like money collected from their congregants to do it, and
(16:34):
it's like that's actually sort of tax fraud. So Results
Source has sort of like gone quiet. They used to
be like, hey, we'll get you on the best seller list,
and then after that scandal happened, they were like, oh wait,
we're just like a promote our, We're just a conversation.
So they kind of tried to hide their involvement in
this whole Landy Sarum thing, but they were definitely part
(16:57):
of it. You know, it's not it's the level to
which it is unethical sort of depends on, like how
sanctified you believe the New York Times Bestseller list to be.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
Well, I also think it like in the book world,
there are just systems, like it is hard to sell books, yes,
book sellers and bookstores, Like it is hard to be
a bookstore, it is hard to be an author. And
I do think there are systems in place, like the
New York Times list does help other bookstores because Okay,
(17:31):
let's say a different bookstore saw on the New York
Times bestseller list, like, oh gosh, there's this book that's
number one that we don't have in stock. They will
order that book, assuming that people will want to buy it.
And like bookstores do not have huge margins. So I
don't think it's like I don't know, don't put her
(17:53):
in prison.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
But I think it's like a.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
Thing that I can't get behind because I'm like looking
about books, is we just like love reading books, and
like it is so hard to make it as an
author or a bookseller, and like we shouldn't exploit those
things selfishly, even if it's like it's not a crime.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
Yeah, I mean it's definitely tacky. What one interesting thing,
so I read all these articles about this, one interesting
thing that came out is that like, yes, bookstores run
on very thin margins. And what one of the booksellers
said is like, there is if you're a New York
Times reporting store, there is no reason to take the
(18:35):
high road. Yeah. If someone calls and says, hey, are
you a New York Times reporting store, there is no
reason to be like nope, because if you say yes,
they're probably going to order ninety books from you, and
that's a really good sales day. Yeah, and you want
that sale. I don't blame the bookstores at all. They're like, no,
(18:56):
this system benefits us. They're like, why would we not
just be like, yeah, we're a New York Times reporting bookstore.
Do you want to place a bulk sale like that?
Do you want to do your author event here so
that you can place a bulk sale through us and
not through one of our competitors. They're like, that's the
difference between a bad sales day and a good sales day.
So they're like, we're not fighting it. We're not fighting
(19:18):
this corruption. We want to sell books. We don't care
if it's for your ego. We want to sell books.
That's interesting. Lannie has her own explanation, okay, of how
all of these sales came to be Yeah, which I
think is far more creative than anything she could possibly write.
(19:39):
Magic almost What is her explanation? So, first of all,
she says that she wrote this as a screenplay. Sure,
then they said, you know, we will fund this screenplay
if you can turn it into a book, and that
book hits the bestseller list, And I'm like, honestly, girl,
Hollywood is so hot, like IP, like cells, that makes sense.
(20:04):
That makes perfect sense to me, Like that someone would
tell her that, and that she would be like, Okay,
how much do I have to spend to get this
on the bestseller list? I just want to make a movie. Yeah.
That makes much cheaper to get something on the best
seller less than just to make a movie. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
But also hitting the bestseller list, to be totally honest,
does not actually make a cute difference with IP. A
lot of we don't have to get into this, but
a lot of producers will be like, yeah, I'll buy
your unpublished short story because then they don't have to
pay for like rights and stuff whatever.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
But keep going. I'm just saying, I can understand that
someone would give her this questionable advice and that she
would believe it. Yes, like it does make sense to me.
So her explanation is that she and Thomas Ian Nicholas,
the actor, then the actor, went to a ton of
conventions like comic cons and fan conventions and like nostalgia conventions,
(20:58):
and that she would sit at his booth with like
a I don't even know what materials she had, but
basically she took pre orders, and she took eighteen thousand
pre orders wow, for this book. And that then when
it became when it was like pub week, instead of
(21:21):
fulfilling those pre orders directly from her publisher, which wouldn't
have counted in the New York Times system because they
don't count like direct to consumer sales at conventions, oh,
she decided to fulfill them through bookstores because she wanted
to hit the New York Times bestseller list, I mean smart.
(21:42):
And she's like, I don't understand why that's unethical. These
were individual sales that I made to individuals who wanted
to buy my book. I just ran them through the
system so that they would count. I mean, that is true,
But why didn't you just say pre order through this
bookstore because she was standing right there. And also, this
(22:04):
didn't this didn't happen.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
But again, you cannot pre order through your favorite local bookstore.
And in fact, if you're listening, I would love for
you to pre order Lee R.
Speaker 1 (22:13):
Kane, I it's from your favorite local bookstore. I agree. Also,
so she's basically claiming that she's sold like two thousand
books per convention. Yeah, that's not George R. R. Martin
cannot sell more than a few hundred books per convention. Yeah,
that's that's our explanation is She's like, well, George R. R.
Martin's an author. I was sitting next to a celebrity. Aha,
(22:35):
the star of American Pie, the star of American Pie.
And the reason that all of these people attacked me
is because I'm not part of their little ya author club.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
No, that's not I'm definitely not in any club, and
so far, no one, not when no one's attacked me.
Speaker 1 (22:50):
But no, she no, no, that's not that's not accurate.
And she's like, I'm just a hustler, baby, I mean
that is accurate. No, no, detected. I think it's like
so stupid a conclusion of this mini scam before we
get into the hoax, which no, this is not the
house right before we get into the hoax. I do
(23:13):
think I don't want to say others because I don't
want to get attacked. I think some people can be
a bit self righteous about things. I also think some
book communities are very self righteous. I also do think
like finding liars and canceling them is fun and good
and like continue to do it, like, yes, that is
fun and funny.
Speaker 2 (23:32):
Scandals are fun. Cancel culture it happened because piling on
is fun.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
Like yes, if you find out that someone fake their
way into a bestseller list, like dig it up and
call them out, like that's fine. Did she write the
rest of the five was it five books trilogy? Yeah?
She The website is still active and you can like
sup the you can like order a signed copy of
the book. But it also is like we're releasing the
(24:00):
movie in twenty nineteen, which, like you know, it came
and went. But I also think what she I just
want to say, like I think what she did is
like a teeny tiny bit punk rock I mean, I
I will say it's funny. I will also say, like,
if you don't think that the big publishing houses are
essentially deciding which books become best sellers, Yeah, Like they
(24:24):
decide who gets the marketing. They decide who gets like
the prime spots at you know, Comic Con. They decide
who gets the celebrity endorsements. Oh, and it says the
New York Times did remove the book from his ranking,
so and which she brags about online. She's like, I'm
the only person who's been removed from the bestseller list.
(24:45):
Like she's interesting, you can look her up. All of
which is to say, like, if you think that just
because they don't have a dagger next to them, that
they're on the best seller list because of pure talent
and purely the strain of the book, that is not
necessarily true.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
Can I also say I googled this and I did
get an excerpt from the first chapter.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
Can I radio a sentence? Absolutely? Apparently the pros is
not good. Quote.
Speaker 2 (25:16):
People tell me I'm pretty all the time, beautiful, even
I'm not sure I see what they see. I think
I'm more of a cute, average looking girl. I'm slender,
but I do not believe most would say skinny, not
hot girl, skinny. At least I have long legs that
are toned. But I think my thighs are too large
and I do not have a thigh gap. My arms
are kind of flabby, and while I do have an
(25:37):
hour glass figure I have, I've always felt that my
butt is a little too big and my face is
a little bit too round.
Speaker 1 (25:45):
Listen, I've tried to read some of the stuff that
book talk promotes and it is not that much better.
I'm not going to name names. Also say, you know,
like we all just need to take lists less seriously.
Tailor you're more pro Lannie than I am. I'm not.
I'm prone coming out.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
I want to be on the record as I think
this is like a little icky, all of it.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
I think it's a little ichy. But I just think
like people are always jumping down Taylor Swift's throat for
like selling different vinyls because she's trying to like manipulate
the But no, no.
Speaker 2 (26:19):
Here's the difference. You know what the deal is with Taylor
Swift vinyls. People are buying them. Human beings who want
those vinyls are buying them.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
Taylor Swift gets to do whatever I means. Taylor Swift
supposedly her dad bought all the copies of her first album.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
But okay, fine, we'll talk about that.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
Which you know what I would do for my daughter
if I had the money and she wanted to be
a country star. Should we talk about the actual hoax?
Let's get into that, okay. So the reason that I
wanted to talk about Lanny Saram is because this hoax
has to do not strictly with the New York Times
bestseller List, but with just books and lists in general.
