John Verdon: “There is more hate in politics and society than there has ever been, and the media are complicit in it”

2023-06-15 18:39:00

When John Verdon (1942) he retired after 30 years as a publicist and went to live with his wife, Naomi, in the Catskills, some mountains north of his native New York, it was she who urged him to try to publish his first crime novel, ‘I know what you’re thinking’, an instant success starring, like the following seven, by the ex-cop Dave Gurney, also retired in a rural area with his wife Madeleine. During the video conference interview with the writer, Naomi is next to him. She is not seen on the screen, but she is intuited by the movement of the arm of a rocking chair, by the complicit laughs that escape from her when faced with some questions and by his revelation: “It is unlikely to see my wife walking around the house armed with a shotgun, like Gurney’s does, but he just told me that, for reasons I don’t know, he sleeps with a baseball bat by his bed…”

In his latest ‘noir’, ‘El favour’ (Roca Editorial, in Spanish and Catalan), Gurney does a favor for a friend of his wife and begins to investigate the probable innocence of a tennis player with highly questionable conduct who is serving a sentence for a murder. The ex-cop ends up threatened by a shadow assassin, smeared by sensationalist media and persecuted by the prosecutor for a death. And his marriage is faltering.

“Their relationship has always been somewhat tense, with mutual unfulfilled expectations. Madeleine hoped that when he retired he would be more of a husband and less of a detective, that he would leave that dangerous life. Hence the shotgun, to defend himself, but also to make him see the life that forced to carry. And he hoped he could do whatever he wanted. His motivation has always been to find out the truth. Now he’s not just driven by that, but by the desire to win, to beat the bad guys. Before, he was like a Sherlock Holmes cerebral, rational, logical, puzzle-solving; In that he is a bit my alter ego. But now he’s more like him action sherlock face-to-face with Moriarti before falling over the Reichenbach Falls”, explains Verdon, a reader and admirer of Conan Doyle.

The massive possession of weapons in the US is the result of fear and the legacy of the Wild West

“In what I don’t resemble my character is in his courage,” the author of ‘The Black Angel’ confesses with a smile. Although he does not shy away from his fears: snakes are very present in ‘El favor’, right from the cover. “Where we live now they are tiny, but the ones in the novel are the product of my cerval fear. Writing about them gives me a feeling of control, of being the one in charge, and has the effect of counteracting that terrible fear,” says who, comfortable with Gurney, he plans to continue the series and does not have in mind creating a new protagonist.

John Verdon, at his home in the Catskills Mountains, upstate New York. A little sanctity

In several of his books, he notes, there are successive parent-child relationships. “This is the central theme. It starts from a father’s desperation to regain the respect of a son, but others arise, some nutritious, others destructive,” he warns. It is also not the first time that she has criticized the sensationalist media. “Today there is a very poisonous selective choice of facts. We are faced with groups and collectives who believe they are right, who live in their own realities and end up hating each other. Today there is more hatred in politics and society than there has ever been ever and the media are complicit in this disaster. Many media characters have discovered that the path to success and wealth is to feed that hatred.. They are only interested in generating audience and money. It’s very serious. I don’t know the solution to stop those lies that so many people devour, but I’m not optimistic”.

“Poison of the Internet”

Verdon avoids naming Trump, his ‘fake news’ and his related mediabut answer that “where the poison becomes more evident is on the internet, one of humanity’s most monumental and wonderful inventions and potentially the most dangerous [con permiso, dirá en seguida, de la Inteligencia Artificial]because it facilitates intercommunity isolation”.

The therapist Emma believes that the reintegration of a criminal is possible. “There are many crooked people who will never be straightened out. Perhaps only when you face your own destruction can you change. Or end up destroyed…”. She also believes that “there are many people in jail unfairly. If we took out the addicts and those suffering from mental illness, they would be much emptier“.

There are many crooked people who will never be straightened out.

With a million copies sold in Spain (in a week in bookstores they have already released the second edition), return to the massive possession of weapons in the United States. “It is the result of fear. And double-edged weapon. There are more misfortunes and accidents caused by weapons than lives saved by them. In my country, unfortunately, we have that Wild West heritage. We saw so many shooting cowboy movies and thought they were the good guys. It is part of American culture. I can’t figure out how to change it.”

Verdon says goodbye and his wife’s hand emerges on the screen, greeting him with a nice gesture. As he writes in the book, the key to a couple is “companionship”.