December 3, 2025 • 37 mins
Only Way Out: A Novel by Author Tod Goldberg Is out now! amazon.com or bookstores near you! James Lott Jr gets to chat to the "other" best Selling Author in the family! Tod Goldberg is the New York Times bestselling author of over a dozen books of fiction, including The Low Desert: Gangster Stories, Gangsterland, a finalist for the Hammett Prize, Gangster Nation, The House of Secrets, which he co-authored with Brad Meltzer, and Living Dead Girl, a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. His essays, nonfiction, and criticism appear widely, including in the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, and Wall Street Journal, as well as Best American Essays, and have earned five Nevada Press Association Awards. He is also the cohost, along with Rider Strong and Julia Pistell, of the popular podcast Literary Disco. Goldberg is a Professor of Creative Writing at the University of California, Riverside, where founded and directs the Low Residency MFA program in Creative Writing & Writing for the Performing Arts. You can follow him on Twitter and Instagram @todgoldberg and on Facebook at facebook.com/todgoldberg or visit todgoldberg.com
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
So it's a rare occasion. I can see interview siblings.
You guys know that Legal Versu a friend of mine
and I've interviewed do so we always have a great time,
great writer. He has a brother too, who's a great
writer also. And this book is cuckoo crazy and it's
so good. There's so many characters, so many twists and turns,
(00:27):
and I don't know, I mean, are there good characters
in it? I don't know. They've all got to them.
But it's called only Way Out. If you if you're
watching I go, you see it's right there. If you're
listening high podcast listeners, it's called only Way Out, it'll
be out the summer first. But you go ahead and
pre quorterer and pre save and do all this stuff. Now,
it's say Kindle first Reads. It's on a suspense drillers list,
(00:50):
organized crime thrillers at police and at five times fast
police procedurals charts. I'm tired already. See some nietzschee church
right there.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Let me tell you.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Like police proceede. I can't get that ship out, Okay, yeah,
I'll be.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
I got news for you if people buy that book
looking for a police procedural, they're gonna be super disappointed. Well,
there's there's cops and they're proceeding. Yes, it's not like
it's not like Ian Rankin or something.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
Lay gentlemen, Todd Goldberg, we're laughing already.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
All right, Todd neither good to see him, see too.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
Okay, So the first thing, we gotta get this out
the way first, folks, because I love it. I don't care.
Uh this channel we always talk about how we don't
ban books. We don't care. It's like it's people write
what they want to write, You buy what you want
to buy, reads you want to read. That's how you
feel it is, So address becaussy, No I go. It
(01:54):
didn't bother me. I read books all cots books all
the time.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
So you must have seen like the first five reviews
on Amazon or something, and I was just like, am
I just.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
Well, let's just so, folks, in a missed as any
adult novel that's for adult, for adults, it's adult subjects.
It's a fun book too, folks. There's some comedy in it,
but it's like it's there's some cuss words.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
Yeah. Well, so the first review that came in on Amazon,
like the day was released, this review got posted. So
I saw it and it's you know, it was like,
I won't read anything with profanity. I closed the book
after one sentence, and I was like, well, that's because
in the in the first line, it's something like when
(02:40):
you're a criocket chop, you have nowhere to turn when
she goes sideways, something like that.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
So here's how they're too much, because it's not even
the first linebody goes, it's a second the go it's
it's it opened. The book opens with a curse word
might well no, not really, I mean well, yes, I
guess on some level when she I so, okay, sure,
and then it goes into a regular for you folks
at home.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Hey, look, I got news for you. If you're buying
a book of mine and you think it's going to
be a cozy mystery where there's an intuitive cat that
solves a crime, you got another thing coming. That's not
the kind of books I write. So here's the amazing
thing that I love. So this is my sixteenth book,
and over the course of sixteen books, I've probably killed
(03:29):
I don't know a thousand people in sixteen books, maybe more,
plus short stories, screenplays, all that kind of stuff, huge
body count. I have never in my life gotten an
email saying, how dare you kill someone in your book
(03:50):
gangster Land? But as soon as someone in that book
said fuck, that was it? What is wrong with people?
You can kill as many people you can name, as
many people you can You can bury a girl in
the backyard of a book and torture her for four
hundred pages and call it serial killer fiction, and people
gobble that up like it's popcorn.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
The opposite you can put out, was it? They call
it soccer mom porn without finishing, which which.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
I also like to watch. So that's thank you for
bringing that up.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
They had to describe there's one chapter of that book, right,
that's just a contract, and so they describe all the
acts and things. I'm like, that's okay, Yeah, it's just
said damn or book or ship people. I was like,
I don't know, what what is that about? Curse words?
Speaker 2 (04:43):
Oh, I don't know. It's such a it's such a
bizarre thing. You know that that any series of fonts
would cause you to be upset. So here here's my
public warning for anyone listening to this who is going
to investigate this or any book that I've ever written.
(05:03):
There's going to be some bodies and at some point
a person who is a professional killer is going to
say a word that you used to not fee able
to say it on TV, but which you can now.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
Look at that the way I just thought that was.
I thought it would it was like, it's it's I'm enraged.
That's for adults. I mean, come on, adults, that's correct.
Thank you, James God. Okay, So I'm not gonna make
a laugh. So gains the book itself, it is a
page well, first of all, congratulations. First thing, books is
(05:43):
just a it's a thing you do. And you know,
nobody can see down to write a book. And that's coherent.
It has a great beginning, middle and end. You and
you do. And there's so many because I was because
this is called in between the pages. I was in
between the pages. There's so many different kind of lead
(06:04):
characters in this book. M a lot of supporting I
like Penny or me too. Yeah, who I wouldn't seeing
her own little spin off.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
She might have some other stories to tell.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
There you go, But did you have Jack who's the cop?
Jack Biddle? Who's who had So it's so folks the
books about you know, this guy who's a failed kind
of lawyer, Robert Green and anything feels like you don't
do this heist thing. And all these safe deposits. I
thought it was kind of funny safe deposit boxes. I
want to ask you about that. Why that and not
(06:40):
just rob banks, they're robbing safety boxes. I love well.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
The thing that is great about the safe deposit boxes,
and this is true everywhere. It doesn't matter if it's
a bank, or if it's a law firm, as it
is the case in this, or if it's a private
safe deposit box. The kind of people that leave things
in safety positive boxes aren't the kind of people who
call the cops. These are the kind of people that
(07:06):
don't want something in their home for a reason. So
there was a case a few years ago here in
Los Angeles where there was a private safe deposit box
company that the Feds raided. And this case went all
the way to the Supreme Court because the Feds rated
every single safe deposit box looking for things because they
(07:30):
had intel that cartels were using it and sort of
a they were using these privacafe deposit boxes to move money,
guns and drugs back and forth people you could drop
it off there, pick it up. It's basically using it
like a like a bank where people could drop off
But the way they were able to get access to
every single safe deposit box is that the presumption of
(07:54):
the law is that if you are putting stuff there,
you're probably putting something there illegally to that for a
private safe deposit box company, Yeah, so the FEDS can
break into a private safe depositive box. The Feds can
get into a bank safe depositive box, but the Feds
cannot get into safe deposit boxes at law firms because
(08:17):
those are covered by attorney client privilege. Oh so I
very specific I learned about this from a relative of mine.
So I'll give you some brief backstory. The fine folks
of Thomas and Mercer had asked me if I would
pitch a short story to them for these ongoing short
story anthologies, and so, yeah, I'd love to. And I
(08:38):
didn't really have any good ideas, and I was trying
to think of a good heist, and no heist were
coming to me. And I was at my sister's house
and my nephew was in law school at the time,
and it had summer associated at some law firm somewhere,
and I was like, you know, how was this summary?
Was it cool?
Speaker 1 (08:56):
Is the guy? Yes?