(26:59):
And so I thought it would be fun to talk
about how goofy these lists are and have always been great.
Do you know who Jeene Shepherd is? Now? Should I know?
But I thought it would be funny to show that
there's someone who you don't know who they are. I
didn't until I started researching this. Jean Shepherd was a
radio host who started his career in the Army Signal
(27:22):
Corps during World War Two.
Speaker 2 (27:24):
He moved through oh I am I am behind at
my World War Two radio hosts.
Speaker 1 (27:30):
Okay, he does more. He was like a cult comedian. Basically,
he landed in New York at the station WO R
in the mid fifties, and his shtick was that he talked.
He was basically like one of the fathers of talk radio.
He was always getting fired for not playing enough music
(27:51):
and for just talking. Yeah, he would take calls, but
usually he would take them like during ad breaks to
get people's back and talk through like different concepts, and
he would just expound on the topics of the day,
whatever was on his mind. The original podcaster. Truly, he
(28:12):
would have thrived in the age of the podcast. Like
I have this written down here. He was way ahead
of his time. He should have been a podcaster. He
was a storyteller. He was very funny. He was like
anti establishment, but he was in a gentle, folksy Midwestern way.
(28:35):
He was not like crude or sexual, but he was
very smart and he would just sort of This was
like the era of the monologue. So like if you picture,
you know, Lenny Bruce is downtown just kind of like
spouting off, and you have Mortsaul the comedian. He would
just get up on stage and open the newspaper and
(28:56):
just talk about whatever was in the newspaper. So he's
the guy on the radio doing that. He wouldn't write
things down beforehand. He would just talk about whatever, whatever
was on his mind. He's doing jazz talk, literally freeform jazz.
This is like the era of Nichols in May. So
it's like it's cool to be smart, and it's also
a very buttoned up time. People are so square and
(29:20):
he's hip. He's downtown. He's not exactly edgy, but he's
talking to you adult to adult. Yeah, and he's funny.
I see why he's a hit. He's not quite a hit. Okay, well,
I see why he has an audience. Man, he's a
cult hit, cult hit. He is sort of like early
(29:42):
days Mark Marin Yeah, or a Dave von Wrong. And
he's like you know, you know, if you know, you know,
he's like the comics comic he's like the guy's guy.
And a lot of the stories that he tells, uh
are not true because he would run out of true
story from his childhood, so he would just make them up.
(30:03):
Stand up comedy. Da, do you ever just lie for fun?
Speaker 2 (30:06):
I do not, But my husband is a stand up comedian.
And I know for a fact that sometimes sometimes when
comedians say I was on the way here today and
you'll never guess what happened, I hate to tell you
but that it did not happen on the way there today,
maybe a something tangential related to that thing happened at
(30:28):
some point in their life. Yeah, but that is how
stand up comedy goes.
Speaker 1 (30:31):
Yeah. I used to enter when I was in middle school.
I would enter speech and debate competitions under the name
Jasmine Mahogany, your porn star name. Yeah. I thought it
was really funny. I was like, oh, my parents were hippies.
Speaker 2 (30:46):
I mean, you lived in San Francisco, it's not implausible.
Speaker 1 (30:50):
And then I remember one night in high school it
was like me and my friends went out to pizza
and we met these guys and we were like, let's
just lie to them, Like, let's just lie to them
about who we are.
Speaker 2 (31:02):
One time, a friend and I were lying at a
show and pretended to have bad British accents and then
like our cover was like, oh, we grew up, like
we know, our accents are weird, Like we traveled a
lot when we were kids, so our accents are like,
you know, from Hodgepodge, blah blah blah.
Speaker 1 (31:17):
And I was just like, I don't know. Yeah, I
told this guy that because we had just like found
out we had just gotten into colleges, and we were like,
let's just lie about where we're going to college. And
then when they got to me, I was like, oh,
I've been homeschooled because I'm like training for the Olympics.
That's a cool eye. What's part I think gymnastics okay,
which I very too tall, but if you've ever seen me,
(31:38):
also just not athletic. But he didn't know.
Speaker 2 (31:41):
No men famously stupid. Yeah, and also like that was
a joke to his carman get mad.
Speaker 1 (31:48):
To his credit, it would be very wrong for a
man to be like, you clearly don't work out that much.
Speaker 2 (31:55):
Yeah, no, that would be rude. I also will say
I get nervous lying because the thought of anyone being
mad at me at any time stresses me out. And
so if I lie, then the thought is that at
some point someone might say to you, hey, that was
a lie, and then I would I think, break out
in hithes and dissolve onto the floor. So the thought
(32:15):
of that, the lying is fun, I think in theory,
but the thought of anyone confronting me really terrifies me.
Speaker 1 (32:23):
Yeah. Yeah, Later on Shepherd would say like, oh, I
was just telling stories that I thought of and I
just said them in the first person, but I didn't
think for anyone to think that they had happened to me,
which is like.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
But if that like format hasn't been formalized yet, people
listen to it and assume it is true because he's not, like,
he's not doing it like this American lifestyle.
Speaker 1 (32:48):
No one got mad though, Okay, that's what I'm trying
to get. Oh great, it's just like you have no idea,
Like people would go back later and be like, we
have no idea what his childhood was at because half
the shit couldn't have happen. Oh so this isn't the Haks. Yeah,
oh wow, I must always trying to establish that he's
kind of a liar, okay, right, So he starts being
(33:13):
on in the afternoon, but eventually they move him to
the middle of the night because he keeps telling these
goofy stories and he won't play any music. Sure, he's
on from one am to five thirty am, sure the
real Nighthawk hours, the real night hours, and he's by himself,
and they don't want to pay to keep the studio
(33:35):
in Manhattan open, so he's up in Jersey broadcasting directly
from the transmitter. Okay, so which is like really hot.
It's just like a big machine. So he's sitting there
just in his like underwear, just talking into a microphone
for four and a half hours. Amazing. Yeah, and it
gets very intimate and like when you were talking about
(33:57):
like cult following, like truly just like the Cult of
Jane show.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
I mean, yeah, if you know, you know, it's a
guy at one in the morning in his underwear just
talking to.
Speaker 1 (34:06):
You, just free flow letting it into the mic. And
he calls his listeners the night people. That makes sense.
Speaker 2 (34:14):
And also I think part of the cult thing if
I just hearing it, like radio at this time is ephemeral,
like maybe they might record it, you know sometimes for
some things, but like not always.
Speaker 1 (34:25):
No, And we have a number of his shows recorded
from fans, yeah, because they really liked him and they
wanted to record it. So if you're a night person,
it's not just that you work at night, it's actually
you are like activated by the night. It's that, you know,
day people are the ones who the daytime is their
(34:47):
real life, like going into the office and obeying by
society's rules. That's that they buy into that. They're like,
they focus on that and they believe in it. Not
the night people. The night people are up because they're
doing something creative. They might have an office job, but
they know that that's just what they got to get through.
(35:09):
That's the dream, and the night is the real life.
The night's the real life. It's very severance, it's very
the matrix. But it's not in like a creepy way.
Like he's a smart, grounded guy. He's just like guys
were the night people.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
Yeah, and I bet that they would have, like you said,
ahead of their time.
Speaker 1 (35:26):
I bet they would have had a great subreddit. Oh,
they would be absolutely the subreddit. And you know this
is also like not a you know, it's about like
the BEATNICKX versus the Squares. Yeah, so we're the night people.
Day people have something that he called creeping meatballism, which
is basically what he called conformity, but which is such
(35:48):
a good term that I really wanted to come back.
I feel like I know a few people with creeping meatballism.
Creeping meatballism is so good we can't really get into it,
but he wrote articles about it, and it's just so good.
He's got a really offbeat sense of humor, and his
catchphrase is excelsior, you fat head. He sounds funny. He's
(36:08):
really funny. He likes to do a little pranks. He
likes to tell his listeners to stick their radios in
the window and turn it up as loud as they
possibly can, and then he'll put music on. His show
is on the verge of getting canceled because it can't
attract sponsors. So he starts just like talking about this
one brand of soap that he really likes, and they
(36:29):
immediately cut him off and they're like, hey, that soap
doesn't sponsor your show, Like you can't just talk about it,
And he's like, I'm trying to prove that I can
sell stuff. I didn't think anyone would be mad. Apparently
he actually did help sell a lot of Miller High Life.
