This is The Reason Interview, and I'm Nick Gillespie. My guest today is the legendary journalist and New Yorker staffer Lawrence Wright. He's the author of books like Going Clear, Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief. The Looming Tower, Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9-11, and the plague year, America in the time of COVID.

We talk about the human scale, his new novel set in the war-torn Middle East,

and why the Israeli-Palestinian conflict keeps burning,

even as most of the rest of the 20th century's conflicts have cooled.

We also go deep into Wright's exposés on the War on Terror, satanic panic,

and how our craving for belief can lead us to madness.

Then we turn to Texas, Wright's home state, and the place he says is the future of America.

What exactly does it mean that we're all becoming more like the Lone Star State?

This discussion took place at a live event in New York City.

Here is The Reason Interview with Lawrence Wright.

This is The Reason Interview with Nicolesepe.

All right. Lawrence Wright, late of the Texas Monthly, currently with the New Yorker.

And I guess you live in Austin.

Do people, you know, punch you in the face when you walk down the street?

Oh, you're thinking. Yeah, the New Yorker.

Austin is not the usual Texas town.

You know, it's a very, very blue city with an recent influx of California libertarian billionaires.

So it's changing a lot.

I'm two of those things.

I've lived in California and I'm a libertarian.

Oh, well, you're the third will follow.

Just one more step.

...