Episode 98– You can also listen on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Pandora, and Amazon Music

About the Episode:

Douglas Preston has to be one of the most fascinating people to listen to (and of course read). Historian, archeologist, journalist, author, New Mexican…. Preston is a wealth of knowledge and stories. Listen to his conversation with Bunny about all of the above AND why he loves New Mexico so much. If you love a good mystery and a good story, you’ll love this episode of the I Love New Mexico podcast!

Links
Douglas Preston Books
Cancer Foundation for New Mexico
Sweetheart Auction
I Love New Mexico blog page
Bunny’s website
I Love New Mexico Instagram
I Love New Mexico Facebook

Original Music by: Kene Terry

Featuring:

Douglas Preston

Douglas Jerome Preston is an American journalist and author. Although he is best known for his thrillers in collaboration with Lincoln Child (including the Agent Pendergast series and Gideon Crew series), he has also written six solo novels, including the Wyman Ford series and a novel entitled Jennie, which was made into a movie by Disney. He has authored a half-dozen nonfiction books on science and exploration and writes occasionally for The New Yorker, Smithsonian, and other magazines. (Wikipedia)

Episode Transcript

Bunny : (00:01)
Hi there. I’m Bunny Terry, and I’m the host of the I Love New Mexico podcast. We talk about everything here. There are no boundaries. We talk to people who are from all corners of the state, people who are chefs, who are tourists, who are artists, who are Chamber of Commerce executives, and who are from ranch families that have been here for hundreds of years. New Mexico is enchanting, and it’s interesting, and I, I can’t believe I get to do this job. New Mexico is so amazing, and I invite you to come along for the ride on the I 11 New Mexico podcast. Thanks for being here. One of the best things about hosting this podcast is that I get to meet and speak to, um, people that I admire all the time. And the cool thing about this episode is that I am already friends with our guest, and I have had the privilege of sitting with him several different times at dinner or at the sweetheart auction and, um, hearing many of his stories. But I, I wanna introduce all of you to, um, author Douglas Preston. Um, he’s the author of over 40 books, a number of which have been on the New York Times Bestseller list. But I have to tell you that one of my favorite things, uh, about you, Doug, is that, um, in all the times that I have, I have, um, gone to a dinner where you were either the star of the show or just a guest. Um, I’m, I’m so fascinated by how you are not just one of the most interesting people at the table, but you’re one of the most interest people. I think that’s a huge gift that you always bring to the table. But, um, I, I want to, I’m gonna roll off just a tiny little bio here because, um, I, I can’t imagine that anybody doesn’t know who you are. But, um, you, um, an editor at the American Museum of Natural History. You taught nonfiction at Princeton. You’ve written all these books, and, um, you are now, are you still the president of the Author’s Guild? Is that still a thing?

Douglas : (02:26)
No, no, Bunny actually, I’ve, I’ve retired from that position and am now President Emeritus and glad to be nice, even though it was a very rewarding tenure. It, it was quite, uh, it was a lot of work. So I’m glad to be emeritus.

Bunny : (02:45)
Well, I want to hear I want our listeners to hear, because, um, this is, you know, this really is the, I love New Mexico podcast, and, and one of my, one of the favorite, one of my favorite books, um, that you ever wrote was Cities of Gold. Although I like many of them, but I think it would be really fun for New Mexicans. I’ve talked about that book on the podcast before, in fact, as one of my favorite New Mexico books. But I think it would be fun for these, for the guests of the podcast today to hear about that. Like, what’s, what’s the premise and how in the world did you come up with that idea?

Douglas : (03:22)
Well, it was a, a very crazy, and, uh, in many ways a stupid idea. Uh, you know, I moved to New Mexico from New York City. I’m a New Englander. I know nothing about horses, uh, a completely ignorant, uh, on that regard. But I became, after moving to Santa Fe, I became fascinated with the first contact between Europeans and Native Americans in what will become, uh, New Mexico, especially Coronados Andrada. Uh, and so I conceived this idea of retracing Coronado’s route across New Mexico and Arizona and New Mexico on horseback, even though I had no idea what I was doing, but I got a, I managed to persuade a friend Walter Nelson, who’s a Texan, who a little bit knew more than I did. And we embarked on this journey of four horses, two, two packed, two riding, uh, down in southern Arizona on the Mexico, Arizona border. And we rode a thousand miles.