So if you're a fan of Miller High Life, thank
Gene Shepherd. He kept that brand around all right. Now
(36:50):
we're getting to the host that was all just stuff
about Gene Shepherd. In April nineteen fifty six, Shepherd goes
into a bookstore related related to get a book of
transcripts of one of his favorite old radio shows, Vic
and sade, and the bookseller is like, not only do
(37:10):
we not have that book, I'm looking at the publisher's
list and that book doesn't exist. Mm. So he's like
gaslighting him. And Shepherd's like, no, like I know this
book exists, Like what do you mean you can't just
like help me find this book. And the bookseller's like, nope,
it's not on the list, so it doesn't exist. And
(37:32):
he's like, man, these fucking day people with their lists,
with their list, these fucking day people with their lists,
Like he's goddamn squares in these bookstores. And he's like,
this whole town runs on lists. You think just because
it's on a list, it's got to be real, and
if it's not on the list, it's not real. And
I mean, as someone who like always does check like
(37:54):
infatuation lists for restaurants, I'm like, I do get it
where I do have this thing where I'm like, if
it's not on a list, that means it's not good, right,
and like we're just put all this but and he's like,
you know, lists are made by people, and people make mistakes, true,
and you can't just look at me and believe me
that this book exists I'm a human, right, Like, isn't
(38:15):
it possible that I'm right and the list is wrong
because the list was made by a person. Person can
be wrong. Yeah, So he's like, you know what, we
got a little prank. Let's do Let's do a prank.
Let's do a prank. So he tells all of his
night People listeners. He's like, we're gonna make up a
fake book. And no one's paying attention because it's two
in the morning, it's the middle of the night. And
(38:37):
he gets them all to call in and write in
with names of like fake authors and fake books, and
he compiles what he thinks is the best, uh, the
best one, and they decide that their fake book is
called I Libertine and it's written by a man named
Frederick R. Ewing That sounds plausible. A former British commander
(38:59):
and civil servant in Rhodesia. He is known for his
BBC broadcasts on eighteenth century erotica. And he is like, Okay, everybody,
go into your local bookstore and ask for I Libertine. Yeah,
and if and is published by Excelsior, And so if
anybody asks who's the publisher, you say, Excelsior you fat head.
(39:21):
That's funny, and people do hundreds of people do great.
And also because he is on in the middle of
the night, a lot of like flight attendants listen to
him because they have crazy hours. So this this prank
goes international amazing, and all of these booksellers are like,
what is going on. I've never heard of this book.
(39:43):
They're calling each other, They're like, what's going on, what's
going on? And people start writing in and calling in
with like the results of the prank. Apparently, I mean,
all of this can't be confirmed, and I'm sure people
are making stuff up to make it seem like the
prank was bigger than it was. But these are the
reports of how big the prank got. Apparently some bookseller
(40:04):
who wanted to seem very in the know was like,
I'm so glad Americans are catching on to Frederick Ewing's work.
Speaker 2 (40:12):
Aha, that is actually very plausible, very plausible.
Speaker 1 (40:15):
Right, And some editor is overheart some gossip columnist overhears
an editor saying like, oh, yes, I was having lunch
with Frederick Ewing last week. It's like those videos that
people used to make where it was like people pretending
that they'd heard of really obscure bands that didn't exist
at Coachella.
Speaker 2 (40:36):
And again, this is like an era like pre Internet,
where you can't quite fact check these things, where so
much of the literary world at this time is like
word of mouth.
Speaker 1 (40:44):
And well what's cool. So it's like, yeah, these people
want to be cool. College students are turning in book
reports on I Libertine and they're like getting good grades
on that. The professor can't google it. Not what's're gonna do.
There's a listener in boss who uh works for the
archdiocese and puts it on a list of banned books,
(41:06):
and then the entire city of Boston bans it. It's
not really like a secret because again he's like doing
this on the radio. Yeah it's the middle of the night,
but it's still the radio. By August, first, the prank
is over. He talks to the Wall Street Journal for
an interview. He explains the whole thing, and everyone is
(41:26):
calling the powers that be at w R. They're like,
this is a great story. Tell us more like it's
a big hit and thinks he's really funny for doing this.
Speaker 2 (41:35):
Well, you know what, it's a it's a I think,
actually a great hoax because it's like inclusive, like the
night people who got to listen, like got to feel
like part of a club. Everyone got to be in
on the joke.
Speaker 1 (41:46):
They're in on the joke. And it's also like, you know,
it's showing that, like you day, people aren't smarter than
anybody else. If we tell you something's real, you'll believe us.
It's this is this is a delightful hoax and I
love it. So glad Ian Valentine, the publisher Valentine Books
from Valentine Books, gets wind of it, and he's like, well,
(42:08):
if a bunch of people want a book called I Libertine,
let's give him a book called I Libertine. That's pretty smart.
And it's unclear who got who in touch with who,
but Ballentine, his wife, a sci fi writer named Theodore Sturgeon,
and Shepherd all get together and they write a book.
(42:29):
I'm glad Shepherd was involved in this. He was involved
kind of barely. Well, I hope he made a little money,
but he got some money. There's at least one report
that said the money went to charity. But all right,
he had it was not without his consents. He was involved,
and they write a book about an eighteenth century duchess
called I Libertine, and they publish it and they have
(42:55):
like a little meetup of the night people where he
signs copies. That's so fun. Din know what you like
to read a passage from I Liberty? I really would
loo kind of your computer. Yes, so I got through
the first two chapters. You know, it's it's a silly book.
I selected a passage in which this carriage driver is
(43:15):
talking to his like lord, is this a sexy book? Yeah?
But not really. It's like fake sexy. A carriage driver
is talking to his lord. And I thought it would
be funny to hear because it's written with like a
really harsh accent, right, And I thought it would be
(43:38):
funny to make you do.
Speaker 2 (43:39):
It, given then I had faked a British accent. Okay,
I have to read this whole thing.
Speaker 1 (43:45):
I think you should. And a pity Piggott aimed his
whip handle at the young man's broadcloth. England and Prussia
rule the ruddy world, this ruddy Domino seventeen hundred and
sixty nine sixty nine, he orated. And those that rule
the world take the orders of their ostlers, aye their valets,
(44:06):
and their maids of ruddy honor. They do what they're
told they do because their servants always know what's happening,
and they can't know till they're told. Like our ruddy
great General wanting to know what's happening over the ale,
he could ask is Batman, and likely he does. Otherwise
it's someone else is Batman who finds out or to
(44:26):
go all the way down the line we already asked
grenadier who finally sticks his head over and eats grape
shot for his breakfast. And ooh's more of a servant
than anybody's ruddy foot soldier. I'd like to know, while.
Speaker 2 (44:41):
You're about learning your airs and graces, my lad, never
forget to leave an ear in the scullery, and be
grateful to whoever keeps the wax out of it.
Speaker 1 (44:50):
For ye, what were we talking about? You were making
some libelous remarks about miss Chudley. Now, Lad, twas slander
the old man. Correct.
Speaker 2 (45:02):
That's funny, and it also embodies the idea of the
night people and the day people.
Speaker 1 (45:06):
Yeah, all the.
Speaker 2 (45:07):
Day people with their fancy airs, But the people who
really know the stuff are the you know, the footman
and Batman and.
Speaker 1 (45:14):
And they know the difference between libel and slander. They
do know the difference between lebel and slander. Yeah, just
to wrap up what happened to Jeane Shephard, he did
not stay broadcasting in the night forever. He was eventually
taken back to the daytime. He wrote for the Village Voice,
and he wrote a lot of his childhood stories up
(45:38):
for Playboy. His like fun fake childhood stories. Yeah, his
you know, exaggerated. He's I mean, I hope this is
like not bursting anyone's bubble. David Sedaris is an exaggerator.
I think he's sort of in that tradition. He published
a group of them in nineteen sixty six as a
(45:58):
novel called In God We Trust All Others Pay Cash,
And in nineteen eighty three it was turned into a
movie called a Christmas Story. Wow what Yeah, And he
is the narrator of that movie. So you have heard
Jean Shepherd's voice, Lizzie Logan, what a twist at the
end of this episode.
Speaker 2 (46:16):
Indeed, In God We Trust All Others Pay Cash is
very funny.
Speaker 1 (46:19):
It's good. He died in nineteen ninety nine, Oh my god.
And yeah, he's the great American comic voice you have
heard but never heard of. That's that's a great hoax.
And this was the This was the funny little I
Libertine hoax that he perpetrated. I love it.
