Gregg Hurwitz: The Upside of Getting Choked Out

How do you ensure authenticity as a writer? Some authors do a lot of library research. Others write what they already know about life. Gregg Hurwitz “introduces [his] face to the training mat repeatedly and …gets choked out.” It’s all … Continue reading →

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
I've shot every gun that Evangets on from Benelli combat
shotguns to I custom 19 elevens.
I've shot rock and propel grenades.
I've snuck on a demolition rangeswith seals to blow up cars.
You snuck on a demolition range?
That seems particularly dangerous
Well, it's fun if you'rewith the right people,

(00:27):
Greg Hurwitz bestselling author of 26Thrillers, including the Orphan X Series,
is one of four featured authors at theColumbus Metropolitan Library's Columbus
Book Festival, which will be held at themain library on July 12 through 13th.
Welcome to K Craft, Greg Hurwitz.
Thanks for having me on.
Well, I'm certainlyhappy that you're here.
what can audience members expect whenyou appear at the Columbus Book Festival?

(00:52):
I will be talking aboutmy Orphan X Series.
That's my thrillerseries, about a assassin.
Evan Smoke, my main character wastaken out of a foster home at the age
of 12 and trained to be an assassin.
his handler and father figure toldhim when he was 12 years old that the
hard part wasn't making him a killer.
The hard part was keeping him human.

(01:13):
each book is a step in that processof him becoming and trying to figure
out after this years of intensetraining and being one of the most
esteemed assassins of his generation,who's now off the radar completely.
It's the process of him becoming moreand more human and learning to speak
the one thing he was never taught, whichis the strange language of intimacy.

(01:34):
I'll be talking about him, I'll betalking about this big new thriller,
that came out called Nemesis.
that's the new one in the series,though it can be read as a standalone.
I'm excited to see the Ohio crow.
Mm-hmm.
So what kind of research do you get todo when you're writing about assassins?
it seems like you, would be readingabout sociopaths and things like that,

(01:55):
but do you go in and try to meet peoplein prison who have been assassins?
I, was fascinated with the idea ofhow do you find out more about this?
there's plenty of.
stuff about assassins, but I've alwaysfigured that they were sort of based
on, you know, just best guesses.
That's a good question.
the program that Evan was partof and he was trained to be, is

(02:16):
through the Department of Defense.
So I have a lot of friends who were NavySeals and Army Rangers, and so I've shot
every gun that Evan gets on from Benellicombat shotguns to I custom 19 elevens.
I've shot rock and propel grenades.
I've snuck on a demolition rangeswith seals to blow up cars.
You snuck on a demo demolition range?
That seems particularly dangerous

(02:38):
Well, it's fun if you're withthe right people, you know.
And I also did a lot ofmixed martial arts training.
not particularly good,but I did some fighting.
I always feel like part of my job isto give the reader a front row seat
to the action, and so I'm alwayswilling to go and experience the
thing myself so that I can writeabout it in ways that aren't cliched.

(02:58):
that was certainly the case with mixedmartial arts, fighting, which I don't
mean to imply was any good at it.
It was mostly a process of, introducingmy face to the training mat repeatedly.
Mm-hmm.
But getting choked out.
Induces a certain kind of claustrophobiaand discomfort that I can write about
firsthand instead of relying on a clichelike, and then everything went dark.

(03:21):
Mm-hmm.
So I'm always trying toexperience the thing itself.
And I have a lot of other subjectmatter experts I have, some of the
top, Network intrusion experts andhackers in the world, who I rely on.
my last book, Lone Wolf, that precededNemesis, had a lot about AI and I talked
to a lot of guys who were originatingAI leaders in the field, visionaries,
computer chip designers, and then evenhad a little summit at the house where I

(03:44):
brought in theologians and psychologiststo talk about the ways that we can start
to contend with this symbolically andmythologically and psychologically.
I really like diving deep intoall these different topics.
and the more dangerous, the better.
Yeah.
And you had a salon article lastOctober, where you talked about how,
community can keep storytelling alive.

(04:06):
which I, found really interestingbecause a lot of people, Many authors are
having a hard time with the idea of ai.
in the article you talk about how, youhave a friend who is working on a system
that would allow, a Faulkner novel tobe written at the touch of a button.
that's terrifying, for a lot offolks, including people doing

(04:27):
the kind of writing you do.
Well, on the one hand we think it'sgreat 'cause we have everything that we
want at the touch of a button, right?
write me a Faulkner novel.
Half the length.
Let's say my IQ is 110.
So suit all the vocabulary to that, don'thave violence against children and use
inside jokes from my, Twitter account.
So you push a button andout comes your product.

(04:50):
And on the one hand it seems amazing, buton the other hand, it's sort of hellish.
If we keep imbibing only things thatare designed for us, we're like the
people in Wally, that great Pixar movie,floating around, imbibing our own things.
It puts us distant from each other.
And distant from a shared narrative.
my argument for why I think artistsneed to be predominant, I do

(05:11):
use ai, but as a research tool.
I don't use AI to write, but I use it.
It's, some of them are wonderfulresearchers, but there's a couple
things that are why I think humansand human authors are essential.
the first is that what turns uson and what excites us more than
anything is always human excellence.
I don't wanna watch an AI basketball game.