Douglas : (04:30)
And, this was in 1989, and it was an interesting trip. We did not follow any standard trails or roads. We were trying to follow Coronado’s, uh, believed to be Coronado’s route, uh, on his search for the seven cities of gold, which of course went through Santa Fe and went off as far as, uh, central Kansas. And we just packed our supplies on horseback and laid down about a thousand fences and, uh, camped under the stars and ran outta water and ran out of food. And, but we did not kill or hurt a horse, thank God. And we learned everything the hard way. So when I wrote a book about it called Cities of Gold, uh, which was published in the early nineties, and it sort of weaves in, uh, my trip, our trip with the history of Coronado’s Expedition, but also I brought along a tape recorder and I recorded interviews with the various people we met. I mean, we crossed nine Indian reservations. And so in, in those instances, in some instances, I would interview the governor of the Pueblo or others involved and get their idea, their oral histories, their, their history of what it was like when Coronado came through. And, uh, they had a very different view than others did.

Bunny : (06:02)
Of Course, yes.

Douglas : (06:03)
But it was a complicated view. It’s not, uh, not cut and dry. But anyway, so it all got put together in a book called Cities of Gold.

Bunny : (06:12)
Well, it’s, it’s a wonderful book. But you’ve written other, a a number of other books that were, um, that are based in New Mexico. And, um, and I’ve tried to read all of them. Um, I mean, there’s a, there are at least, uh, there’s at least one, um, Nora Kelly book that’s in New Mexico, isn’t there? There’s old bones, the only one, or are there others?

Douglas : (06:35)
Actually there are, let’s see, there are now three, although one of one hasn’t been published yet. Nora Kelly, Nora Kelly books that are set in New Mexico. Uh, she’s an archeologist who works with the Fictitious Institute of Archeology. And the other main character in those novels is Cory Swanson, who’s a young, uh, FBI agent, uh, on her first assignment in the Albuquerque Field office. So the two of them often team up. Well, they, in each novel, they do team up to solve unusual cases involving New Mexico history.

Bunny : (07:15)
Well, I love those. And then I also am a fan, I just, I want folks to know, um, lost Cities are the Monkey gods and, um, um, the monster of Florence, right. Which is, um, one of the scariest books I’ve read. That was a true story. That’s, I’m just curious, do you, do you like writing fiction or nonfiction better? Or is there any specific I’m curious about that. Well,

Douglas : (07:48)
That, that’s a, that’s a good question, because they’re very, they’re very different in one way. Mm-Hmm. . And that is, the nonfiction has to be absolutely accurate. You, there’s no room for any kind of making up anything. Um, and you know, I write for the New Yorker magazine, and they have a ferocious fact checking department. And, uh, if you get any small thing wrong, uh, they’ll find it before the article is published. And it’s embarrassing. You, you so nonfiction, you’re really wedded to the facts. But the creativity in nonfiction is, is finding the story. You know, it’s, it’s what do you include and what do you leave out? Um, because when you write nonfiction, 90% of what you know about the subject is left out. You only 10% goes in. Um, you have to know a lot more about the subject than what you’re actually putting into print, otherwise, you’re not really, don’t have a grasp of the facts now on the other.

Douglas : (08:51)
And then on the other hand, writing fiction, you’re just making it all up. . However, fiction does also have a nonfiction component. I mean, our novels are set in New Mexico, many of them, um, you know, we can’t move Santa Fe to Southern New Mexico. I mean, there’s certain facts you have to maintain. Um, and the more facts in fiction that you maintain, the more ver militude you build. But then the whole story, the characters, everything else is made up. But at base, you’re telling a story. And that story is, that’s the whole deal. You know, whether you’re reading fiction or nonfiction, if it’s not a good story, it fails. So as an, as a writer, my obligation is always to tell an a story that involves the reader, that draws them in, that they enjoy, uh, whether it’s true or made up.

Bunny : (09:56)
Well, I’m curious, and I haven’t read this yet, I I, I’m sorry that I haven’t read it yet. In fact, I’m gonna buy it right now and start reading it. But I, the Lost Tomb is, is that the most recent nonfiction that you’ve published?

Douglas : (10:10)
It’s, and actually that, that book is a collection of my earlier stories, pub nonfiction stories, mostly published in the New Yorker, but some also in the Smithsonian Magazine, uh, wired in a few other places. But, uh, so you may have actually read some of those stories already.