Speaker 2 (46:39):
I like a little feeling like you're part of a club. Yeah,
even though I go to bed at nine o'clock every night,
so I'm not a night person and I buy my
clothes from Nord's rooms. I'm like, there's nothing night person
about me. But I'm like, yeah, stick it to the man.
Speaker 1 (46:55):
Yeah, we're not very hip, but you're hip. You're from
San Francisco. I am so hip. You know. I think
we're smart and we're not. We're not total meatballs.
Speaker 2 (47:08):
We're not total meatballs. Well, Lizzie Logan, where can the
night People find you?
Speaker 1 (47:13):
The night people can find me? Post on all about
this podcast at hoax the Podcast on Instagram, Dana where
can the People find you?
Speaker 2 (47:22):
Uh find me at at Dana Schwartz with three z's
at the end on Instagram and TikTok, and you can
email me at Hoaxthpodcast at gmail dot com.
Speaker 1 (47:33):
I do read those emails.
Speaker 2 (47:35):
Indeed, Please if you're enjoying the show, UH leave a
leave a rating, leave, leave a re you.
Speaker 1 (47:41):
We want to get up on those podcast lists. I
know we're we're gluttons for the charts part of them
for so much of this episode, but now I'm like,
but I want to be your best silly podcast.
Speaker 2 (47:52):
Yeah, make us a best selling podcast. Listen to the show,
send it to your friends.
Speaker 1 (47:56):
Bulk by the podcast, just send.
Speaker 2 (47:58):
It to everyone, Make multiple email addresses to leave multiple reviews.
Speaker 1 (48:03):
Juice the numbers, scam us to the top, and as always,
please hoax responsibly by Hoax is a production of iHeart Podcasts.
(48:24):
Our hosts are Danish Schortz and Lizzie Logan. Our executive
producers are Matt Frederick and Trevor Young, with supervising producer
Rima L. K Ali and producers Nomes Griffin and Jesse Funk.
Our theme music was composed by Laine Montgomery. For more
podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for listening.
You're listening to Hoax, a production of iHeart Podcasts. Folks,
it's a hug. No one I haven't seen, when us
to see the last. Welcome to Hoax, a podcast about
(00:22):
the lies we wish were true and truths that sound
like lies. I'm the ghost of Danish Swartz and I'm
the evil twin of Lizzie Logan. Welcome to the show.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Dana.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
You're a New York Times best selling author twice over.
Think yes, thank you. These are fact. These are facts.
These are just the truth. Can you tell me how
that happened? Uh?
Speaker 2 (00:46):
Yeah, I mean it happened that. I just wrote a
book that called Anatomy, a love story about a girl
who wants to be a surgeon in nineteenth century Edinburgh,
because I love like gross stories about surgery and things
like that and Frankenstein inspired stories. And then I wrote
this book and then kind of like just the miracle
(01:07):
of like the editor liked it, the publisher liked it,
I got a great cover design, which.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
Is a beautiful cover, and it's also a rock and book.
It's thank you very much.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
And then one day your agent just gives you like
the best Oh and it was a Reese Witherspoon was
nice enough to choose it for her book club. The
first the first one, okay, which like is really nice.
And then you just get a really nice call from
an agent one day that says it is number one on.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
The list, amazing, on the YA it was on the
YA card cover New York Times list, Okay, amazing. And
then the sequel to that, Mortality, also hit number one.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Hit number one, another really nice phone call from an agent.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Okay, great? And what is that? Like? I don't want
to ask you, like, you know, gross numbers, money questions,
but what is that? Like, you know, for the listener
at home who has never heard of book, Like, what
does that mean? Does that just mean like a lot
of people bought it? Like, does that mean you're rich
and can retire? No? It does what I mean? What
does that mean? It does not mean I'm rich and
(02:07):
can retire.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
It means I mean, honestly, every week for the New
York Times List, it's like you could have a lucky
week or an unlucky week, like you could be going
up against like I don't know what, like the hot
like Dragon, but the new Hunger Games book, and then
it's just like you're just not gonna Those are on
a different level. So I was probably lucky that like,
no big Ya book was coming out the week I
(02:28):
was released. I don't ask about numbers because it stresses
me out. But what it means is a lot of
country other countries want to publish it because they look
at the New York Times list. So it's been translated
a bunch, and it means I get royalties. So yeah,
it's it's really nice. It's a big ego boost. I
get to say New York Times bestseller. On everything else
(02:49):
I write, it's great.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
I yeah, no complaints, done out of ten. Yeah, good experience.
But it's also like, even if you can still sell
well and not.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Make the list, especially for really competitive categories like nonfiction,
where there's always like some like I don't know a
diet or like podcastro book like that you'd just be
going up against, or some like I don't know republican memoir,
And also like hardcover nonfiction is really hard, so our
hardcover fiction as well.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
So you can also sell.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
Really well and be you know, a really well received
book and not make the New York Times Top ten
just because it was a kind of a fluke of
a week.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
And also because like if you sold like half that
many books but like every week, yeah you know what
I mean, you can be a sleeper hit one really
good week versus like several pretty good weeks, you could
actually sell more books. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
Like, I truly don't know what the subject of today's
episode is. So thank you just for letting me have
this ego boost moment.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
But like the.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
First week that a book is released, it also counts
pre orders. Yeah, so they can all go into it,
I mean. And so if you're inclined to want to
pre order my new book coming out in May, The
Arcane Arts by sd coverly, which is a fun little pseudonym,
please please pre order it.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
But you know, not to brag. Anatomy stayed on the
New York Times bestseller list for nine weeks.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
Number I stayed at number one the whole time. Stay
number one for like for a few weeks at least
a few weeks. Stayed on the list for a little while.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
And if anyone out there, like can make this happen,
I still want a movie with Sadie sink Is Hazel.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
I would love that someone someone has bought the rights,
But if you want to pay them to make the movie.
That would be fantastic. Sadie Sink would be so good
as Hazel.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
I just think, I just want that, I just want it.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
Should we just send a copy to Sadie Sink? If
anyone knows Sadie Sink, let me know.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
Yeah, okay, so spoiler for I don't know ten minutes
from now. Today's hoax is about like a book hoax
that has to do with not strictly the bestseller list,
but like lists in general.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
Oh, I can't wait, And it's a little bit of
a shorty. People do hoax the New York Times bestseller list.
They scam it all the time. And if you ever
are reading the New York Times list and see a
little dagger next to it, it means bulk bys, which
is usually like politicians because it means they basically just
bought a million copies of their own books to like
(05:26):
sell or give away at like events, So bulk like
that's like, okay, you're on the list, but like with
a with a with a dagger.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
With a dagger, which is their little version of an asterisk.
And also like there are other versions of this where
you know, if you go to like a book signing.
A lot of times the ticket to the book signing
will include the cost of the book and you, so
it like it forces you to buy it. So even
if you've already purchased the book, you can't just bring
your own copy. You have to whatever. So all of
(05:56):
which is to say, we're going to get to the
hoax in a second. But I wanted to start with
talking about your book, which I think very much legitimately
earned its place on the New York Times Best Selle,
thank you very much. Then I want to talk about
one of these dagger scandals that I think is really fun,
and then we're going to talk about the hoax, just
(06:18):
because I like talking about all this time.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
I mean, it's a fun the ego boost to get
to say New York Times bestselling author. So I get
why people want to scam the system.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
And I also think it's like a little bit of
a victimless crime because it's like, you know, I'm.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
The victim one, I'm the victim because it dilutes the prestige.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
Well, let's get into it, Okay, Dana, do you remember
the twenty seventeen handbook for mortals scandal. I don't know
what this is at all with a author named Lanny Saram.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
The name Handbook for Mortals sounds familiar, but I wouldn't
be able to say anything else.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
This has been lodged so deep in my brain of
my like chronically online like I think twenty seventeen was
the peak of my Twitter addiction, and all of this
went down on Twitter, and I just I'm so excited
to have a reason to talk about this, because all
this knowledge has just been bouncing around in my brain
(07:20):
for the better part of a decade now, and I'm
just so glad that we can just talk about it.
I can't wait. I can't believe I missed literary Twitter drama. Well, yes,
so it was hya Twitter drama, but it all took
place over the course of like twenty three hours. Okay,
so at least tell me it was just a nutty
thing that happened. So in twenty seventeen, there was a
website called geek Nation. Okay. It was founded by the
(07:44):
actress Claire Kramer, who you probably would know she played
Glory on season five of Buffy. Okay, and her husband,
and it was like not even that popular of a website.
