Jason Isbell has a haunting song titled "Elephant." If you have not heard it, I suggest you give it a listen. For anyone who has lost a loved one due to a chronic illness, are standing alongside someone battling something (anything), and for just anyone who has experienced a complex relationship, there's a vault of nuanced emotion waiting to be flung open.
Isbell sings,
"She said, ‘You're better than your past’
Winked at me and drained her glass
Cross-legged on a barstool, like nobody sits anymore"
Elephant, of course, refers to the Elephant In The Room, that hulking presence we all feel but choose not to acknowledge. No, I'm not talking about the divisive Ted Lasso episode "Coach Beard's Night Out," which I think is genius but many find a very awkward detour in the show's otherwise linear narrative arc.
Instead, fifteen years into my writing partnership with Bill O'Reilly, I think it's time to acknowledge our friendship here in the blog.
Bill is definitely the Elephant, a media presence so powerful that the mere mention of his name elicits either anger or a most passionate admiration. As the audience for this blog has grown over the years, I am well aware that many read in the hopes of some political diatribe or perhaps fawning admiration of a public authority or two. Please know that's never going to happen. I am not paid to talk politics. That's Bill's arena. I am an historian and writer, more than happy to talk at length about both. In the many years since Bill and I formed a partnership, I can honestly say that's all we've ever discussed. We never talk politics. And for the record, he's one of the most hard-working, loyal, and smart individuals you will ever meet. Do we argue? Occasionally. Do we talk over one another? Perhaps. Do we work outrageous hours? No, not outrageous. But we work very hard. I should also add that I was very lucky to land this gig — as would any author with a wife, sons, and a mortgage.
I think I've reached the NDA limit of what I can say about Bill, but suffice to say he changed my life. For a history geek like me to have the luxury of writing a thirteen-book series about all manner of subjects, immersing myself in the research at an obsessive level of detail, is a dream come true.
And it's made me better. Not only does the intensity of the writing and research grow with every book, but it has made my own solo projects more complex. I have become obsessive about commas and word repetition. I prefer the more emotional aspects of history, for which there's little room in the Killing books, so it feels wondrous and self-indulgent to put those raw moments on the page. There is a luxury in honing your craft through a long, successful series — a challenge to not only get better but tell a story in a different way each time to make it unique and let it stand alone, as if the other books had never been written.
So there's the elephant. That's as much of a glimpse inside the world of the Killing series you'll ever see. Eighteen million sold and counting. I am happy to be far more expansive about the Taking series (Taking Paris, Taking Berlin, and the upcoming third part in my World War II trilogy, Taking London). They're pretty great, elephants unto themselves.
As for other elephants, there's just enough Catholic in me to give up beer for Lent, which is a whole other discussion. Then there's Ted Lasso and Coach Beard, with Season Three starting this week. And then there's that other elephant, the one I've mentioned briefly here before but we're not talking about.
"We just try to ignore the elephant somehow," Isbell sings.
"Somehow."