Speaker 2 (08:57):
Great? And I said anything weird? He's like, no, is
DM priest, you know, high price law firm. And then
he paused. He's like, well, there was one weird thing.
I said, oh, what was that? And he said, well,
there's this entire floor of safe deposit boxes. And I
was like I'm sorry.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
What right?
Speaker 2 (09:13):
Yeah, and he's like yeah, so they're all covered by
a training client privilege. So a lot of our clients,
you know that some people just like are depositing their
mothers ashes in there or whatever, but also like we
have people that are doing time, they're leaving stuff there.
And I was like what what? And I said, well,
who who's in charge of this floor of safe deposit boxes?
(09:34):
And he's like Jeff. It's like, Jeff, Jeff is in
charge of the safe deposit box. Yes, but yeah he did,
he inventories them and all that. And so I then
asked him a question that set off the opportunity to
write this entire book and do whatever else I choose
to do with it for the rest of my life,
which is I said Okay, So let's say I drop
(09:57):
off a stuffed animal in my safe deposit box. Does
the attorney have the right to unzip the stuffed animal
suits inside of it? And he said no, And I said,
you're going to make me a million dollars.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
Story. Okay like that?
Speaker 2 (10:14):
Yes, yeah, So that was the genesis and it's it's
a it's a kind of heist that I did actually
want to show the hest because the like, I wanted
to show the aftermath, Like this is largely a book
about the aftermath of bad decisions, and so having the
person who controls all the boxes steal all the boxes,
isn't that exciting just can walk in with a key
(10:35):
and take everything. And so I really wanted to examine
the consequences of his actions.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
Well, the thing is, he dies, yes quickly. I was like, well,
he got he was he kind of did it. He
did it, he did it. He can't control he can't
enjoy any of the fruits of his labor. No, No,
that may kind of laugh a little bit. It was like,
that's yea carmic justice right there.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
Yes, yeah, I mean you know, like this is probably
the big difference between my brother and I is like
Lee has always written about heroes, and I always write
about bad guys. I like it, bad guys and bad women.
And you know, no one in any of my books
gets away clean. There's always there's always a debt, you know,
(11:20):
even the people that win, there's a debt to be paid.
And so you know, having him die this is not
a spoiler. So it's written on the back of the book.
It happens in the first fifteen pages or something, having
him crash his van fildostole loot in front of a
crooked cop who then steals all the loot.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
You know that.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
To me, it's it's the perversion of what law and
order is, which is something else I think about a
lot as a writer, is you know who's got the
badge and who doesn't, and so to write about you know,
the difference between these people. One is ostensibly good and
one is ostensibly bad. But it turns out you really
only want one guy to come out of that thing. Well,
(12:04):
and it's not the guy who get ends up getting
the money in the end.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
Right, Well, well I will I will say the characters.
I don't see him as bad and good. Actually no,
I mean that's that's broad surely as I read it,
I was, as I'm getting it into, I like Petty
and I kind of and a bunch of side characters
like the cousin of law stuff. There's some fun. There's
some fun. I mean, there's some fun. Characters in there
doing bad things are baddest, right, But even even Jack,
(12:30):
it was it was the kind of well, even Robert
who was like this failed lawyer kind of Jack's like
this copy makes these decisions that are always wrong. I feel
like that we all do. We're kind of morally ambiguous,
will say.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
Moral center. Yeah. Well, And and for me writing character
like Jack who is so vaninglorious that he is incapable
of seeing the reality around him, even and I will
the end, even to the very end of the book,
he always is thinking that he is the most competent
person in every room, and it turns out he's the
(13:08):
most incompetent person in every room. Maybe this feels ripped
from the headlines, but I think we all encounter people
like that on a somewhat daily basis, who think that
they have the answer, and the answer is so self
serving that it's you know, anyone else can see it.
And so I love writing a character like Jack. But
(13:30):
the thing is, if I just wrote him as a simp,
you wouldn't want to read him. And so there comes
a time in the middle of the book, I think
where you begin to recognize, like, oh, this is how
he got this way. Yes, you know, like you realize
who he was as a kid, and you know who
like the circumstances that created this sort of situation for him.
(13:53):
And I'm not going to say you end up with
empathy for him, because I think empathy makes you imagine
how you would be. But surely you begin to pity
him a little bit.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
Why I won't answer me. You do kind of think
about what would I do this situation if I was
But but it's more of my personality situation, not necessarily
his or any we got. Maybe I also gotta mention
Mitch Diamond, who is kin Penny's friend, but we're not
so sure. I don't give any away there either. He's
(14:21):
kind of ambiguous also a little bit. So that's why
I think that's what probably probably you as a writer.
Ryding's characters that are they can move and shift. They're
not just here's a good guy. I say, your brother
does very much does the hero stories, you know, throwning
and all that stuff he does, all that stuff. Your
characters are like they could go a direction.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
Yeah, I mean, I think they're all morally ambiguous for sure.
And you know a character like Mitch Diamond, who you
don't even ever get his real name in the book,
and I hazard to tell you, I don't know it.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
No backstory in your head? I said, okay, Well.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
In fact there is. So in this year's Best American
Mystery and Suspense Stories, there's a short story that features
him in it. And then there's a previous story I
wrote for another anthology where I have him where he
has a sister. I don't know if he still has
a sister in my mind, but he has a sister
(15:24):
and they get involved in some criminal behavior in Santa
Cruz and in Pihara, which I mentioned a little bit
in the book as well. So in my mind, he's
got plenty of a backstory. I just don't know how
much we want to steal from these short stories now,
which I'll create a new But you know, I like
a character who you know is capable of violence at
(15:48):
any given time, but who you never actually see do
anything really terribly bad. In this book. And this is
something I learned from writing the books I wrote before this.
I wrote a series of novels about a hitman who
hides out in Las Vegas as a rabbi, called the
gangster Land Books. And in those books, I wanted you
(16:08):
to think, in every single scene the main character is
capable of killing someone, that every scene he might kill somebody,
and a lot of them he does. But that inherent
fear when you're reading that this person, at any moment,
without compunction, will put a bullet between someone's eyes, I
think drives every single scene in that book. In this case,
(16:31):
what I wanted was in every single scene with all
of the main characters, so with Jack, with Penny and
with Mitch, for you to be wondering what kind of
game are they running in this scene? You know, what
are they doing? And there's a scene very very very
late in the book where Mitch and Penny sort of
(16:51):
book put their cards on the table for the first
time with each other. For you you've read the book,
so it's the scene wheny're on the boat, yes, and
you like they finally put their swords down and you
just see them as real people, damaged, real people, you know,
existing in an absurd sort of black comic world, and
hopefully you begin to get sort of a more emotional
(17:14):
sense of them than perhaps you would just watching them,
you know, Thomas crown afferret or something.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
You know, I'm saying, they're all it's like, it's not
just this, you know it. He's a good guy, so
he has to act a certain way through the whole book.
Basically there's a they say, you can't give up a
good guy layers, but you know what I mean, it's
it's just it's easy for body where you can show
different shades of them as out of place. Yeah, totally
totally why I didn't like that all of a sudden
(17:41):
knows like, oh, they're kind of fucked up, and yeah,
it was you're fucked up. There are times when you
have epiphanies or there's times let the guard down right.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
Yeah, And I really feel like, you know, as a writer,
my characters are typically sort of ruled by where they
are and even both physically and emotionally, but really physically,
I think the setting begets conflict in the character. So
you know, if you're a hit man, you can't just
walk into a Starbucks since they give you a Latta
instead of amocha. You're gonna pop every barista. It's like,
(18:15):
you know, that's not gonna happen, but in another situation,
maybe it does. And so I love this notion that
people are shifting around because of where they are at
any given time, and that I think also keeps the
reader a little off center.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
Yeah, I think so. I think so too, because you're like, oh, okay,
so was it all I was waiting for a twist
that didn't happen. I don't know why I thought maybe
it might happen, And and so I want to I
kind of want to about giving someff away. I want
to ask because it's like, anyway, what was so Robert
(18:48):
had to die right always? So you had to die
so you could, Yes, so the money everyone wanted somebody else.