Bunny : (10:31)
I may have, but, you know, um, I was of course st. Snooping around. I was, um, doing as much, um, early research as I could before we talked. And I was really fascinated. I mean, the main reason I thought I’ve gotta buy it is I, you know, I wanna know about the, and we talked about this at dinner, um, I believe a couple of years ago, um, the, um, site in North Dakota where, um, that you went the archeological site there. So I want, I want you to tell our listeners a little bit about that. And then I wanna hear about the Russians that got lost. It, it, I mean, that died in the woods, but talk, talk a little bit about the archeological site in North Dakota. I’m so fascinated by that,

Douglas : (11:16)
That that is an amazing site. Um, uh, some, some years ago, I got an email from a graduate student in paleontology. He wasn’t even a professor yet. And he said he’d found an incredible site, a site of many, many animals actually killed by the asteroid impact that caused the extinction of the dinosaurs. And no one had ever found a site like that. No one had ever found a site where the animals were killed. Um, you know, they’d found the boundary of ash and dust and everything left by the impact. But what he’d found was a site where a, something like a tsunami or a tidal wave, uh, caused by the impact in there was an inland sea that ran up from the Gulf of Mexico, where the asteroid struck all the way up through the Dakotas. And so what he’d found was a, a site where this enormous wave had had washed up violently, um, killing all these animals, tearing them apart.

Douglas : (12:28)
And also the shoreline where enormous forest fires were set. Because all this coming debris coming back down from the asteroid strike with red hot blobs of molten glass shock waves and everything caused forest fires that actually set fire to 75% of the forest of the entire globe. I mean, it was an amazing, uh, disaster. Terrible disaster. And so he’d found this site, he found all these blobs of molten glass that had fallen into this, uh, mut, churned up mud caused by this thing. And all these dead animals, they were fish from the sea mixed with freshwater fish, mixed with animals from land mixed with bones. There were eggs, there were dinosaur feathers, an archic egg, archic egg with the embryo still inside it. I mean, you wouldn’t believe the things he found, um, wood that was on fire from the forest fire, a sap in which micro, uh, tektites from the, from the asteroid itself had fallen into the sap and, and been trapped. So they were, they were biochemically and, and, uh, chemically preserved. I mean, so it’s one of the most important paleontological sites ever found in the history of paleontology. And it’s about the size of two tennis courts. It’s very small, it’s very unassuming, is sort of brown and gray. Uh, you’d never know that this site was the burial ground of, of that day, that one day, uh, which the day the dinosaurs died.

Bunny : (14:23)
And do you have, you have a book? I mean, what is Extinction? Tell tell me what extinction is. ’cause it makes me, they, they feel related. Are they not

Douglas : (14:32)
Extinction? Well, that’s, that, that’s a novel that I’ve, that I’m, that I’ve written, which we published in April. It’s actually not connected. It’s also paleon. It’s, there is paleontology in it for sure. Uh, but it’s not really directly connected with this site. The novel extinction is, uh, there’s a, this is very interesting, I’ve not written about this yet, but there’s a company founded by a very well-known, uh, genetic researcher at Harvard, um, called George Church. And he and a group of scientists and investors started a company to resurrect the wooly mammoth to bring it back to life. And they are doing that. This is not science fiction. Within five years our lifetime, they are going to have resurrected live wooly mammoths. I mean, it’s an absolutely incredible thing. And though, and they even have a place to put them , they’ve developed, um, uh, actually in, in two places in the world.

Douglas : (15:47)
One is in Siberia and Russia, unfortunately, because of the war that sort of fell by the wayside, but they’ve developed another, uh, homeland for these willy mammoths in Alaska. And, um, so in our lifetime, we will see Willy Mammoths. And so the novel is about that, but it’s about something else very quite frightening that is very closely linked to that. I can’t say what it is, ’cause I don’t wanna spoil the novel, but the resurrecting of the Willy Mammoth is, uh, the technology to do that is going, is will allow us, or is allowing us, ’cause it’s being done right now, is allowing scientists to resurrect other, uh, extinct life forms. And some of these are not so friendly.

Bunny : (16:39)
So, and the book is, is it, does it come out in April?

Douglas : (16:43)
The pub date is April 23rd.