They announced that they're starting like a publishing arm. Okay,
and they're going to start with this planned five book
(08:07):
fantasy series by this author Lannie Saram. The first is
called Handbook for Mortals. Good it's a good name. Yeah,
I like it. And it's about this like young woman
who can do magic. She comes from a magical family
and she like moves to Vegas and is part of
(08:28):
a Vegas act. I mean it sounds like a good
ya book. And also they're going to make movies of
it and she's going to star. She Lannie is going
to star in the movie what the author huh? And
it's going to be co produced and co star thomas
Ian Nicholas, who you would recognize his face. He was
(08:50):
like in the American Pie movies and he was in
Rookie of the Year and a kid in King Arthur's Court,
which is that like Disney movie where.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
He Okay, I see, I see who this this kid is. Yeah,
I know who he is. I can also picture now
the cover of the book. Are there cards on it?
Speaker 1 (09:12):
It's a woman who is blindfolded and she's sitting in
front of a big target. Oh yeah yeah, and there's
like knives like a throwing ass. Yes, okay, it will
later come to be revealed that the cover was like
plagiarized from another piece of art. Sure, yeah, gaya. They
announced this movie with like a sort of child that
(09:35):
has been movie star. Yeah, they're like, oh, this guess
what we're like launching a whole thing. They like, run
this announcement in the Hollywood Reporter, which doesn't usually comment
on like publishing news, but somehow they get it in
the Hollywood Reporter. You can do that. Nobody really takes
notice until all of a sudden. So this is like
(09:56):
summer twenty seventeen. Do you remember that book That Hate
You Give? Yeah, Angie Thomas. Angie Thomas has been at
the top of the YA bestseller list for I think
like six months. Yeah it is. It was a rock.
It was a big, big hit, and everyone's wondering, like,
what is going to knock The Hate You Give off
of the top? Yeah, spot And all of a sudden,
(10:20):
Handbook for Mortals is the number one on the New
York Times bestseller list. And why a Twitter, which is
a group of people you don't want to piss off. No,
please don't be mad at me. Why Twitter? Oh my god,
Dana innocent never never come for her. They're like, there's
(10:40):
something little fishy going on here. Yeah, because this is
an author no one has heard of. This is a
book no one has heard of. This has a handful
of Amazon reviews, all of which are five stars, all
of which look identical.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
And I will also say, okay, so you know how
you can tell if someone has paid for followers on
social media if their engagement is super low. You can
like tell if a book is popular or not by
like if it has good Reads reviews, if it has
Amazon reviews. Like also, books come out. It takes so
long for books to come out that there is like
(11:16):
hype machines that happens, Like this book that's coming out
in May, the Rkane Arts is not coming out four months,
and I was at New York Comic Con in October
to promote that book. Like that's just a thing coming
out of nowhere. It happens, but it's.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
Rare, It's very rare, and everyone's like, what is going on.
It has a handful of Amazon reviews, all five stars,
all exactly the same, a handful of Goodreads review all
five stars, all exactly the same. It's listed as out
of stock on Amazon, and according to Nielsen BookScan, it
has sold eighteen thousand copies.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
Which is nuts for a random YA book like you
will hit the New York Times bestseller list on like
an off week with like four thousand five.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
Yes, everyone's like, does anyone else think that's weird? So
they start they meaning like the denizens of Ya Book Twitter,
start getting dms from booksellers being like, hey, all this
past week, we've been getting phone calls from people being like,
(12:21):
do you report your sales to the New York Times?
Because the way that the Times collects information it's not
like that scientific. It's basically like a good faith effort.
They have a secret list of bookstores that just self
report what they're selling that week. And they'd been getting
(12:43):
phone calls being like, hey, are you a Times reporting bookstore,
And if they answered yes, then the person would be like, Okay,
We're going to do an author event at your bookstore.
I'm going to I'd like to place a book order
for ninety copies, ohbook for mortals. Yeah. So they start
get dms from different booksellers and they like blow it
up on Twitter, and then things start getting really bad.
(13:09):
Just people coming out of the woodwork to like cancel Lannie,
just being like, so her day job had been that
she was the tour manager for the band Blues Traveler. Okay,
and also the actor who played Jasper in Twilight his
band Oh sure. So Blues Traveler comes out and is like, yeah,
(13:31):
we had to fire her because she was always doing
shit like this, And the actor who played Jasper is like, yeah,
she sucks. Oh my god. Yeah. The artist who did
the original artwork that the cover was play darized from
is like, this is really uncool.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
So she was calling these bookstores and like placing these
orders that like the bookstores, but like presumably people wouldn't
buy them from the bookstores, right.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
They were offering to like pay the bookstores. Oh they
were like, well buy it from you. Yeah, like we're
buying it. Yeah, everything is going wrong. And the fact
that it was knocking the Hate You Give off of
the top spot gave this whole thing sort of like
people are coming for her the hate like a social
justice way exactly.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
The Hate You Give is a young adult novel about
a young black woman who sees one of her friends
killed by the police. Yes, so it is a very
socially conscious book and to like sort of take it
down with like a scam would get eyeballs.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
Yes, And I to be very clear, I don't think
Lanny had anything against or maybe was even aware of
the hate you give. Yeah, it was entirely about self promotion.
But the fact that the hate you give was like
a beloved book that Angie Thomas was also like a
first time author. It it made people be like, Lannie
(14:51):
is white entitlement personified, and it's greed and blah blah blah, which, like,
with a little bit of distance, I find the whole
thing kind of funny and not necessarily so sinister. But
at the time people were like, you know, this is
like real moral bankruptcy, and really they were very very simple.
(15:12):
People overreacted on Twitter, Dana, You're never gonna believe people
found a way to make this about morality and not
just selling books.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
Yeah, not just like a kind of shitty scam. But
it's like, I don't think she did it out of racism.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
Who knows, But I wouldn't say that that was the
primary I wouldn't say that that was like the primary
driving force. At least part of this scheme, whether she
knew it or not, was run through a company called
result Source, which is still around. It's a company that basically,
if you pay them enough money, they will put you
(15:50):
on the bestseller list. They will get you that dagger.
It's like the company that does this, they'll coordinate all
of the bulk buys. They kind of got in trouble
a few years ago, not because like listen, if you're
a CEO and you publish a book about being a
CEO and you want to get it on the bestseller list,
(16:13):
and so you do both buys and then you give
all of your employees a copy of your book. Like whatever,
it's one week, what happens. Whatever. But they kind of
got like in a little bit of trouble because also,
like megachurch pastors would do this and they would use
like money collected from their congregants to do it, and
(16:34):
it's like that's actually sort of tax fraud. So Results
Source has sort of like gone quiet. They used to
be like, hey, we'll get you on the best seller list,
and then after that scandal happened, they were like, oh wait,
we're just like a promote our, We're just a conversation.
So they kind of tried to hide their involvement in
this whole Landy Sarum thing, but they were definitely part
(16:57):
of it. You know, it's not it's the level to
which it is unethical sort of depends on, like how
sanctified you believe the New York Times Bestseller list to be.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
Well, I also think it like in the book world,
there are just systems, like it is hard to sell books, yes,
book sellers and bookstores, Like it is hard to be
a bookstore, it is hard to be an author. And
I do think there are systems in place, like the
New York Times list does help other bookstores because Okay,
(17:31):
let's say a different bookstore saw on the New York
Times bestseller list, like, oh gosh, there's this book that's
number one that we don't have in stock. They will
order that book, assuming that people will want to buy it.
And like bookstores do not have huge margins. So I
don't think it's like I don't know, don't put her
(17:53):
in prison.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
But I think it's like a.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
Thing that I can't get behind because I'm like looking
about books, is we just like love reading books, and
like it is so hard to make it as an
author or a bookseller, and like we shouldn't exploit those
things selfishly, even if it's like it's not a crime.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
Yeah, I mean it's definitely tacky. What one interesting thing,
so I read all these articles about this, one interesting
thing that came out is that like, yes, bookstores run
on very thin margins. And what one of the booksellers
said is like, there is if you're a New York
Times reporting store, there is no reason to take the
(18:35):
high road. Yeah. If someone calls and says, hey, are
you a New York Times reporting store, there is no
reason to be like nope, because if you say yes,
they're probably going to order ninety books from you, and
that's a really good sales day. Yeah, and you want
that sale. I don't blame the bookstores at all. They're like, no,
(18:56):
this system benefits us. They're like, why would we not
just be like, yeah, we're a New York Times reporting bookstore.