There was no like Olive was it?
Speaker 2 (18:59):
No? No, no, So.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
It was always play that he had to die and
not everyone else deal with aftermaph of his.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
Actions correct and the you know that. So this is
not too much of a spoiler because it happens also
in the first twenty pages that Jack Biddle, this corrupt cop,
keeps this man's body like that is the engine by
which he can get away with this crime, right because
(19:27):
he's going to the You know, really what I wanted
to write about was, in a strange way, like our
love of true crime and our proliferation with true crime,
and the way we as a society, you know, embrace
criminals like we love criminals. And you know, it's a
story like dB Cooper's or something which you know, of course,
(19:49):
is in my head when I was writing this, where
like the mythology around it has is like a tourist
trap now, and so I really wanted to write a
book where a dying resort town is revitalized by a
crime and an unsolved crime. And so when after Jack
sees the van tumble down the side of the road
(20:11):
with all the loot in it, it's filled with the money,
but it's also filled with the guy who stole its
dead body, and he decides to keep the loot and
the body and for the next fifteen years perpetuate a
hoax that Robert Green is still alive by sending ransom
letters and blackmail and Robin Hood stuff to people. And
you know, the cops are looking at all that stuff
(20:32):
and his DNA is all over it. Well that's because
a cop with a dead body is harvest in the DNA.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
Right now, I say, I want to ask you about
of course, location, location, location. It's just set in Granted
Shore and Oregon. It's a place. It's not a real place, right, it's.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
Just a no I made it up.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
Yeah, it's one of those coastal towns that I can
only mactum imagine that. You know, it's kind of getting
a little dilapidated from all the salt from the sea.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
Precisely precisely I was reading.
Speaker 1 (21:08):
I was like, it's it's a sleepy place, but like
you know, there's some secrets there. I say, right, my
lives by this kind of situation. So I'll tell me
about the talent you made up. Tell me about that world.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
Well, I've lived most of my life in resort towns.
So I live in Palm Springs now, and I've lived
here in Palm Springs for the last twenty five years.
But then I also lived here for all of high
school in eighth grade, so I lived I've lived here
a total of thirty years of my fifty four years
on the planet.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
And when I.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
Also have lived in Las Vegas, and when we lived
in Northern California and Walnut Creek. You know, we spent
a lot of time in Santa Cruz and Pajara and
Capitola and down to Pismo and San Luis Obispo. You know,
any place where you could get art painted on balsal wood.
We went there with my mom on vacation with some
(22:02):
dude she was dating with a perm And then every
summer we go up to a lake outside Spokane called
Loon Lake and we would go fishing there with our
family and it's it is the quintessential stuck in time,
nineteen fifties dirty dancing resort. You know, cabins that are
(22:25):
on the lake. There's a big, you know store in
the middle of it. If it wasn't in Spokane, you
think it was in the Catskills somewhere. And so that
you know, that place, Granite Point Park, it's called where
we would stay, lives pretty prominently in the nostalgia of
my of my youth. In fact, my brother and I
(22:45):
have both put Loon Lake and Granite Point Park. I
think in pretty much everything we've ever written, there's some
reference to it. And everything we've ever written, Grand Point Park,
Loon Lake, and Walla Walla which is where our mom
grew up and where our grandparents lived in, and which
has become a resort town now, which is very strange.
You know, it's become wine terurist place. Before it was
(23:07):
just a spot where there was a penitentiary and wheat.
So I've spent a lot of time in these sort
of dilapidated resort towns with diagonal parking and saltwater taffy.
And here's the truth.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
The locals hate you, right, yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
The locals want you to die in a chemical fire,
so it doesn't destroy property, it just removes your skin
from your body. That's what the locals want.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
I agree with that.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
And there is always an insidious underbelly in a resort town.
So when I was a kid, for instance, I worked
as a cabana boy at a bunch of hotels here
in Palm Springs. And my job was I handed out
towels and I sold suntwn lotion. And I worked at
like four or five different hotels and Palm Springs. One
(23:59):
of them was Riviera Hotel, and I worked for a
man called the tan Man, and the tan Man that
was all the name I was given for this gentleman.
And he had a concession at the pool at the
Riviera hotel in Palm Springs, where he sold sun tanlation
and handed outtels. And what we would do every day
(24:19):
is in the middle of the afternoon, he'd gather us
all together and he'd say, all right, quick like a bunny,
go steal the bottles of sun ten liasion. So we'd
go back out to the pool, we'd grab up all
the bottles of sun ten liation. We'd bring him back
to our little concession area and we'd refill them with
baby oil and jurgins, and then we would resell them
to the same people we had stolen them from. This
(24:42):
is the kind of cons that happened.
Speaker 1 (24:46):
I was gonna ask him, did he have a tan? Oh?
He was.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
He was vividly tanned. But so here's here's the other.
Here's the other part of the story is that at
the end of the season, so like May second or whatever,
I show up to work and Tanman owed me one
hundred sixty seven dollars, which may as well have been
a million dollars because I was sixteen years old, and
I get to the hotel to the Riviera and he's gone.
Now at the time, the Riviera Hotel in Palm Springs
(25:12):
was owned by the Union mill Rights of Chicago, which
is to say they were owned by the Chicago outfit.
The Chicago Mafia owned the Riviera Hotel, okay, And so
I start walking around that hotel asking has anyone seen
tan man? I'm looking for one hundred and sixty seven dollars?
Where's a tann man? Don't want my money. And people
(25:32):
are like, we don't know who you are or who
the tanman is, and they just keep pushing me through
this hotel. And so I'm finally in the GM's office
and he's this guy with rings only on his pinkies,
his shirts and button down to his pelvis and I'm like, hey, man,
I'm looking for the tan man. He owes me one
hundred and sixty seven dollars. I just want my money.
And this guy, who I should not have said that too,
(25:55):
was like do I know you? And I said no.
He's like, do you have a W nine here? And
I said no. He said get the fuck out of
my office. I was like, oh shit, and so I
go home chastened. And my mom was the society columnist
for the newspaper, so she knew all the gangsters and
actors and I come and I'm like, mom, I went
(26:17):
to the Riviera to get my money from the Tanman
and the GM of the Riviera told me get the
fuck out of his office. And she was like, you
asked the GM of the Riviera for money. I said, yeah,
one hundred and sixty seven dollars. She's like, you asked
the GM of the rivi Era for one hundred and
sixty seven dollars. I said yeah, and she said, Todd,
(26:40):
he's a coppo in the Chicago outfit. She's like, you
can never go back there.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (26:48):
So the point is all of these places play a
role in creating a town like Granite Shores. You know,
I wanted it to be a place that the tourist
maybe didn't see the truth that is, you know, there's
people doing scams on them. Wherever they are. There's a
small organized crime element, because there's an organized crime element
in every city, and that the people that are there
(27:11):
are there for your entertainment while you do teams of
chants and things like that, and they are ripping you off.
And I love that. I love it. I love it.
Speaker 1 (27:20):
You know Boardwalk, you know, yeah, everybody there.
Speaker 2 (27:26):
They hate everybody and the people that work there. Like,
here's here's the thing, folks, never go to the Santa
Cruz boardwalk and get on Megan's list and start looking
at the names and comparing him, like you don't want
to be hanging out with those carnies. I got news
for you.
Speaker 1 (27:40):
Oh my god. Yeah, stay with you know Carmel, And yes,
they hate you, they hate you. I have a brother
in Spokanes. I've been in Spokan, so I do know
the area very well.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
Yeah, and so yeah, spokansa interesting place. I mean that
it's one of those cities that they keeps sands game
like the next Austin. You're like, yeah, but the prose
five miles outside of Spokane there's white power militias that
are plotting everyone's death.