(05:31):
I wanna watch Michael Jordan soar.
even when Deep Blue came out, thechess AI Mastermind, we didn't
wanna see, deep blue play deep blue.
We wanted to see how Casperoff would fare against it.
We wanna watch humans doingthings that are superb.
That's the first thing.
And the second thing is if wehave too much of our own bespoke
entertainment, that's separate.
There's nothing shared.

(05:52):
There's not that experiencethat we had waiting online.
I remember Tim Burton's Batman came out.
When I was in high school, Iremember waiting online you go in
and there's this oxytocin releasewhen the audience is excited.
There's all this energy, wealready feel this to some extent.
I have Apple tv, like a lot of people.
I sit there and there's like atrillion dollars of entertainment

(06:12):
on the TV and nothing feels special.
And it's already starting to foreclosesome of our conversations where you
might say, what show are you watching?
Oh, white Lotus.
Well, what app is it on?
And I'm in season one, sodon't tell me about season two.
we're getting all fragmented.
book tours for me areincredibly important.
I spent a lot of time at libraries'cause I was raised in the library.

(06:33):
Ohio, by the way, is the bestlibraries in the nation, which
I'm sure you're aware of.
Yes.
yeah, I haven't, I haven't done,Columbus, but I spent a lot of time
in tour in Ohio and on libraries.
And part of that is that senseof community where everybody's
reading the same book.
as much as we can havedifferent interactions at
least we're connected in that.
And so these events and this abilityto create community in the way that we

(06:55):
can in a movie theater or at a libraryor at a book signing is distinct.
And that's a very important part ofwhat keeps us alive and functioning is a
shared experience of art or entertainment.
It's very important.
It's interesting that you say thatbecause I see some crossovers to some
of the other work that you've done.
you've written op-eds for the WallStreet Journal, the Guardian, the

(07:17):
Bulwark, salon and others to push againstpolarization in politics and culture.
So, it seems to me some overlap there.
How's that work going for you, what'sthe reaction been to your op-eds?
I am sure mixed is themost obvious answer.
when I'm doing it right, I'm drawingcomplaints from all quarters.

(07:37):
increasingly we really need each other.
We're facing very, unsure times onthe international stage right now.
the more divided we are over minorpolitical issues, which might seem major.
but are really minor and they'redriven by three different things.
They're our differences are drivenby psychopathic algorithms, designed

(07:57):
for outrage, fear, anxiety, ifyou're online and you're feeling
something, somebody's making money.
You know, that's one thing to remember.
They're driven by hostile foreign regimes.
A lot of the issues that we have, alot of polarization around are driven
by full blown PSYOPs from China,Russia, and Iran that are administered
through our news, through, socialmedia and there's bad faith domestic

(08:20):
players who are dividing us for money.
I was very curious about this and Idid a set of polling where basically
I phrased every question in thepolling, not like partisan jerk.
So instead of coming in and usingphrases that are cliched or ideologically
laden, like if I go in and say, Ibelieve in climate change, maybe
50, 55% of people will say yes.

(08:42):
If I say, I don't believe in climatechange, maybe you get 45, 50% of people.
But instead, I phrased the questionby saying, I believe we have a
duty to keep our skies and seasclear and our fields and streams.
94% of people agree.
Hmm.
So if you're actually willing to askthe questions from a basis of agreement,

(09:02):
and then we can litigate what thosedifferences are like, are some people
more focused on ocean biodiversity?
Other people might beconcerned about carbon imprint.
Like there's all these differentways that you can have discussions.
I. If you're building upon what's shared.
But unfortunately, there's too muchmonetization, fundraising for politics,
leadership, clicks for eyeballs.
That's all about exacerbatingthe outrage and the differences.

(09:26):
And the more that we do that, themore that it becomes a reality.
one of the things that I'm tryingto do with my messaging is to
pierce this veil of, there's a termcalled pluralistic ignorance that I
learned when I was researching my.
Fifth novel where I went undercover intomind control cults in a mind control
cult, everyone's miserable independently,but they can't talk to each other.

(09:48):
they're in these little miserable bubblesbecause everywhere they look, they
feel like everyone else is in lockstep.
a lot of aims are made to not havethem communicate with each other.
And to silo them into different arenas.
So
if you think about it, that'ssort of like all of North Korea is
starving to death and miserable, butthey look everywhere that they see.
And so that's called pluralisticignorance, where people don't agree on a

(10:10):
ton of different issues people will say,I certainly don't want to have wide open
borders and having people come across theborder who aren't vetted and aren't safe.
But I also think that thereshould be a legal process
that's fair and safe and humane.
if you phrase each issue in arounded way, you can bring 90 to a
hundred percent of America with you.
everybody feels like if they'regonna say anything about these

