International bestselling crime writer
Don Winslow is just about done r
writing decades of popular nove.
More than two dozen,
and he's calling it quits.
Winslow's City of Dreams is the
second book in his ecpic trilogy
about an East Coast crime famil.
Well, I recently caught up with
him to talk about the book and
what's next after writing.
This is the second novel of the trilogy
Warring Crime Families in Rhode Island.
So the world on the street
is that's where you're from.
Where did you pull inspiration
from these books?
Just what you saw around you.
You know, the inspiration
comes from a couple of places,
certainly growing up in Rhode Id
during an era when, let's be fr,
there was a lot of MOB activity and and the
mob was very big in that area back then.
So I grew up around that. You k,
it was so sort of the stuff of your life,
you didn't even think of it
as terribly extraordinary.
The other inspiration are are
the Greek and Roman classics.
Believe it or not,
the the plot is drawn from the
Iliad and the Odyssey and the
Inead and Greek tragic dramas.
So what I was trying to do was e
that stuff that I grew up with and see
if I could tell a modern Crime Story,
but using the plots and characts
and themes of the ancient class.
I do not think I've ever heard
anything say that they took something
that that Homer written and andd
based it on a on a class and a crime.
I think this is so fascinating.
Also kind of a unique challenge
to yourself, right? Well, yeah,
it took me 28 years.
It was that unique because I I
was doing other things, of cour,
writing other books and films and things.
But it it it took me 28 years
because it was such a challenge.
Trying to find the the modern equivalence
of those ancient events you you
can't roll a big wooden horse io
the streets of Providence in 19.
That doesn't work.
You know who would goddess be in Providence,
RI, in 1988? I was there.
I I ran into very few of them.
So it it was, you know,
the challenge was to to try to ,
you know what are the modern
equivalences and could I ride a
crime saga that would stand alo.
As a crime soggy,
you don't need to know the classics at all.
I hope in order to read this.
But at the same time remaining
faithful to those stories,
well, I mean, I'm, I'm hoping
there's no sirens. We need to
escape in that in Rhode Island.
I think there are always sirens
waiting to escape. At Rhode Isl,
you said that many of your characters,
including the main character
throughout this trilogy, Danny ,
is based off of people you know.
How? Tell me more about how
much of your memories and past
go into your actual characters.
You know, listen, I was not invd
with with the mob, nor were my family.
You know, we're not connected in that way.
And yet Rhode Island's a very small state
about the size of a Walmart parking lot.
Everybody knows everybody and and so you,
you know, you grew up around it.
So sure. You know I knew the
Danny Ryan's of the world,
the protagonist of these novels.
I. Like hockey with them.
We served together,
went to bars, you know,
movies and that kind of stuff together.
And so when I started to write Danny,
he was no problem already.
I've known him all my life.
I love that you know this perso.
Like you said,
you've known him all your life.
These characters are very
intimate to you as a writer,
are they not? Yeah, they
are, you know, and and I I
won't start to write a book
until the characters talk to me.
I know that sounds a little cray
and it kind of airy fairy and Im
not really a kind of airy fairy.
But until they start making up
their own dialogue and talking o
me and they won't leave me alon,
but I won't start writing the n.
You've had your book, Savages me
into a Movie by Oliver Stone. J.
Section in aisle 3. I love you. Thanks.
Many other options are in the w.
When you're writing out,
is that something that you
think of while you're writing?
Does it lead? You're writing it.
No, no, not at all.
Because if I did that,
only bad things could happen, r?
Either I can write a bad film
treatment or I'd write a bad no.
Those are the two choices.
I don't want to do either of th.
So look, I'm not naive,
and I don't mean to be disingen.
Everything I've ever written has been
optioned or bought by film or television,
so I know that that is likely to happen.
But I have to forget about it.
Just write the book and don't
think of any of that stuff,
and then it'll take care of its.
You know,
smart, actually. Good advice,
just kind of overall in life, r?
I think so, Yeah. Yeah, Yeah.
Just to focus on what is
important and making you happy
to kind of go off what you said.
Not disingenuous at all.
I mean, the bottom line is you are one
of the most celebrated crime novelists,
and yet I understand that
when this trilogy is done.
You're going to step off.
You're retiring from writing.
What's next?
Well, this, in fact, this trilogy is done.
I've, I've written all three bo.
And so the third one is just,
you know, on the runway waiting
to take off a year from now.
What's next is is just more of
what I've been doing the past,
you know, five or six years.
I've spent quite a bit of time
on social media commenting on on
things that I think are wrong.
And and encouraging things
that I think are right.
My, my partner,
Shane Salerno and I have made se
videos which have garnered unbelievably
to me over 250 million views.
And so, yeah,
I'm going to continue to do tha.
I just think we're at a point
in this country that's an
existential crisis for democrac.
I I think that whatever energies or talents,
you know, that I might have,
I I think are better put to that right now.