Speaker 1 (28:08):
So yeah, but yeah I have to go there was
five But I'm like, yeah, you go too far close
to Idaho and yeah, yeah, it's not I don't.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
Get close to Idaho. Or you're just in the middle
of Washington State and it ain't Seattle.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
It as all on that one. That's kind of crazy.
Speaker 2 (28:25):
A lot of bar is called the branding Iron. You're like,
you know what I'm not comfortable here.
Speaker 1 (28:30):
Yes, that's it. Oh my god, Yes, stuff like that.
So this book, I mean, I'm gonna be a passage.
I want to be a passage. Okay. And but also
I love this. He dedicated it this way for Wendy.
You picked the sentry, I'll pick the spot. I love.
(28:52):
That must be some little thing between you guys like that.
Speaker 2 (28:55):
Well it's a line from a song that we've always
both loved.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
Okay. But I was like, that's cute. Just say that.
That's cute. I like reading medications. Okay.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
I read the dedications and the acknowledgments first to see
if either one of them mentioned.
Speaker 1 (29:12):
Me it is. That's hilarious. I've been a few acknowledge
with you. I have a few.
Speaker 2 (29:19):
Okay, I'll get you in the next one. I got you.
Speaker 1 (29:22):
I think i'll take it. I'll take it. That's till
I say it. Okay. Four hundred and eighty nine and
twenty dollars. That's what Robert Green owed the federal government.
At first, I was like, cout a lot of money
private lenders at his sister Penny for the right to
fail the bar exam. Ten years since graduating bottom of
(29:44):
his class, at Harvard Law. Robert had failed at the
bar exam in New York, California, and Washington a combined
fifteen times. It's not that he was dumb, far from it.
In fact, he was probably the second smartest person to
(30:05):
ever come from granted shores. Wasn't that he was a
bad test taker. The core truth he'd come to realize
was madly simple. He didn't want to be a lawyer.
Never wanted to be a lawyer. It was a notion
put into his head from birth, practically by his late
mother and later in all meanings of the word, his father.
(30:30):
He would be a lawyer. His brother, herself a prominent lawyer,
clearly one of that for her only son, his father,
a criminal, clearly needed that if only keep him out
of prison. That whole passage made me laugh, And that's
a that is a representation of the kind of some
of the tones of the book. Yes, laughing as I'm reading.
(30:53):
It's not like you failed here, he failed there, he
failed there. It's it's like it's you're telling the story,
but it's also kind of funny.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
Hmm.
Speaker 1 (31:00):
I hope, so you know it is why I like
that pack. Like first I was like, oh, that, you know,
it was all that much money. Shit. I was like,
that's crazy, and then he kind of told me. I
was like, oh my god, it's hilarious. You said, second smart,
I just I'm thinking it's a small tale. My second,
it just makes you laugh. So book is entertaining in
(31:21):
a way that you'll read it and you'll you'll have
some chuckles and it's okay to chuckle.
Speaker 2 (31:27):
Yeah, I wanted it to be funny. I mean, you know,
you brought up the dedication. The truth of the matter
is I wrote this book a lot of it, like
more than fifty percent of it sitting in waiting rooms,
because my wife had been diagnosed with breast cancer when
I started to write this book, and so I spent
the next year going to doctor's writin's with her and
(31:52):
sitting while she was getting treatment or waiting for commutter treatment,
or she was in the hospital and I was waiting
for her to get out of the hospital. And she's great,
she's fine, and everything's fine. I don't worry. Everything's fine.
This doesn't have a sad ending. This has a good ending.
And when I was sitting there, you know, I was
filled with fear, of course, and anxiety and you know,
(32:17):
uncertainty about anything that was in this world. And so
when I would sit down to write, when I would
actually turn that part of my brain on, what I
said was, I'm going to write this from a place
of joy that i want this to be fun and
I'm going to channel my anxiety and my fear and
my uncertainty into black comic noir that is an escape
(32:40):
from reality. I want people to read this book and
fall into these other people's problems in a mythical place
that they can imagine as their own, and ask themselves
what they would do in a similar place if they
were just slightly smarter than some of the characters in
the book. And so when I was writing it, I
didn't know necessarily if it was funny. I thought, well,
I've probably written some funny stuff in here, but I
(33:02):
remembered so little of it because I was in such
a heightened emotional state. It wasn't until I was listening
to the audio book like two months ago, were I
was like, Oh, that's funny. Oh that's funny too.
Speaker 1 (33:17):
That's hilarios. I love it. I mean, you know, inspiration
comes anywhere, right, and you had time on your hands,
so why not write a book.
Speaker 2 (33:28):
Well, also, they'd already paid me, so I had to,
so you might as well, you know, be productive. Yeah,
I was going to be productive. And look, it was
the only way to deal with the anxiety of the situation.
And you know, this is also true during the pandemic.
I was super productive during the pandemic because it was
a world I could control. And this is also you know,
(33:49):
some of what the book is kind of about, which
is our obsession with true crime, which I think for
a lot of us really began to fester during the
pandemic because I don't know about what you were doing.
But like at night, we'd get into bed and we
would put on Dead Girl Missing whatever, you know, whatever
true crime documentary we could find on Hulu that's always
(34:10):
dead Girl Missing exact, and for an hour before we
fall asleep, we would watch this. But at the end
of that hour, they would find out who killed the
dead Girl Missing, chaos would be resolved, the world would
be put back into order, the bad people would get punished,
and we'd all go about our lives. And during that
time we all thought so profoundly powerless, Like I think
(34:34):
that was really edifying, Like, oh, you know what, problems
get solved, bad people get punished, life goes on, and
so I wanted to when I was writing this, you
know that was part of what I was doing, is
like tricking myself that I could control this world that
I was in. But also what I realized as I
read it and listened to it afterwards, is what I
was also hoping to do is that when you're reading
(34:55):
it now in a very unsteady world, that for the
few hours that you're sitting down with these other people,
that I can take you away and uh, chaos may
or may not be resolved, but it concludes, that is
for sure.
Speaker 1 (35:11):
Yeah, And I'm looking at it like, yeah, this ending
is interesting. It's it's it's such a good book.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (35:18):
I thoroughly enjoyed it. And now I can say this
to you, like I said to your brother, You're welcome back. Anytime.
Send books to me. I will read them.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
I'm coming right now.
Speaker 1 (35:28):
Well, I'll come to pump Springs White.
Speaker 2 (35:30):
Done, we'll get the Christmas tree out of your room,
and we'll get your.
Speaker 1 (35:37):
That's right, but no, seriously, welcome anytime.
Speaker 2 (35:40):
I thank you.
Speaker 1 (35:41):
I'm turning impressed. His talented family it's called only way out, folks,
Todd Goldberg. I didn't go to Todd Goldberg dot com. Right,
that's correct. It's one D, one D, folks, there's only
one D. I lost the other D in the nineteen
seventy six Olympics. I would say, I'll just say the
one D is better.
Speaker 2 (35:59):
Who needs all? I hates one D. You know what
I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (36:05):
That's all I need to That's so. But you're follow
them anywhere, of course, And but we're all books. And
again I always end the show with just that. We again,
we don't believe in banning books. We're not all about that.
We're like, anybody should write whatever they want. And how
do people can make a choice to pick what they
want to read. Books aren't going anywhere. They're not going anywhere. People,
whether it's audible, whether it's audiobooks, whether it's Kindle, whether
(36:28):
it's nooks, whatever, whatever it is. Books are here to stay.
Support writers, Support authors. Support This is their livelihood. Support them.
There's a bunch of the broaden horizons, a bunch of stories.
Why I do this show A champions with James Aunt
because I want people if you have heard the artist
or heard the story. Maybe now you do pass it
on to your friends, let them know what's going on out.
(36:48):
There's a lot of great books, and it's holiday season.
