David Grann is a staff writer for the New Yorker. His new book is The White Darkness.

“I do think in life, and in reporting, that reckoning with failure is a part of the process. And reckoning with your own limitations. I think that’s probably the arc and change I have made as I get older. Just as O’Shea doesn’t get the squid, failure is such an integral part of life and what you make of it. Too often we’re always focused on the success side, and I don’t always think the successes teach us as much as the journey and having things elude us. ... I'm being completely honest, I look at every story I've ever written as a failure. Because I always have some model, some perfect ideal, that I want to try to reach.”

Thanks to MailChimp and Pitt Writers for sponsoring this week's episode.

The Mastermind (Evan Ratliff • Random House • Jan 2019)

The Longform Podcast Live: The Mastermind book release party with special guests

@DavidGrann

Grann on Longform

Longform Podcast #3: David Grann

Longform Podcast #241: David Grann

[1:50] The White Darkness (Doubleday • 2018)

[1:55] "The White Darkness" (New Yorker • Feb 2018)

[4:10] "The Squid Hunter" (New Yorker • May 2004)

[11:40] Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI (Doubleday • 2017)

[13:35] "The Lost City of Z" (New Yorker • Sep 2005)

[13:40] The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon (Vintage • 2010)

[14:45] "The Hero Myth" (New Republic • May 1999)

[22:30] "The Yankee Comandante" (New Yorker • May 2012)

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