Do you want to place a bulk sale like that?
Do you want to do your author event here so
that you can place a bulk sale through us and
not through one of our competitors. They're like, that's the
difference between a bad sales day and a good sales day.
So they're like, we're not fighting it. We're not fighting
(19:18):
this corruption. We want to sell books. We don't care
if it's for your ego. We want to sell books.
That's interesting. Lannie has her own explanation, okay, of how
all of these sales came to be Yeah, which I
think is far more creative than anything she could possibly write.
(19:39):
Magic almost What is her explanation? So, first of all,
she says that she wrote this as a screenplay. Sure,
then they said, you know, we will fund this screenplay
if you can turn it into a book, and that
book hits the bestseller list, And I'm like, honestly, girl,
Hollywood is so hot, like IP, like cells, that makes sense.
(20:04):
That makes perfect sense to me, Like that someone would
tell her that, and that she would be like, Okay,
how much do I have to spend to get this
on the bestseller list? I just want to make a movie. Yeah.
That makes much cheaper to get something on the best
seller less than just to make a movie. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
But also hitting the bestseller list, to be totally honest,
does not actually make a cute difference with IP. A
lot of we don't have to get into this, but
a lot of producers will be like, yeah, I'll buy
your unpublished short story because then they don't have to
pay for like rights and stuff whatever.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
But keep going. I'm just saying, I can understand that
someone would give her this questionable advice and that she
would believe it. Yes, like it does make sense to me.
So her explanation is that she and Thomas Ian Nicholas,
the actor, then the actor, went to a ton of
conventions like comic cons and fan conventions and like nostalgia conventions,
(20:58):
and that she would sit at his booth with like
a I don't even know what materials she had, but
basically she took pre orders, and she took eighteen thousand
pre orders wow, for this book. And that then when
it became when it was like pub week, instead of
(21:21):
fulfilling those pre orders directly from her publisher, which wouldn't
have counted in the New York Times system because they
don't count like direct to consumer sales at conventions, oh,
she decided to fulfill them through bookstores because she wanted
to hit the New York Times bestseller list, I mean smart.
(21:42):
And she's like, I don't understand why that's unethical. These
were individual sales that I made to individuals who wanted
to buy my book. I just ran them through the
system so that they would count. I mean, that is true,
But why didn't you just say pre order through this
bookstore because she was standing right there. And also, this
(22:04):
didn't this didn't happen.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
But again, you cannot pre order through your favorite local bookstore.
And in fact, if you're listening, I would love for
you to pre order Lee R.
Speaker 1 (22:13):
Kane, I it's from your favorite local bookstore. I agree. Also,
so she's basically claiming that she's sold like two thousand
books per convention. Yeah, that's not George R. R. Martin
cannot sell more than a few hundred books per convention. Yeah,
that's that's our explanation is She's like, well, George R. R.
Martin's an author. I was sitting next to a celebrity. Aha,
(22:35):
the star of American Pie, the star of American Pie.
And the reason that all of these people attacked me
is because I'm not part of their little ya author club.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
No, that's not I'm definitely not in any club, and
so far, no one, not when no one's attacked me.
Speaker 1 (22:50):
But no, she no, no, that's not that's not accurate.
And she's like, I'm just a hustler, baby, I mean
that is accurate. No, no, detected. I think it's like
so stupid a conclusion of this mini scam before we
get into the hoax, which no, this is not the
house right before we get into the hoax. I do
(23:13):
think I don't want to say others because I don't
want to get attacked. I think some people can be
a bit self righteous about things. I also think some
book communities are very self righteous. I also do think
like finding liars and canceling them is fun and good
and like continue to do it, like, yes, that is
fun and funny.
Speaker 2 (23:32):
Scandals are fun. Cancel culture it happened because piling on
is fun.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
Like yes, if you find out that someone fake their
way into a bestseller list, like dig it up and
call them out, like that's fine. Did she write the
rest of the five was it five books trilogy? Yeah?
She The website is still active and you can like
sup the you can like order a signed copy of
the book. But it also is like we're releasing the
(24:00):
movie in twenty nineteen, which, like you know, it came
and went. But I also think what she I just
want to say, like I think what she did is
like a teeny tiny bit punk rock I mean, I
I will say it's funny. I will also say, like,
if you don't think that the big publishing houses are
essentially deciding which books become best sellers, Yeah, Like they
(24:24):
decide who gets the marketing. They decide who gets like
the prime spots at you know, Comic Con. They decide
who gets the celebrity endorsements. Oh, and it says the
New York Times did remove the book from his ranking,
so and which she brags about online. She's like, I'm
the only person who's been removed from the bestseller list.
(24:45):
Like she's interesting, you can look her up. All of
which is to say, like, if you think that just
because they don't have a dagger next to them, that
they're on the best seller list because of pure talent
and purely the strain of the book, that is not
necessarily true.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
Can I also say I googled this and I did
get an excerpt from the first chapter.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
Can I radio a sentence? Absolutely? Apparently the pros is
not good. Quote.
Speaker 2 (25:16):
People tell me I'm pretty all the time, beautiful, even
I'm not sure I see what they see. I think
I'm more of a cute, average looking girl. I'm slender,
but I do not believe most would say skinny, not
hot girl, skinny. At least I have long legs that
are toned. But I think my thighs are too large
and I do not have a thigh gap. My arms
are kind of flabby, and while I do have an
(25:37):
hour glass figure I have, I've always felt that my
butt is a little too big and my face is
a little bit too round.
Speaker 1 (25:45):
Listen, I've tried to read some of the stuff that
book talk promotes and it is not that much better.
I'm not going to name names. Also say, you know,
like we all just need to take lists less seriously.
Tailor you're more pro Lannie than I am. I'm not.
I'm prone coming out.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
I want to be on the record as I think
this is like a little icky, all of it.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
I think it's a little ichy. But I just think
like people are always jumping down Taylor Swift's throat for
like selling different vinyls because she's trying to like manipulate
the But no, no.
Speaker 2 (26:19):
Here's the difference. You know what the deal is with Taylor
Swift vinyls. People are buying them. Human beings who want
those vinyls are buying them.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
Taylor Swift gets to do whatever I means. Taylor Swift
supposedly her dad bought all the copies of her first album.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
But okay, fine, we'll talk about that.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
Which you know what I would do for my daughter
if I had the money and she wanted to be
a country star. Should we talk about the actual hoax?
Let's get into that, okay. So the reason that I
wanted to talk about Lanny Saram is because this hoax
has to do not strictly with the New York Times
bestseller List, but with just books and lists in general.
(26:59):
And so I thought it would be fun to talk
about how goofy these lists are and have always been great.
Do you know who Jeene Shepherd is? Now? Should I know?
But I thought it would be funny to show that
there's someone who you don't know who they are. I
didn't until I started researching this. Jean Shepherd was a
radio host who started his career in the Army Signal
(27:22):
Corps during World War Two.
Speaker 2 (27:24):
He moved through oh I am I am behind at
my World War Two radio hosts.
Speaker 1 (27:30):
Okay, he does more. He was like a cult comedian. Basically,
he landed in New York at the station WO R
in the mid fifties, and his shtick was that he talked.
He was basically like one of the fathers of talk radio.
He was always getting fired for not playing enough music
(27:51):
and for just talking. Yeah, he would take calls, but
usually he would take them like during ad breaks to
get people's back and talk through like different concepts, and
he would just expound on the topics of the day,
whatever was on his mind. The original podcaster. Truly, he
(28:12):
would have thrived in the age of the podcast. Like
I have this written down here. He was way ahead
of his time. He should have been a podcaster. He
was a storyteller. He was very funny. He was like
anti establishment, but he was in a gentle, folksy Midwestern way.
(28:35):
He was not like crude or sexual, but he was
very smart and he would just sort of This was
like the era of the monologue. So like if you picture,
you know, Lenny Bruce is downtown just kind of like
spouting off, and you have Mortsaul the comedian. He would
just get up on stage and open the newspaper and
(28:56):
just talk about whatever was in the newspaper. So he's
the guy on the radio doing that. He wouldn't write
things down beforehand. He would just talk about whatever, whatever
was on his mind. He's doing jazz talk, literally freeform jazz.
This is like the era of Nichols in May. So
it's like it's cool to be smart, and it's also
a very buttoned up time. People are so square and
(29:20):
he's hip. He's downtown. He's not exactly edgy, but he's
talking to you adult to adult. Yeah, and he's funny.