You'll be traveling. You're going to go home before you
get to that cranberry sauce and everything. While you're sitting
at airport for five hours, get this book and you can.
Speaker 2 (36:58):
Yeah, Only Way Out is the key to good Thanksgiving.
Speaker 1 (37:01):
I think.
Speaker 2 (37:01):
Yeah, that's a lot of reviews are saying that.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
Okay, that's just that's the slogan good Thanksgivings to Oldberg's
Only Way Out and that's James Junior. Talk to you
next time.
Speaker 2 (37:12):
Thanks
So it's a rare occasion. I can see interview siblings.
You guys know that Legal Versu a friend of mine
and I've interviewed do so we always have a great time,
great writer. He has a brother too, who's a great
writer also. And this book is cuckoo crazy and it's
so good. There's so many characters, so many twists and turns,
(00:27):
and I don't know, I mean, are there good characters
in it? I don't know. They've all got to them.
But it's called only Way Out. If you if you're
watching I go, you see it's right there. If you're
listening high podcast listeners, it's called only Way Out, it'll
be out the summer first. But you go ahead and
pre quorterer and pre save and do all this stuff. Now,
it's say Kindle first Reads. It's on a suspense drillers list,
(00:50):
organized crime thrillers at police and at five times fast
police procedurals charts. I'm tired already. See some nietzschee church
right there.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Let me tell you.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Like police proceede. I can't get that ship out, Okay, yeah,
I'll be.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
I got news for you if people buy that book
looking for a police procedural, they're gonna be super disappointed. Well,
there's there's cops and they're proceeding. Yes, it's not like
it's not like Ian Rankin or something.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
Lay gentlemen, Todd Goldberg, we're laughing already.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
All right, Todd neither good to see him, see too.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
Okay, So the first thing, we gotta get this out
the way first, folks, because I love it. I don't care.
Uh this channel we always talk about how we don't
ban books. We don't care. It's like it's people write
what they want to write, You buy what you want
to buy, reads you want to read. That's how you
feel it is, So address becaussy, No I go. It
(01:54):
didn't bother me. I read books all cots books all
the time.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
So you must have seen like the first five reviews
on Amazon or something, and I was just like, am
I just.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
Well, let's just so, folks, in a missed as any
adult novel that's for adult, for adults, it's adult subjects.
It's a fun book too, folks. There's some comedy in it,
but it's like it's there's some cuss words.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
Yeah. Well, so the first review that came in on Amazon,
like the day was released, this review got posted. So
I saw it and it's you know, it was like,
I won't read anything with profanity. I closed the book
after one sentence, and I was like, well, that's because
in the in the first line, it's something like when
(02:40):
you're a criocket chop, you have nowhere to turn when
she goes sideways, something like that.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
So here's how they're too much, because it's not even
the first linebody goes, it's a second the go it's
it's it opened. The book opens with a curse word
might well no, not really, I mean well, yes, I
guess on some level when she I so, okay, sure,
and then it goes into a regular for you folks
at home.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Hey, look, I got news for you. If you're buying
a book of mine and you think it's going to
be a cozy mystery where there's an intuitive cat that
solves a crime, you got another thing coming. That's not
the kind of books I write. So here's the amazing
thing that I love. So this is my sixteenth book,
and over the course of sixteen books, I've probably killed
(03:29):
I don't know a thousand people in sixteen books, maybe more,
plus short stories, screenplays, all that kind of stuff, huge
body count. I have never in my life gotten an
email saying, how dare you kill someone in your book
(03:50):
gangster Land? But as soon as someone in that book
said fuck, that was it? What is wrong with people?
You can kill as many people you can name, as
many people you can You can bury a girl in
the backyard of a book and torture her for four
hundred pages and call it serial killer fiction, and people
gobble that up like it's popcorn.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
The opposite you can put out, was it? They call
it soccer mom porn without finishing, which which.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
I also like to watch. So that's thank you for
bringing that up.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
They had to describe there's one chapter of that book, right,
that's just a contract, and so they describe all the
acts and things. I'm like, that's okay, Yeah, it's just
said damn or book or ship people. I was like,
I don't know, what what is that about? Curse words?
Speaker 2 (04:43):
Oh, I don't know. It's such a it's such a
bizarre thing. You know that that any series of fonts
would cause you to be upset. So here here's my
public warning for anyone listening to this who is going
to investigate this or any book that I've ever written.
(05:03):
There's going to be some bodies and at some point
a person who is a professional killer is going to
say a word that you used to not fee able
to say it on TV, but which you can now.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
Look at that the way I just thought that was.
I thought it would it was like, it's it's I'm enraged.
That's for adults. I mean, come on, adults, that's correct.
Thank you, James God. Okay, So I'm not gonna make
a laugh. So gains the book itself, it is a
page well, first of all, congratulations. First thing, books is
(05:43):
just a it's a thing you do. And you know,
nobody can see down to write a book. And that's coherent.
It has a great beginning, middle and end. You and
you do. And there's so many because I was because
this is called in between the pages. I was in
between the pages. There's so many different kind of lead
(06:04):
characters in this book. M a lot of supporting I
like Penny or me too. Yeah, who I wouldn't seeing
her own little spin off.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
She might have some other stories to tell.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
There you go, But did you have Jack who's the cop?
Jack Biddle? Who's who had So it's so folks the
books about you know, this guy who's a failed kind
of lawyer, Robert Green and anything feels like you don't
do this heist thing. And all these safe deposits. I
thought it was kind of funny safe deposit boxes. I
want to ask you about that. Why that and not
(06:40):
just rob banks, they're robbing safety boxes. I love well.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
The thing that is great about the safe deposit boxes,
and this is true everywhere. It doesn't matter if it's
a bank, or if it's a law firm, as it
is the case in this, or if it's a private
safe deposit box. The kind of people that leave things
in safety positive boxes aren't the kind of people who
call the cops. These are the kind of people that
(07:06):
don't want something in their home for a reason. So
there was a case a few years ago here in
Los Angeles where there was a private safe deposit box
company that the Feds raided. And this case went all
the way to the Supreme Court because the Feds rated
every single safe deposit box looking for things because they
(07:30):
had intel that cartels were using it and sort of
a they were using these privacafe deposit boxes to move money,
guns and drugs back and forth people you could drop
it off there, pick it up. It's basically using it
like a like a bank where people could drop off
But the way they were able to get access to
every single safe deposit box is that the presumption of
(07:54):
the law is that if you are putting stuff there,
you're probably putting something there illegally to that for a
private safe deposit box company, Yeah, so the FEDS can
break into a private safe depositive box. The Feds can
get into a bank safe depositive box, but the Feds
cannot get into safe deposit boxes at law firms because
(08:17):
those are covered by attorney client privilege. Oh so I
very specific I learned about this from a relative of mine.
So I'll give you some brief backstory. The fine folks
of Thomas and Mercer had asked me if I would
pitch a short story to them for these ongoing short
story anthologies, and so, yeah, I'd love to. And I
(08:38):
didn't really have any good ideas, and I was trying
to think of a good heist, and no heist were
coming to me. And I was at my sister's house
and my nephew was in law school at the time,
and it had summer associated at some law firm somewhere,
and I was like, you know, how was this summary?
Was it cool?
Speaker 1 (08:56):
Is the guy? Yes?
Speaker 2 (08:57):
Great? And I said anything weird? He's like, no, is
DM priest, you know, high price law firm. And then
he paused. He's like, well, there was one weird thing.
I said, oh, what was that? And he said, well,
there's this entire floor of safe deposit boxes. And I
was like I'm sorry.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
What right?
Speaker 2 (09:13):
Yeah, and he's like yeah, so they're all covered by
a training client privilege. So a lot of our clients,
you know that some people just like are depositing their
mothers ashes in there or whatever, but also like we
have people that are doing time, they're leaving stuff there.