Bunny : (16:46)
Okay. Well, I guess I gotta go somewhere and, and pre-buy it, right? April 23rd. Got it. Okay. So, oh, list, I mean, there’s so much that we could talk about, but I also have to hear the story. What’s the deal with, with the, um, Russians that tore their tent apart and ran away, and,

Douglas : (17:08)
Oh, that’s a fascinating story. Yes. I, I’ve been following, I’ve been following that story for many years. Um, this, it’s known as the Diat Love Pass incident. And it took place in 1959 in the old Soviet Union, uh, in the Yal Mountains, which of course, separate Russia from Siberia. It is one of the greatest mysteries that I’ve ever come across in my life. Here’s, I’ll set the scene for you. A group of nine young, uh, people went on a very, uh, interesting cross country ski expedition, crossing the URL mountains in wintertime. Um, it was gonna be a 16 day expedition, uh, doing something that no one had ever done before crossing these mountains that no one had ever crossed before. And this was a very challenging trip. But these six, these of nine people were very experienced. Winter mountaineering, uh, campers, hikers, cross country skiers.

Douglas : (18:18)
They knew exactly what they were doing exactly well, when they didn’t arrive at their final destination, a search was organized, and they found the most bizarre scene. They found their tent. It was a single tent, which all nine stayed in above the tree line in the mountains. And everything in the tent was in order. The, the shoes were there. The meal was laid out like they were in the middle of a meal. Uh, their clothing was there, their sleeping bags were laid out. Nothing was disturbed, but something had appeared in the door of the tent that so terrified them that they slashed their way out the side of the tent ran out into the night in the darkness, in the middle of a storm in 20 below zero weather, mostly undressed in bare feet or socks, and ran out into the snow. They followed their footprints a mile down to the tree line.

Douglas : (19:28)
And there they found a really gruesome and bizarre set of scenes. They found two bodies by a fire that had been lit. Uh, the bodies were almost completely stripped. There were cuts and burns all over the bodies on a tree above the fire. They found human skins 15 feet above, uh, the ground. They found three more bodies frozen, uh, on the slope leading up to the tent going uphill as if they were going back to the tent. And then, and also these bodies had little cuts and bruises all over them, and one had a very small skull fracture. And then, uh, some months later, they looked and looked. They couldn’t find the other four bodies. Some months later, they found the other four bodies, about 300 yards away under 15 feet of snow. There was still a lot of snow at that time. Um, and they had bizarre injuries.

Douglas : (20:31)
Um, three of them had crushed chests. Uh, several had crushed heads. Uh, some were missing their eyes and their tongues. Um, and yet the skin on their bodies was not broken. The medical examiner said it looked like they’d been hit by a truck, although there aren’t any trucks. They were in the middle of the wilderness. Right? And finally, and nobody knows why, but they tested those bodies for radioactivity and found that unnatural, really high levels of radioactivity. Now, for the final mystery, these five of these people had cameras. They found the film, they developed the film, and they found two photographs that aroused a lot of, uh, interest. One showed it was a blurry photograph, but it showed what some claim is, what looks like a Yeti or a furry monster or something coming out of the woods. I mean, it could also be a very blurry skier. Frankly, the other photographs showed weird. What weird looked like weird lights and streets in the sky. Alright, so here’s the question I posed to you, bunny. What happened?

Bunny : (21:50)
has anyone, I, I mean, I saw that there was, that there had been an opinion created by somebody in authority, but that that was debunked.

Douglas : (22:05)
Well, that’s hell no. Okay, that, so what happened was, this was the old Soviet Union. So right, there was a, there was an investigation, a really, very, very careful investigation. Um, autopsies were performed, all kinds of interviews. They scoured the area. There are hundreds of photographs taken and everything else. And then of course, it was all classified top secret and locked away. Well, the families were not satisfied with this. And they agitated, and they wrote outraged letters to, uh, to Khrushchev, who was the premier at the time, and raised hell. Well, nothing was done because, you know, in the old Soviet Union, you know, this kind of thing was not, was put under wraps. But in 1989 when the Soviet Union collapsed, all these files came back out, and there was a huge surge of interest in what had happened. And the prosecutor, the original prosecutor went public, and he said, look, he said, we were, all our results were suppressed.

