Wright Thompson: Why Emmett Till Still Matters

Impolitic with John Heilemann

Audacy | Puck

News, Politics

4.8 • 4.2K Ratings

🗓️ 3 January 2025

⏱️ 73 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

John is joined by Wright Thompson, master of long-form narrative non-fiction and author of the book Heilemann adjudges the best of 2024 — The Barn: The Secret History of a Murder in Mississippi. Wright explains how he came to write The Barn, in which he blends history, journalism, and memoir to offer a new account of the 1955 torture and murder of 14-year-old Emmett Till a few miles from Wright’s boyhood home in Mississippi; what he learned in the process about race, the South, and himself; and why, now more than ever, the story still matters. Wright also discusses his previous book, Pappyland, about Pappy Van Winkle, the most magical bourbon known to man, and the family that makes it, and his career writing seminal magazine profiles of iconic athletes such as Tiger Woods. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:36.7	Aloha and namaste everyone and welcome to Impartic with John Howman, a Puck and Odyssey Joint featuring lively in-depth, sometimes ever so slightly profane conversations with the people who roam the quarter's power and influence in America, weaving the warp and wharf and west of our politics and culture.
0:51.3	Hey, hey, happy New Year, everyone.
0:53.2	Hopefully by now with two plus days of distance
0:55.5	separating you from your New Year's Eve revelries, whatever hangover you brought upon yourself
1:00.7	is comfortably in the rearview mirror. And although we have now well and truly turned the page on
1:05.5	2024, this year podcast continues with its holiday series of episodes looking backwards,
1:10.1	forwards or both at the biggest, most impactful, and important stories, trends and ideas in the
1:14.8	cultural realms that rule our world.
1:16.8	In this case, the realm we're talking about is the realm of books and literature, but unlike
1:20.8	some of our other episodes in this series, this one is not an overview.
1:25.8	It's a show fully dedicated to the book that I consider the best of
1:30.3	2024 and its author. The book is called The Barn, the secret history of a murder in Mississippi,
1:36.2	and its author is The Incredible, Wright Thompson, one of the most accomplished long-form narrative
1:40.7	magazine writers of his or any generation, and the author of another book that I love,
1:45.4	Papyland, The Story of Family, Fine Bourbon, and the Things That Last.
1:49.4	Both of these books are a combination of journalism, history, and memoir.
1:53.2	The Barn revolves around the story of Emmett Till, one of the signal episodes of racial hatred in modern history.
1:59.0	Papyland revolves around, well, Pappy Van Winkle,
2:02.3	the most transcendent booze that really, I think I was going to say that I've ever tasted,
	...

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