And I was like what what? And I said, well,
who who's in charge of this floor of safe deposit boxes?
(09:34):
And he's like Jeff. It's like, Jeff, Jeff is in
charge of the safe deposit box. Yes, but yeah he did,
he inventories them and all that. And so I then
asked him a question that set off the opportunity to
write this entire book and do whatever else I choose
to do with it for the rest of my life,
which is I said Okay, So let's say I drop
(09:57):
off a stuffed animal in my safe deposit box. Does
the attorney have the right to unzip the stuffed animal
suits inside of it? And he said no, And I said,
you're going to make me a million dollars.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
Story. Okay like that?
Speaker 2 (10:14):
Yes, yeah, So that was the genesis and it's it's
a it's a kind of heist that I did actually
want to show the hest because the like, I wanted
to show the aftermath, Like this is largely a book
about the aftermath of bad decisions, and so having the
person who controls all the boxes steal all the boxes,
isn't that exciting just can walk in with a key
(10:35):
and take everything. And so I really wanted to examine
the consequences of his actions.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
Well, the thing is, he dies, yes quickly. I was like, well,
he got he was he kind of did it. He
did it, he did it. He can't control he can't
enjoy any of the fruits of his labor. No, No,
that may kind of laugh a little bit. It was like,
that's yea carmic justice right there.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
Yes, yeah, I mean you know, like this is probably
the big difference between my brother and I is like
Lee has always written about heroes, and I always write
about bad guys. I like it, bad guys and bad women.
And you know, no one in any of my books
gets away clean. There's always there's always a debt, you know,
(11:20):
even the people that win, there's a debt to be paid.
And so you know, having him die this is not
a spoiler. So it's written on the back of the book.
It happens in the first fifteen pages or something, having
him crash his van fildostole loot in front of a
crooked cop who then steals all the loot.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
You know that.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
To me, it's it's the perversion of what law and
order is, which is something else I think about a
lot as a writer, is you know who's got the
badge and who doesn't, and so to write about you know,
the difference between these people. One is ostensibly good and
one is ostensibly bad. But it turns out you really
only want one guy to come out of that thing. Well,
(12:04):
and it's not the guy who get ends up getting
the money in the end.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
Right, Well, well I will I will say the characters.
I don't see him as bad and good. Actually no,
I mean that's that's broad surely as I read it,
I was, as I'm getting it into, I like Petty
and I kind of and a bunch of side characters
like the cousin of law stuff. There's some fun. There's
some fun. I mean, there's some fun. Characters in there
doing bad things are baddest, right, But even even Jack,
(12:30):
it was it was the kind of well, even Robert
who was like this failed lawyer kind of Jack's like
this copy makes these decisions that are always wrong. I feel
like that we all do. We're kind of morally ambiguous,
will say.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
Moral center. Yeah. Well, And and for me writing character
like Jack who is so vaninglorious that he is incapable
of seeing the reality around him, even and I will
the end, even to the very end of the book,
he always is thinking that he is the most competent
person in every room, and it turns out he's the
(13:08):
most incompetent person in every room. Maybe this feels ripped
from the headlines, but I think we all encounter people
like that on a somewhat daily basis, who think that
they have the answer, and the answer is so self
serving that it's you know, anyone else can see it.
And so I love writing a character like Jack. But
(13:30):
the thing is, if I just wrote him as a simp,
you wouldn't want to read him. And so there comes
a time in the middle of the book, I think
where you begin to recognize, like, oh, this is how
he got this way. Yes, you know, like you realize
who he was as a kid, and you know who
like the circumstances that created this sort of situation for him.
(13:53):
And I'm not going to say you end up with
empathy for him, because I think empathy makes you imagine
how you would be. But surely you begin to pity
him a little bit.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
Why I won't answer me. You do kind of think
about what would I do this situation if I was
But but it's more of my personality situation, not necessarily
his or any we got. Maybe I also gotta mention
Mitch Diamond, who is kin Penny's friend, but we're not
so sure. I don't give any away there either. He's
(14:21):
kind of ambiguous also a little bit. So that's why
I think that's what probably probably you as a writer.
Ryding's characters that are they can move and shift. They're
not just here's a good guy. I say, your brother
does very much does the hero stories, you know, throwning
and all that stuff he does, all that stuff. Your
characters are like they could go a direction.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
Yeah, I mean, I think they're all morally ambiguous for sure.
And you know a character like Mitch Diamond, who you
don't even ever get his real name in the book,
and I hazard to tell you, I don't know it.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
No backstory in your head? I said, okay, Well.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
In fact there is. So in this year's Best American
Mystery and Suspense Stories, there's a short story that features
him in it. And then there's a previous story I
wrote for another anthology where I have him where he
has a sister. I don't know if he still has
a sister in my mind, but he has a sister
(15:24):
and they get involved in some criminal behavior in Santa
Cruz and in Pihara, which I mentioned a little bit
in the book as well. So in my mind, he's
got plenty of a backstory. I just don't know how
much we want to steal from these short stories now,
which I'll create a new But you know, I like
a character who you know is capable of violence at
(15:48):
any given time, but who you never actually see do
anything really terribly bad. In this book. And this is
something I learned from writing the books I wrote before this.
I wrote a series of novels about a hitman who
hides out in Las Vegas as a rabbi, called the
gangster Land Books. And in those books, I wanted you
(16:08):
to think, in every single scene the main character is
capable of killing someone, that every scene he might kill somebody,
and a lot of them he does. But that inherent
fear when you're reading that this person, at any moment,
without compunction, will put a bullet between someone's eyes, I
think drives every single scene in that book. In this case,
(16:31):
what I wanted was in every single scene with all
of the main characters, so with Jack, with Penny and
with Mitch, for you to be wondering what kind of
game are they running in this scene? You know, what
are they doing? And there's a scene very very very
late in the book where Mitch and Penny sort of
(16:51):
book put their cards on the table for the first
time with each other. For you you've read the book,
so it's the scene wheny're on the boat, yes, and
you like they finally put their swords down and you
just see them as real people, damaged, real people, you know,
existing in an absurd sort of black comic world, and
hopefully you begin to get sort of a more emotional
(17:14):
sense of them than perhaps you would just watching them,
you know, Thomas crown afferret or something.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
You know, I'm saying, they're all it's like, it's not
just this, you know it. He's a good guy, so
he has to act a certain way through the whole book.
Basically there's a they say, you can't give up a
good guy layers, but you know what I mean, it's
it's just it's easy for body where you can show
different shades of them as out of place. Yeah, totally
totally why I didn't like that all of a sudden
(17:41):
knows like, oh, they're kind of fucked up, and yeah,
it was you're fucked up. There are times when you
have epiphanies or there's times let the guard down right.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
Yeah, And I really feel like, you know, as a writer,
my characters are typically sort of ruled by where they
are and even both physically and emotionally, but really physically,
I think the setting begets conflict in the character. So
you know, if you're a hit man, you can't just
walk into a Starbucks since they give you a Latta
instead of amocha. You're gonna pop every barista. It's like,
(18:15):
you know, that's not gonna happen, but in another situation,
maybe it does. And so I love this notion that
people are shifting around because of where they are at
any given time, and that I think also keeps the
reader a little off center.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
Yeah, I think so. I think so too, because you're like, oh, okay,
so was it all I was waiting for a twist
that didn't happen. I don't know why I thought maybe
it might happen, And and so I want to I
kind of want to about giving someff away. I want
to ask because it's like, anyway, what was so Robert
(18:48):
had to die right always? So you had to die
so you could, Yes, so the money everyone wanted somebody else.
There was no like Olive was it?