Douglas : (23:16)
They were suppressed. And what really happened was that this was, uh, alien visitation, an alien attack, um, using some, you know, some kind of energy directed weapons that burned these people that landed. And that’s, that’s the source of the radioactivity and everything else. So this opinion, of course, aroused everybody. And, uh, and then the Russian, there was a, an investigation, there was a foundation created in Russia. What happened, more agitation from the families. Uh, and this agitation went on and on until, um, a couple of years ago when the, the Russians finally reopened the investigation, and they hired a prosecutor, and he did all this very careful research. She was very good. He sent an expedition to the site. They took all these measurements, they took all these old photographs of the site and analyzed them very carefully. And he came up with a theory. Um, and that’s what I wrote about in the New Yorker magazine, was what probably happened and why it’s, I’m not gonna tell you now ’cause it’s, it’s complicated. Don’t, but nope, I, um, it’s very, you have to, you have to buy my book

Bunny : (24:40)
To find out. I know I’m gonna, the

Douglas : (24:42)
Lost to, no, not you, I’m talking to your audience, everyone. No, I’m, I’m, I’m promo I’m, I’m now indulging in a little shameless promotion. But, but what’s very curious about this reopening of the investigation is that it went against Russian public opinion very strongly. Now, the Russians believe there are two competing theories now in Russia. One is that this was secret missile testing by the Russian military that went awry in some way. That’s the first theory. The second theory, of course, is that this had something to do with America. The CIA agents and, you know, spy, uh, you know, skullduggery and murder by the CIA. So this poor Russian prosecutor whose theories did not match Russian public opinion was fired. This is how things work in Russia. You know, he was fired. Of course, his wife was also fired from her job because you fire everybody, right? The whole family is punished. And, uh, and there was a, an uproar in Russia about this prosecutor who, who was he? Why did he, you know, and the case is still open. It has never been officially solved. And there it is.

Bunny : (26:05)
Well, that reminds me of the mon the, the monster of Florence, right? Because that was, I mean, that murder was never found, was he or she or whoever it was?

Douglas : (26:19)
No, it was never solved. Now this, you know, this is something, uh, maybe it’s a defect in my, I’m a journalist and I write right stories about things, but I’m constantly being attracted to stories that don’t have an answer, mysteries that haven’t been solved. So the thing about the Lost Tomb, this, this, my latest book is that at least half, maybe two thirds of the mysteries in that book are still mysteries. They’ve never been solved. And they are really, really puzzling. I mean, for example, the Oak Island Treasure, for 200 years, people have been trying to figure out to, to uncover the treasure buried on Oak Island to figure out what’s down there, who buried it, who booby trapped that water pit. Very sophisticated piece of engineering, why, and on and so forth. So, you know, I went to Oak Island and I spent, uh, you know, two weeks there with the treasure hunters and wrote this piece. But that was a while ago, and they still have not solved that mystery. There’s, there’s a television show that’s been going for years about it, but forget, forget watching that show. ’cause you’re never gonna learn what’s down there because they don’t know . It’s all just spinning up theories. So,

Bunny : (27:45)
So is there a movie in the works for the Monster of Florence? Am

Douglas : (27:52)
I crazy? Yes. Yeah. The, the Monster of Florence was, that’s one of the stories in my book. It’s about a, a serial killer who murdered young lovers in the hills around Florence, Italy in the seventies and eighties, and was never caught. And it’s a very strange case and really awful. It’s, uh, worse than Jack the Ripper. I mean, it’s just, you know, the, the, the details of this case are absolutely horrific. Um, and the investigations into it are almost unbelievable. Um, the Italian police to date have investigated over a hundred thousand men

Bunny : (28:33)
As, and you were one of them, right?

Douglas : (28:35)
, I’m afraid I was one of them as being an accessory after the fact, as knowing who the monster of Florence was. It’s an absolutely crazy story, but, uh, apple TV is making it into a series right now. So in a year or two, you’ll be able to watch, watch that on television and be as as puzzled as everyone else. Now, now, in, in that case though, I have to say, um, my writing partner and I, I wrote this, this book with a Mario Bey who was a Italian journalist. I used to live in Italy and Florence, and we identified a person we think is the monster of Florence, and I really think he is. Um, so in a sense that’s not a hundred percent a mystery. And we went and interviewed him, and we asked him, are you the monster of Florence? And that interview is, without a doubt, the strangest and most frightening interview I’ve ever conducted as a journalist.