(10:32):
topics, you can just list them.
Abortion, immigration, DEI, youget the list people are frozen and
terrified to speak because theyfeel they're risking reputational
and financial damage to themselves.
if we can shatter that effect,it's interesting because some of
these themes have been formed.
The Orphan X book, the newest one calledNemesis, it's not overtly political

(10:54):
because I don't write overtly ideologicalbooks because then I wouldn't be writing
fiction, I'd be writing propaganda.
But it is very much about howfriends from different codes can
collide with each other and theyhave to figure out how to, you know?
And in this case, it's deadly friends.
'cause one of 'em is an OrphanX, who's an assassin, who best

(11:14):
friend in armor his crossed him.
By selling weapons to somebodythat were used to harm innocence.
And these two very dangerous menare going up against each other
and they have different codes.
the book is about how theywill resolve those feelings
of betrayal and differences.
And it has to come from when you careabout somebody sufficiently that you have
to reexamine your own presuppositionsin your own values when you know that

(11:38):
somebody might have acted in a way orvoted differently or said something
that you just cannot square with yourworldview, but you can't dismiss them or
excommunicate them, or unfriend them, andthere's a lot of rising mounting stakes
around them that are equally deadlyas they're trying to negotiate this.
it seems like as you'rewriting you must be.

(11:58):
struggling with some of your own,views as you imbue the two different
characters, with different traits.
How did you get past that to say, I don'tagree with what this guy's doing, but I
want the reader to understand why it isand therefore I need to understand and
be at least in some sense open to it.

(12:18):
That's a really good question, Doug.
are you familiar with thepsychologist Carl Rogers?
Yeah,
Roger.
He's the one
that we make fun of a lot when wego, well, how did that make you feel?
Right.
He's like the stereotypicalsoft therapist.
But one of the things Carl Rogers didthat I think about a lot was he sat
the patient up face to face with him asopposed to Freud, who kind of sat in a

(12:39):
superior position right behind the couch.
Well, he had to be close tohis cocaine, Yeah, exactly.
that's exactly right.
And so when he looked at him, oneof the things Carl Rogers was doing,
and what he realized was, you haveto hold your patient with, he called
it unconditional positive regard.
So that means if something horriblehappened to the patient or if the patient
did something horrible, you have tohave a regard for them as a therapist

(13:02):
that you're trying to treat them.
he found that to do that, thatthe truest act of listening is you
actually set your nervous systemin resonance with another person.
psychiatrists and psychologistshave talked about this, and I'm
sure you've had this experience.
In your own life, like a lotof your listeners might too.
If you talk to someone who'svery manic and energetic, you
come away and you feel that way.
If you talk to someone who's depressedor dysthymic, there is a sort of

(13:26):
emotional osmosis that takes place.
for me, with my characters, myprimary aim is not determining whether
they're right or wrong, more than,that's my primary aim when I'm doing
interventions to build bridges inthe culture and politics, right?
My aim is really to understand asbest as I can, to listen as deeply as
I can and to try to embody what thatcharacter is thinking and feeling.

(13:49):
I describe it sometimes as it's likepulling on a mask and trying to see
the world through their eye holes.
If I can embody characters with opposingviews and hold them in mind, that act
for me is much more compelling andgives greater depth to the characters
the plot, the drama, and the tensionthan if I've decided in advance, well
this one's good and this one's bad,I want the reader to be constantly

(14:12):
tempted into different points of viewwhere I don't make them too overt.
Yeah.
Which makes, a lot of sense in theory.
I have to imagine that youhave a little bit more regard
for Orphan X, at some points.
'cause you're like, I still needthis guy, you know, so I can't,
it's funny, Doug, there's some chaptersin Nemesis the new one that long time
Orphan X readers were losing their minds.

(14:33):
'cause they're like, wait, this is thefirst time I've ever read a chapter.
that I'm rooting against him.
Mm-hmm.
so I like to put him in confusingways where we're very intimate
with maybe goings on in anothersphere that Evan isn't aware of.
Mm-hmm.
And so he's coming into this andso, you know, one of the things
somebody said on my book tourfor Nemesis, it was a great line.
Somebody said to me, it'svery hard to hate up close.

(14:57):
in this book in particular, I takereaders very close with some of the
people who, from an outside perspective.
These are people who Evan would justkill without even thinking about them.
But the more that I'm peeling theonion with them and the ways that they
think when Evan shows up as this sortof force of nature menace that we're
accustomed to being, ideally the readeris having some cognitive dissonance

(15:18):
Mixed emotions around that, wherethey're a little bit confused and on
edge I like to keep my readers on edge.
Yeah.
It's kinda like, you know, there'sother characters I can think of
in the anti-hero mode that you'retalking about it makes a lot of sense.
Yeah.
Well, Greg Hurwitz, I.
Thank you very much fortalking to me today.
the book sounds fantastic and you'llbe talking about it at the July 12th

(15:40):
through 13th Columbus Book Festival.
Congratulations on all thesuccess and the 26th thrillers,
and we will see you in Columbus.
Thank you, Doug.
I'm looking forward to seeing you.