Speaker 2 (18:59):
No? No, no, So.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
It was always play that he had to die and
not everyone else deal with aftermaph of his.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
Actions correct and the you know that. So this is
not too much of a spoiler because it happens also
in the first twenty pages that Jack Biddle, this corrupt cop,
keeps this man's body like that is the engine by
which he can get away with this crime, right because
(19:27):
he's going to the You know, really what I wanted
to write about was, in a strange way, like our
love of true crime and our proliferation with true crime,
and the way we as a society, you know, embrace
criminals like we love criminals. And you know, it's a
story like dB Cooper's or something which you know, of course,
(19:49):
is in my head when I was writing this, where
like the mythology around it has is like a tourist
trap now, and so I really wanted to write a
book where a dying resort town is revitalized by a
crime and an unsolved crime. And so when after Jack
sees the van tumble down the side of the road
(20:11):
with all the loot in it, it's filled with the money,
but it's also filled with the guy who stole its
dead body, and he decides to keep the loot and
the body and for the next fifteen years perpetuate a
hoax that Robert Green is still alive by sending ransom
letters and blackmail and Robin Hood stuff to people. And
you know, the cops are looking at all that stuff
(20:32):
and his DNA is all over it. Well that's because
a cop with a dead body is harvest in the DNA.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
Right now, I say, I want to ask you about
of course, location, location, location. It's just set in Granted
Shore and Oregon. It's a place. It's not a real place, right, it's.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
Just a no I made it up.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
Yeah, it's one of those coastal towns that I can
only mactum imagine that. You know, it's kind of getting
a little dilapidated from all the salt from the sea.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
Precisely precisely I was reading.
Speaker 1 (21:08):
I was like, it's it's a sleepy place, but like
you know, there's some secrets there. I say, right, my
lives by this kind of situation. So I'll tell me
about the talent you made up. Tell me about that world.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
Well, I've lived most of my life in resort towns.
So I live in Palm Springs now, and I've lived
here in Palm Springs for the last twenty five years.
But then I also lived here for all of high
school in eighth grade, so I lived I've lived here
a total of thirty years of my fifty four years
on the planet.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
And when I.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
Also have lived in Las Vegas, and when we lived
in Northern California and Walnut Creek. You know, we spent
a lot of time in Santa Cruz and Pajara and
Capitola and down to Pismo and San Luis Obispo. You know,
any place where you could get art painted on balsal wood.
We went there with my mom on vacation with some
(22:02):
dude she was dating with a perm And then every
summer we go up to a lake outside Spokane called
Loon Lake and we would go fishing there with our
family and it's it is the quintessential stuck in time,
nineteen fifties dirty dancing resort. You know, cabins that are
(22:25):
on the lake. There's a big, you know store in
the middle of it. If it wasn't in Spokane, you
think it was in the Catskills somewhere. And so that
you know, that place, Granite Point Park, it's called where
we would stay, lives pretty prominently in the nostalgia of
my of my youth. In fact, my brother and I
(22:45):
have both put Loon Lake and Granite Point Park. I
think in pretty much everything we've ever written, there's some
reference to it. And everything we've ever written, Grand Point Park,
Loon Lake, and Walla Walla which is where our mom
grew up and where our grandparents lived in, and which
has become a resort town now, which is very strange.
You know, it's become wine terurist place. Before it was
(23:07):
just a spot where there was a penitentiary and wheat.
So I've spent a lot of time in these sort
of dilapidated resort towns with diagonal parking and saltwater taffy.
And here's the truth.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
The locals hate you, right, yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
The locals want you to die in a chemical fire,
so it doesn't destroy property, it just removes your skin
from your body. That's what the locals want.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
I agree with that.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
And there is always an insidious underbelly in a resort town.
So when I was a kid, for instance, I worked
as a cabana boy at a bunch of hotels here
in Palm Springs. And my job was I handed out
towels and I sold suntwn lotion. And I worked at
like four or five different hotels and Palm Springs. One
(23:59):
of them was Riviera Hotel, and I worked for a
man called the tan Man, and the tan Man that
was all the name I was given for this gentleman.
And he had a concession at the pool at the
Riviera hotel in Palm Springs, where he sold sun tanlation
and handed outtels. And what we would do every day
(24:19):
is in the middle of the afternoon, he'd gather us
all together and he'd say, all right, quick like a bunny,
go steal the bottles of sun ten liasion. So we'd
go back out to the pool, we'd grab up all
the bottles of sun ten liation. We'd bring him back
to our little concession area and we'd refill them with
baby oil and jurgins, and then we would resell them
to the same people we had stolen them from. This
(24:42):
is the kind of cons that happened.
Speaker 1 (24:46):
I was gonna ask him, did he have a tan? Oh?
He was.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
He was vividly tanned. But so here's here's the other.
Here's the other part of the story is that at
the end of the season, so like May second or whatever,
I show up to work and Tanman owed me one
hundred sixty seven dollars, which may as well have been
a million dollars because I was sixteen years old, and
I get to the hotel to the Riviera and he's gone.
Now at the time, the Riviera Hotel in Palm Springs
(25:12):
was owned by the Union mill Rights of Chicago, which
is to say they were owned by the Chicago outfit.
The Chicago Mafia owned the Riviera Hotel, okay, And so
I start walking around that hotel asking has anyone seen
tan man? I'm looking for one hundred and sixty seven dollars?
Where's a tann man? Don't want my money. And people
(25:32):
are like, we don't know who you are or who
the tanman is, and they just keep pushing me through
this hotel. And so I'm finally in the GM's office
and he's this guy with rings only on his pinkies,
his shirts and button down to his pelvis and I'm like, hey, man,
I'm looking for the tan man. He owes me one
hundred and sixty seven dollars. I just want my money.
And this guy, who I should not have said that too,
(25:55):
was like do I know you? And I said no.
He's like, do you have a W nine here? And
I said no. He said get the fuck out of
my office. I was like, oh shit, and so I
go home chastened. And my mom was the society columnist
for the newspaper, so she knew all the gangsters and
actors and I come and I'm like, mom, I went
(26:17):
to the Riviera to get my money from the Tanman
and the GM of the Riviera told me get the
fuck out of his office. And she was like, you
asked the GM of the Riviera for money. I said, yeah,
one hundred and sixty seven dollars. She's like, you asked
the GM of the rivi Era for one hundred and
sixty seven dollars. I said yeah, and she said, Todd,
(26:40):
he's a coppo in the Chicago outfit. She's like, you
can never go back there.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (26:48):
So the point is all of these places play a
role in creating a town like Granite Shores. You know,
I wanted it to be a place that the tourist
maybe didn't see the truth that is, you know, there's
people doing scams on them. Wherever they are. There's a
small organized crime element, because there's an organized crime element
in every city, and that the people that are there
(27:11):
are there for your entertainment while you do teams of
chants and things like that, and they are ripping you off.
And I love that. I love it. I love it.
Speaker 1 (27:20):
You know Boardwalk, you know, yeah, everybody there.
Speaker 2 (27:26):
They hate everybody and the people that work there. Like,
here's here's the thing, folks, never go to the Santa
Cruz boardwalk and get on Megan's list and start looking
at the names and comparing him, like you don't want
to be hanging out with those carnies. I got news
for you.
Speaker 1 (27:40):
Oh my god. Yeah, stay with you know Carmel, And yes,
they hate you, they hate you. I have a brother
in Spokanes. I've been in Spokan, so I do know
the area very well.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
Yeah, and so yeah, spokansa interesting place. I mean that
it's one of those cities that they keeps sands game
like the next Austin. You're like, yeah, but the prose
five miles outside of Spokane there's white power militias that
are plotting everyone's death.
Speaker 1 (28:08):
So yeah, but yeah I have to go there was
five But I'm like, yeah, you go too far close
to Idaho and yeah, yeah, it's not I don't.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
Get close to Idaho. Or you're just in the middle
of Washington State and it ain't Seattle.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
It as all on that one. That's kind of crazy.
Speaker 2 (28:25):
A lot of bar is called the branding Iron. You're like,
you know what I'm not comfortable here.
Speaker 1 (28:30):
Yes, that's it. Oh my god, Yes, stuff like that.