I see why he's a hit. He's not quite a hit. Okay, well,
I see why he has an audience. Man, he's a
cult hit, cult hit. He is sort of like early
(29:42):
days Mark Marin Yeah, or a Dave von Wrong. And
he's like you know, you know, if you know, you know,
he's like the comics comic he's like the guy's guy.
And a lot of the stories that he tells, uh
are not true because he would run out of true
story from his childhood, so he would just make them up.
(30:03):
Stand up comedy. Da, do you ever just lie for fun?
Speaker 2 (30:06):
I do not, But my husband is a stand up comedian.
And I know for a fact that sometimes sometimes when
comedians say I was on the way here today and
you'll never guess what happened, I hate to tell you
but that it did not happen on the way there today,
maybe a something tangential related to that thing happened at
(30:28):
some point in their life. Yeah, but that is how
stand up comedy goes.
Speaker 1 (30:31):
Yeah. I used to enter when I was in middle school.
I would enter speech and debate competitions under the name
Jasmine Mahogany, your porn star name. Yeah. I thought it
was really funny. I was like, oh, my parents were hippies.
Speaker 2 (30:46):
I mean, you lived in San Francisco, it's not implausible.
Speaker 1 (30:50):
And then I remember one night in high school it
was like me and my friends went out to pizza
and we met these guys and we were like, let's
just lie to them, Like, let's just lie to them
about who we are.
Speaker 2 (31:02):
One time, a friend and I were lying at a
show and pretended to have bad British accents and then
like our cover was like, oh, we grew up, like
we know, our accents are weird, Like we traveled a
lot when we were kids, so our accents are like,
you know, from Hodgepodge, blah blah blah.
Speaker 1 (31:17):
And I was just like, I don't know. Yeah, I
told this guy that because we had just like found
out we had just gotten into colleges, and we were like,
let's just lie about where we're going to college. And
then when they got to me, I was like, oh,
I've been homeschooled because I'm like training for the Olympics.
That's a cool eye. What's part I think gymnastics okay,
which I very too tall, but if you've ever seen me,
(31:38):
also just not athletic. But he didn't know.
Speaker 2 (31:41):
No men famously stupid. Yeah, and also like that was
a joke to his carman get mad.
Speaker 1 (31:48):
To his credit, it would be very wrong for a
man to be like, you clearly don't work out that much.
Speaker 2 (31:55):
Yeah, no, that would be rude. I also will say
I get nervous lying because the thought of anyone being
mad at me at any time stresses me out. And
so if I lie, then the thought is that at
some point someone might say to you, hey, that was
a lie, and then I would I think, break out
in hithes and dissolve onto the floor. So the thought
(32:15):
of that, the lying is fun, I think in theory,
but the thought of anyone confronting me really terrifies me.
Speaker 1 (32:23):
Yeah. Yeah, Later on Shepherd would say like, oh, I
was just telling stories that I thought of and I
just said them in the first person, but I didn't
think for anyone to think that they had happened to me,
which is like.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
But if that like format hasn't been formalized yet, people
listen to it and assume it is true because he's not, like,
he's not doing it like this American lifestyle.
Speaker 1 (32:48):
No one got mad though, Okay, that's what I'm trying
to get. Oh great, it's just like you have no idea,
Like people would go back later and be like, we
have no idea what his childhood was at because half
the shit couldn't have happen. Oh so this isn't the Haks. Yeah,
oh wow, I must always trying to establish that he's
kind of a liar, okay, right, So he starts being
(33:13):
on in the afternoon, but eventually they move him to
the middle of the night because he keeps telling these
goofy stories and he won't play any music. Sure, he's
on from one am to five thirty am, sure the
real Nighthawk hours, the real night hours, and he's by himself,
and they don't want to pay to keep the studio
(33:35):
in Manhattan open, so he's up in Jersey broadcasting directly
from the transmitter. Okay, so which is like really hot.
It's just like a big machine. So he's sitting there
just in his like underwear, just talking into a microphone
for four and a half hours. Amazing. Yeah, and it
gets very intimate and like when you were talking about
(33:57):
like cult following, like truly just like the Cult of
Jane show.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
I mean, yeah, if you know, you know, it's a
guy at one in the morning in his underwear just
talking to.
Speaker 1 (34:06):
You, just free flow letting it into the mic. And
he calls his listeners the night people. That makes sense.
Speaker 2 (34:14):
And also I think part of the cult thing if
I just hearing it, like radio at this time is ephemeral,
like maybe they might record it, you know sometimes for
some things, but like not always.
Speaker 1 (34:25):
No, And we have a number of his shows recorded
from fans, yeah, because they really liked him and they
wanted to record it. So if you're a night person,
it's not just that you work at night, it's actually
you are like activated by the night. It's that, you know,
day people are the ones who the daytime is their
(34:47):
real life, like going into the office and obeying by
society's rules. That's that they buy into that. They're like,
they focus on that and they believe in it. Not
the night people. The night people are up because they're
doing something creative. They might have an office job, but
they know that that's just what they got to get through.
(35:09):
That's the dream, and the night is the real life.
The night's the real life. It's very severance, it's very
the matrix. But it's not in like a creepy way.
Like he's a smart, grounded guy. He's just like guys
were the night people.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
Yeah, and I bet that they would have, like you said,
ahead of their time.
Speaker 1 (35:26):
I bet they would have had a great subreddit. Oh,
they would be absolutely the subreddit. And you know this
is also like not a you know, it's about like
the BEATNICKX versus the Squares. Yeah, so we're the night people.
Day people have something that he called creeping meatballism, which
is basically what he called conformity, but which is such
(35:48):
a good term that I really wanted to come back.
I feel like I know a few people with creeping meatballism.
Creeping meatballism is so good we can't really get into it,
but he wrote articles about it, and it's just so good.
He's got a really offbeat sense of humor, and his
catchphrase is excelsior, you fat head. He sounds funny. He's
(36:08):
really funny. He likes to do a little pranks. He
likes to tell his listeners to stick their radios in
the window and turn it up as loud as they
possibly can, and then he'll put music on. His show
is on the verge of getting canceled because it can't
attract sponsors. So he starts just like talking about this
one brand of soap that he really likes, and they
(36:29):
immediately cut him off and they're like, hey, that soap
doesn't sponsor your show, Like you can't just talk about it,
And he's like, I'm trying to prove that I can
sell stuff. I didn't think anyone would be mad. Apparently
he actually did help sell a lot of Miller High Life.
So if you're a fan of Miller High Life, thank
Gene Shepherd. He kept that brand around all right. Now
(36:50):
we're getting to the host that was all just stuff
about Gene Shepherd. In April nineteen fifty six, Shepherd goes
into a bookstore related related to get a book of
transcripts of one of his favorite old radio shows, Vic
and sade, and the bookseller is like, not only do
(37:10):
we not have that book, I'm looking at the publisher's
list and that book doesn't exist. Mm. So he's like
gaslighting him. And Shepherd's like, no, like I know this
book exists, Like what do you mean you can't just
like help me find this book. And the bookseller's like, nope,
it's not on the list, so it doesn't exist. And
(37:32):
he's like, man, these fucking day people with their lists,
with their list, these fucking day people with their lists,
Like he's goddamn squares in these bookstores. And he's like,
this whole town runs on lists. You think just because
it's on a list, it's got to be real, and
if it's not on the list, it's not real. And
I mean, as someone who like always does check like
(37:54):
infatuation lists for restaurants, I'm like, I do get it
where I do have this thing where I'm like, if
it's not on a list, that means it's not good, right,
and like we're just put all this but and he's like,
you know, lists are made by people, and people make mistakes, true,
and you can't just look at me and believe me
that this book exists I'm a human, right, Like, isn't
(38:15):
it possible that I'm right and the list is wrong
because the list was made by a person. Person can
be wrong. Yeah, So he's like, you know what, we
got a little prank. Let's do Let's do a prank.
Let's do a prank. So he tells all of his
night People listeners. He's like, we're gonna make up a
fake book. And no one's paying attention because it's two
in the morning, it's the middle of the night. And
(38:37):
he gets them all to call in and write in
with names of like fake authors and fake books, and
he compiles what he thinks is the best, uh, the
best one, and they decide that their fake book is
called I Libertine and it's written by a man named
Frederick R. Ewing That sounds plausible. A former British commander
(38:59):
and civil servant in Rhodesia. He is known for his
BBC broadcasts on eighteenth century erotica. And he is like, Okay, everybody,
go into your local bookstore and ask for I Libertine. Yeah,
and if and is published by Excelsior, And so if
anybody asks who's the publisher, you say, Excelsior you fat head.