Bunny : (29:39)
So is the Apple TV series, is it specifically about your book or about the incidents?

Douglas : (29:47)
It’s specifically based on my book, and I’m a character in it. Mario Betsy’s a character in it. Um, I, they haven’t cast me yet. Um,

Bunny : (29:59)
That’s what I was gonna ask you. Who’s playing Douglas Preston?

Douglas : (30:02)
Yeah, they, they haven’t done that yet, but we’ll see.

Bunny : (30:06)
Okay. Okay. I think that young man that played, um, Oppenheimer would be a good choice. What do you think?

Douglas : (30:14)
I think he’d be great. Sian Murphy?

Bunny : (30:16)
Yes.

Douglas : (30:17)
They, they, they have cast Mario Betsy, though. They have an Antonio Banderas playing him. Now, I know he’s Spanish, but apparently he speaks fluent Italian. So, you know, that’s what I’m told. But, uh, they had, I, I know this is strange. They had at a, for a while there, George Clooney was gonna play me, but that didn’t work out. And he’s kind of aged out of the role. Um, you know, the, the character in the monster of Florence is really in his forties. So, you know, Sian Murphy would be great. I mean, God, now, I wish Bunny, I wish you were a Hollywood producer working on this, this project because, you know, he’d be fantastic.

Bunny : (31:07)
He would be, he would be fantastic. So, I, I just want folks to know that this is, I, I mean, I never have a conversation with you where I don’t go away wanting to, you know, learn a little more, read a little more, share more stories. I just think it’s this amazing talent you have where you inspire us all to, um, know our, our own. I’m, you know, as cheesy as it sounds, you, you wanna know as much, this is what I’ve learned from being in your presence, is that you always wanna know as much about the people you’re spending time with as they wanna know about you. It’s such a gift to spend an evening with you. I just, I wanna applaud you on that, but it sounds to me like you’ve always had that just innate curiosity about the world and about people.

Douglas : (31:56)
Well, thank you. Thank you. I grew up in a family of, uh, of storytellers and, uh, you know, round the dinner table, uh, my father would tell stories, and my older brother, who’s also a writer, uh, would tell stories. My younger brother, who’s a fantastic storyteller, I don’t know. We just, that’s what we did. Um, and when I was five and six, I told stories about boogers, but, and was sent away from the table. But now I’m telling stories about serial killers and they, they still wanna send me away from the table .

Bunny : (32:30)
And, and what about, um, you and Lincoln Child? Do you have another book in the works together because you’re, you’re sort of a formidable pair. What’s, what’s happening there?

Douglas : (32:42)
Well, we do, we’re working on a, a novel, uh, well, we have a novel called Angel of Vengeance. Mm-Hmm. . And it will be published in August, and it’s a pendergast novel. We have an FBI agent that we, um, you know, who’s in a recurring character in our novels named Pendergast. Everybody

Bunny : (33:04)
Loves him. Everybody loves Pender Gas.

Douglas : (33:07)
Yes. So it’s, it’s a, it’s that’ll be published in August.

Bunny : (33:12)
So it seems to me that there should be a, if I was a producer, I would immediately start a series, um, from the very beginning of Pinder guests. Uh, the, uh, it seems like he should be a, um, I don’t, um, I, I don’t know why he is not on tv.

Douglas : (33:32)
Well, we, as a matter of fact, uh, paramount plus, you know, the, the, the streaming series that does, you know, 1883 and on those Right. Um, has, is going, is now working on a television series based on Pendergast.

Bunny : (33:50)
Yay. That’s such exciting news. Nice.

Douglas : (33:53)
Well, we’ll see. It’s just in the beginning stages. We just signed the contracts. Uh, we’ll see how it works out. I think they’ll, they’re, they’re pretty good that those shows that 18 83, 19 23, the Yellowstone, those are darn good shows. And, uh, so I’ve, I have high hopes, uh, for this.

Bunny : (34:13)
That’s so exciting. I’m, I’m so glad we chatted now. I know. So, um, I want to tell everybody just, just get online and buy, if you’ve never read any of Doug’s books, get online and buy several right now. Um, Relic is the first one you guys did together, right?