So this book, I mean, I'm gonna be a passage.
I want to be a passage. Okay. And but also
I love this. He dedicated it this way for Wendy.
You picked the sentry, I'll pick the spot. I love.
(28:52):
That must be some little thing between you guys like that.
Speaker 2 (28:55):
Well it's a line from a song that we've always
both loved.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
Okay. But I was like, that's cute. Just say that.
That's cute. I like reading medications. Okay.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
I read the dedications and the acknowledgments first to see
if either one of them mentioned.
Speaker 1 (29:12):
Me it is. That's hilarious. I've been a few acknowledge
with you. I have a few.
Speaker 2 (29:19):
Okay, I'll get you in the next one. I got you.
Speaker 1 (29:22):
I think i'll take it. I'll take it. That's till
I say it. Okay. Four hundred and eighty nine and
twenty dollars. That's what Robert Green owed the federal government.
At first, I was like, cout a lot of money
private lenders at his sister Penny for the right to
fail the bar exam. Ten years since graduating bottom of
(29:44):
his class, at Harvard Law. Robert had failed at the
bar exam in New York, California, and Washington a combined
fifteen times. It's not that he was dumb, far from it.
In fact, he was probably the second smartest person to
(30:05):
ever come from granted shores. Wasn't that he was a
bad test taker. The core truth he'd come to realize
was madly simple. He didn't want to be a lawyer.
Never wanted to be a lawyer. It was a notion
put into his head from birth, practically by his late
mother and later in all meanings of the word, his father.
(30:30):
He would be a lawyer. His brother, herself a prominent lawyer,
clearly one of that for her only son, his father,
a criminal, clearly needed that if only keep him out
of prison. That whole passage made me laugh, And that's
a that is a representation of the kind of some
of the tones of the book. Yes, laughing as I'm reading.
(30:53):
It's not like you failed here, he failed there, he
failed there. It's it's like it's you're telling the story,
but it's also kind of funny.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
Hmm.
Speaker 1 (31:00):
I hope, so you know it is why I like
that pack. Like first I was like, oh, that, you know,
it was all that much money. Shit. I was like,
that's crazy, and then he kind of told me. I
was like, oh my god, it's hilarious. You said, second smart,
I just I'm thinking it's a small tale. My second,
it just makes you laugh. So book is entertaining in
(31:21):
a way that you'll read it and you'll you'll have
some chuckles and it's okay to chuckle.
Speaker 2 (31:27):
Yeah, I wanted it to be funny. I mean, you know,
you brought up the dedication. The truth of the matter
is I wrote this book a lot of it, like
more than fifty percent of it sitting in waiting rooms,
because my wife had been diagnosed with breast cancer when
I started to write this book, and so I spent
the next year going to doctor's writin's with her and
(31:52):
sitting while she was getting treatment or waiting for commutter treatment,
or she was in the hospital and I was waiting
for her to get out of the hospital. And she's great,
she's fine, and everything's fine. I don't worry. Everything's fine.
This doesn't have a sad ending. This has a good ending.
And when I was sitting there, you know, I was
filled with fear, of course, and anxiety and you know,
(32:17):
uncertainty about anything that was in this world. And so
when I would sit down to write, when I would
actually turn that part of my brain on, what I
said was, I'm going to write this from a place
of joy that i want this to be fun and
I'm going to channel my anxiety and my fear and
my uncertainty into black comic noir that is an escape
(32:40):
from reality. I want people to read this book and
fall into these other people's problems in a mythical place
that they can imagine as their own, and ask themselves
what they would do in a similar place if they
were just slightly smarter than some of the characters in
the book. And so when I was writing it, I
didn't know necessarily if it was funny. I thought, well,
I've probably written some funny stuff in here, but I
(33:02):
remembered so little of it because I was in such
a heightened emotional state. It wasn't until I was listening
to the audio book like two months ago, were I
was like, Oh, that's funny. Oh that's funny too.
Speaker 1 (33:17):
That's hilarios. I love it. I mean, you know, inspiration
comes anywhere, right, and you had time on your hands,
so why not write a book.
Speaker 2 (33:28):
Well, also, they'd already paid me, so I had to,
so you might as well, you know, be productive. Yeah,
I was going to be productive. And look, it was
the only way to deal with the anxiety of the situation.
And you know, this is also true during the pandemic.
I was super productive during the pandemic because it was
a world I could control. And this is also you know,
(33:49):
some of what the book is kind of about, which
is our obsession with true crime, which I think for
a lot of us really began to fester during the
pandemic because I don't know about what you were doing.
But like at night, we'd get into bed and we
would put on Dead Girl Missing whatever, you know, whatever
true crime documentary we could find on Hulu that's always
(34:10):
dead Girl Missing exact, and for an hour before we
fall asleep, we would watch this. But at the end
of that hour, they would find out who killed the
dead Girl Missing, chaos would be resolved, the world would
be put back into order, the bad people would get punished,
and we'd all go about our lives. And during that
time we all thought so profoundly powerless, Like I think
(34:34):
that was really edifying, Like, oh, you know what, problems
get solved, bad people get punished, life goes on, and
so I wanted to when I was writing this, you
know that was part of what I was doing, is
like tricking myself that I could control this world that
I was in. But also what I realized as I
read it and listened to it afterwards, is what I
was also hoping to do is that when you're reading
(34:55):
it now in a very unsteady world, that for the
few hours that you're sitting down with these other people,
that I can take you away and uh, chaos may
or may not be resolved, but it concludes, that is
for sure.
Speaker 1 (35:11):
Yeah, And I'm looking at it like, yeah, this ending
is interesting. It's it's it's such a good book.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (35:18):
I thoroughly enjoyed it. And now I can say this
to you, like I said to your brother, You're welcome back. Anytime.
Send books to me. I will read them.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
I'm coming right now.
Speaker 1 (35:28):
Well, I'll come to pump Springs White.
Speaker 2 (35:30):
Done, we'll get the Christmas tree out of your room,
and we'll get your.
Speaker 1 (35:37):
That's right, but no, seriously, welcome anytime.
Speaker 2 (35:40):
I thank you.
Speaker 1 (35:41):
I'm turning impressed. His talented family it's called only way out, folks,
Todd Goldberg. I didn't go to Todd Goldberg dot com. Right,
that's correct. It's one D, one D, folks, there's only
one D. I lost the other D in the nineteen
seventy six Olympics. I would say, I'll just say the
one D is better.
Speaker 2 (35:59):
Who needs all? I hates one D. You know what
I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (36:05):
That's all I need to That's so. But you're follow
them anywhere, of course, And but we're all books. And
again I always end the show with just that. We again,
we don't believe in banning books. We're not all about that.
We're like, anybody should write whatever they want. And how
do people can make a choice to pick what they
want to read. Books aren't going anywhere. They're not going anywhere. People,
whether it's audible, whether it's audiobooks, whether it's Kindle, whether
(36:28):
it's nooks, whatever, whatever it is. Books are here to stay.
Support writers, Support authors. Support This is their livelihood. Support them.
There's a bunch of the broaden horizons, a bunch of stories.
Why I do this show A champions with James Aunt
because I want people if you have heard the artist
or heard the story. Maybe now you do pass it
on to your friends, let them know what's going on out.
(36:48):
There's a lot of great books, and it's holiday season.
You'll be traveling. You're going to go home before you
get to that cranberry sauce and everything. While you're sitting
at airport for five hours, get this book and you can.
Speaker 2 (36:58):
Yeah, Only Way Out is the key to good Thanksgiving.
Speaker 1 (37:01):
I think.
Speaker 2 (37:01):
Yeah, that's a lot of reviews are saying that.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
Okay, that's just that's the slogan good Thanksgivings to Oldberg's
Only Way Out and that's James Junior. Talk to you
next time.
Speaker 2 (37:12):
Thanks
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