(39:21):
That's funny, and people do hundreds of people do great.
And also because he is on in the middle of
the night, a lot of like flight attendants listen to
him because they have crazy hours. So this this prank
goes international amazing, and all of these booksellers are like,
what is going on. I've never heard of this book.
(39:43):
They're calling each other, They're like, what's going on, what's
going on? And people start writing in and calling in
with like the results of the prank. Apparently, I mean,
all of this can't be confirmed, and I'm sure people
are making stuff up to make it seem like the
prank was bigger than it was. But these are the
reports of how big the prank got. Apparently some bookseller
(40:04):
who wanted to seem very in the know was like,
I'm so glad Americans are catching on to Frederick Ewing's work.
Speaker 2 (40:12):
Aha, that is actually very plausible, very plausible.
Speaker 1 (40:15):
Right, And some editor is overheart some gossip columnist overhears
an editor saying like, oh, yes, I was having lunch
with Frederick Ewing last week. It's like those videos that
people used to make where it was like people pretending
that they'd heard of really obscure bands that didn't exist
at Coachella.
Speaker 2 (40:36):
And again, this is like an era like pre Internet,
where you can't quite fact check these things, where so
much of the literary world at this time is like
word of mouth.
Speaker 1 (40:44):
And well what's cool. So it's like, yeah, these people
want to be cool. College students are turning in book
reports on I Libertine and they're like getting good grades
on that. The professor can't google it. Not what's're gonna do.
There's a listener in boss who uh works for the
archdiocese and puts it on a list of banned books,
(41:06):
and then the entire city of Boston bans it. It's
not really like a secret because again he's like doing
this on the radio. Yeah it's the middle of the night,
but it's still the radio. By August, first, the prank
is over. He talks to the Wall Street Journal for
an interview. He explains the whole thing, and everyone is
(41:26):
calling the powers that be at w R. They're like,
this is a great story. Tell us more like it's
a big hit and thinks he's really funny for doing this.
Speaker 2 (41:35):
Well, you know what, it's a it's a I think,
actually a great hoax because it's like inclusive, like the
night people who got to listen, like got to feel
like part of a club. Everyone got to be in
on the joke.
Speaker 1 (41:46):
They're in on the joke. And it's also like, you know,
it's showing that, like you day, people aren't smarter than
anybody else. If we tell you something's real, you'll believe us.
It's this is this is a delightful hoax and I
love it. So glad Ian Valentine, the publisher Valentine Books
from Valentine Books, gets wind of it, and he's like, well,
(42:08):
if a bunch of people want a book called I Libertine,
let's give him a book called I Libertine. That's pretty smart.
And it's unclear who got who in touch with who,
but Ballentine, his wife, a sci fi writer named Theodore Sturgeon,
and Shepherd all get together and they write a book.
(42:29):
I'm glad Shepherd was involved in this. He was involved
kind of barely. Well, I hope he made a little money,
but he got some money. There's at least one report
that said the money went to charity. But all right,
he had it was not without his consents. He was involved,
and they write a book about an eighteenth century duchess
called I Libertine, and they publish it and they have
(42:55):
like a little meetup of the night people where he
signs copies. That's so fun. Din know what you like
to read a passage from I Liberty? I really would
loo kind of your computer. Yes, so I got through
the first two chapters. You know, it's it's a silly book.
I selected a passage in which this carriage driver is
(43:15):
talking to his like lord, is this a sexy book? Yeah?
But not really. It's like fake sexy. A carriage driver
is talking to his lord. And I thought it would
be funny to hear because it's written with like a
really harsh accent, right, And I thought it would be
(43:38):
funny to make you do.
Speaker 2 (43:39):
It, given then I had faked a British accent. Okay,
I have to read this whole thing.
Speaker 1 (43:45):
I think you should. And a pity Piggott aimed his
whip handle at the young man's broadcloth. England and Prussia
rule the ruddy world, this ruddy Domino seventeen hundred and
sixty nine sixty nine, he orated. And those that rule
the world take the orders of their ostlers, aye their valets,
(44:06):
and their maids of ruddy honor. They do what they're
told they do because their servants always know what's happening,
and they can't know till they're told. Like our ruddy
great General wanting to know what's happening over the ale,
he could ask is Batman, and likely he does. Otherwise
it's someone else is Batman who finds out or to
(44:26):
go all the way down the line we already asked
grenadier who finally sticks his head over and eats grape
shot for his breakfast. And ooh's more of a servant
than anybody's ruddy foot soldier. I'd like to know, while.
Speaker 2 (44:41):
You're about learning your airs and graces, my lad, never
forget to leave an ear in the scullery, and be
grateful to whoever keeps the wax out of it.
Speaker 1 (44:50):
For ye, what were we talking about? You were making
some libelous remarks about miss Chudley. Now, Lad, twas slander
the old man. Correct.
Speaker 2 (45:02):
That's funny, and it also embodies the idea of the
night people and the day people.
Speaker 1 (45:06):
Yeah, all the.
Speaker 2 (45:07):
Day people with their fancy airs, But the people who
really know the stuff are the you know, the footman
and Batman and.
Speaker 1 (45:14):
And they know the difference between libel and slander. They
do know the difference between lebel and slander. Yeah, just
to wrap up what happened to Jeane Shephard, he did
not stay broadcasting in the night forever. He was eventually
taken back to the daytime. He wrote for the Village Voice,
and he wrote a lot of his childhood stories up
(45:38):
for Playboy. His like fun fake childhood stories. Yeah, his
you know, exaggerated. He's I mean, I hope this is
like not bursting anyone's bubble. David Sedaris is an exaggerator.
I think he's sort of in that tradition. He published
a group of them in nineteen sixty six as a
(45:58):
novel called In God We Trust All Others Pay Cash,
And in nineteen eighty three it was turned into a
movie called a Christmas Story. Wow what Yeah, And he
is the narrator of that movie. So you have heard
Jean Shepherd's voice, Lizzie Logan, what a twist at the
end of this episode.
Speaker 2 (46:16):
Indeed, In God We Trust All Others Pay Cash is
very funny.
Speaker 1 (46:19):
It's good. He died in nineteen ninety nine, Oh my god.
And yeah, he's the great American comic voice you have
heard but never heard of. That's that's a great hoax.
And this was the This was the funny little I
Libertine hoax that he perpetrated. I love it.
Speaker 2 (46:39):
I like a little feeling like you're part of a club. Yeah,
even though I go to bed at nine o'clock every night,
so I'm not a night person and I buy my
clothes from Nord's rooms. I'm like, there's nothing night person
about me. But I'm like, yeah, stick it to the man.
Speaker 1 (46:55):
Yeah, we're not very hip, but you're hip. You're from
San Francisco. I am so hip. You know. I think
we're smart and we're not. We're not total meatballs.
Speaker 2 (47:08):
We're not total meatballs. Well, Lizzie Logan, where can the
night People find you?
Speaker 1 (47:13):
The night people can find me? Post on all about
this podcast at hoax the Podcast on Instagram, Dana where
can the People find you?
Speaker 2 (47:22):
Uh find me at at Dana Schwartz with three z's
at the end on Instagram and TikTok, and you can
email me at Hoaxthpodcast at gmail dot com.
Speaker 1 (47:33):
I do read those emails.
Speaker 2 (47:35):
Indeed, Please if you're enjoying the show, UH leave a
leave a rating, leave, leave a re you.
Speaker 1 (47:41):
We want to get up on those podcast lists. I
know we're we're gluttons for the charts part of them
for so much of this episode, but now I'm like,
but I want to be your best silly podcast.
Speaker 2 (47:52):
Yeah, make us a best selling podcast. Listen to the show,
send it to your friends.
Speaker 1 (47:56):
Bulk by the podcast, just send.
Speaker 2 (47:58):
It to everyone, Make multiple email addresses to leave multiple reviews.
Speaker 1 (48:03):
Juice the numbers, scam us to the top, and as always,
please hoax responsibly by Hoax is a production of iHeart Podcasts.
(48:24):
Our hosts are Danish Schortz and Lizzie Logan. Our executive
producers are Matt Frederick and Trevor Young, with supervising producer
Rima L. K Ali and producers Nomes Griffin and Jesse Funk.
Our theme music was composed by Laine Montgomery. For more
podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for listening.
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