Douglas : (34:31)
That’s right. That was also, that was made into a movie also by Paramount Pictures. Um, a very gruesome movie. I was shocked at it, I thought, who wrote this? This is terrible.

Bunny : (34:43)
.

Douglas : (34:45)
Anyway, yeah, that’s a

Bunny : (34:46)
Gruesome book.

Douglas : (34:48)
I know. It’s odd. I, in writing the book, I, I was shocked. ’cause, you know, paramount invited us to, for the, the director’s showing of the film and on the lot, and I was watching it thinking, this is really how horribly violent. I’m, I’m disturbed by all this violence. Then I was, oh wait, I wrote that

Bunny : (35:10)
. And for people who don’t know, it’s, it’s written, it’s the setting is the Museum of Natural History, right? Where you worked first.

Douglas : (35:21)
That’s right. Yeah, I did, I I worked there for years. And, um, in the museum in the, in my novel, the director of the museum is, is killed and has his brain eaten. And, uh, it was a funny thing when I ran into the director, I’d left my job at that point, but I ran into the director in the museum after the book was published, and he said, you, you, he said, you know, I’m so sorry you don’t still work here, so I could fire you for writing that book A terrible book, .

Bunny : (35:57)
Well, you’re really good at the frightening stuff. You know, I remember, I think the first time that we, that I went to a dinner that you had donated up, um, at the Hamilton’s house, you said, oh, Lincoln and I are working on this book right now where a bunch of, um, feet in shoes, um, wash up on a Florida shore, like what in the world? And, and then I read the book, but I thought, where does this, where does this stuff come from?

Douglas : (36:29)
Well, you know, funny because you’re

Bunny : (36:30)
Such a gentle, kind guy. ,

Douglas : (36:32)
Well, thank you. No, um, well, actually, that, that’s based on, on the truth. They’re, they’re in the, uh, Puget Sound in Washington. They, a number of feet in, still encased in sneakers started washing up on shore, and, uh, they investigated. And there, there are reasons for that. I mean, but, uh, that gave us the idea for this novel. We thought that what a cool opening, just feet washing up on shore, what could have happened? How did this happen?

Bunny : (37:04)
It’s very cool. Yes, yes. Okay. Well, for anybody who would like to spend an entire evening with you, I know this is, this is Evergreen content, but if you’re listening to this right now, between now and February 10th, 2024, you are welcome to come to the Sweetheart Auction and bid on dinner with Doug and his very charming wife, Christine. And, and here’s some of these stories yourself. You’ll get to hear the story about, um, Doug getting to go into one of the tombs of, where, where were you, you, you were in Egypt, which, which set of tombs?

Douglas : (37:43)
Well, it was in the Valley of the Kings. It’s the tomb right next to King Tut’s tomb. And, uh, it was, uh, uh, discovered only in the 1990s. I mean, it, it is incredible. It, it’s the amazing discovery.

Bunny : (38:02)
Well, you have the most interesting life of anybody I know, Doug. So thank you for, thank you for talking to me, but also thank you for donating. It’s Oh, we, uh, you help us raise a lot of money for cancer patients.

Douglas : (38:15)
It’s so cool. Well, well, thank you, Bonnie, for, for Running The Sweetheart Auction. It’s a really important fundraiser. Uh, the, the, it is such a wonderful organization helping people in New Mexico with cancer. I mean, I can’t imagine a more important and, uh, thing to be doing. So I’m very, so, so thank you Bunny for all your su your effort in that regard.

Bunny : (38:40)
Listen, I just show up in a nice dress. We have the best staff and the best committee in the world, so, um, it’s, I, I’m really proud. I’m really proud of what we do and um, and I’ll see you there. Right.

Douglas : (38:53)
Alright, I’m looking forward to it.

Bunny : (38:56)
Okay, well thanks for being here today, Doug.

Douglas : (38:59)
Well, thank you, bunny.

Bunny : (39:02)
Thanks to all of you for taking the time to listen to the I Love New Mexico podcast. If you’ve enjoyed this episode, please feel free to share it with your friends on social media or by texting or messaging or emailing them a copy of the podcast. If you have a New Mexico story that you’d like to share with us, don’t hesitate to reach out. Our email address is I love New Mexico blog@gmail.com and we are always, always looking for interesting stories about New Mexico. Subscribe, share, and write a review so that we can continue to bring you these stories about the Land of Enchantment. Thank you so much.