Emil Wilson Interview Episode 720

Today, we're talking about forgiveness—but not only the forgiveness we extend to other people. We're talking about one of the most difficult forms of forgiveness: forgiving ourselves. My guest is Lena Fein, author of Shattering the Mirror, a memoir about surviving emotional disconnection, difficult relationship dynamics, and years of moving through life without fully experiencing it. Raised in a home where appearances often seemed to matter more than emotional connection, Lena learned to survive through dissociation, achievement, and perfectionism. But at 51, as she looked into the eyes of her dying mother, something in her understanding of herself finally began to break open. Lena's journey required her to confront her relationship with her mother—but also to release the shame she carried about her own choices, the relationships she accepted, and the years she felt she had lost. Today, she is living what she calls a more fully expressed life, and through Shattering the Mirror, she hopes to help other women discover that transformation is possible—even after decades of feeling disconnected from themselves. In this conversation, we'll explore childhood wounds, self-protection, relationships, self-worth, forgiveness, and what it means to come home to yourself.

Today's guest has lived through war, incarceration, addiction, trauma, and some of the most difficult chapters of American history—and yet his life has become a powerful testament to the possibility of transformation. Greg Payton was a young African-American soldier drafted into the Vietnam War. His experience included time in a military stockade in Vietnam, where racial injustice, harsh conditions, and mounting tensions ultimately erupted into a devastating prison riot in 1968. But Greg's story did not end with the war. After returning home, he faced PTSD, addiction, homelessness, and the difficult task of finding his way back to himself. Through recovery and his connections with Vietnam Veterans Against the War and other peace activists, he discovered a new purpose. He became an international peacemaker, traveling to places including Belfast, South Africa, Bosnia, and Vietnam, standing alongside people who were working to confront violence and injustice. His memoir, Peace Warrior: How I Escaped the Prison of Anger, is not simply a story about surviving war. It is a story about what happens when a person decides that anger, pain, and the past will no longer dictate the future. Today, we'll talk about the Vietnam War, racism in the military, the hidden costs of trauma, addiction and recovery, forgiveness, and the lifelong journey from being a warrior shaped by conflict to becoming a warrior for peace.

What happens when a republic doesn't fall all at once—but gives away its power piece by piece? More than 2,000 years ago, Rome faced a political crisis that would transform the Western world. Civil war, political violence, concentrated power, exhausted citizens, and ambitious leaders created the conditions for a republic to become an empire. And at the center of that transformation was a man most of us know far less about than the dictator he helped create. His name was Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa. Agrippa was the brilliant general, strategist, builder, and indispensable right-hand man of Octavius—the man who would become Augustus, Rome's first emperor. Now internationally bestselling author Robert Harris brings Agrippa's story to life in his new historical thriller, Agrippa. Told through the eyes of the man closest to Augustus, the novel explores not only how Rome descended into dictatorship, but what it meant to stand beside the person responsible for that transformation. Robert Harris is the author of sixteen bestselling novels, including the celebrated Cicero trilogy and Conclave, which became an Oscar-winning film. Today, we're talking about Ancient Rome, political power, loyalty, ambition, dictatorship—and why a story that happened two millennia ago can feel remarkably contemporary. Robert Harris, welcome to the podcast. Cold Open A republic rarely dies with a single dramatic blow. Sometimes it happens when citizens become exhausted by chaos. Sometimes when political violence becomes normal. Sometimes when a legislature slowly surrenders its authority to a powerful leader. And sometimes it happens because the right person—the brilliant general, strategist, and loyal friend—is willing to make that leader's ambitions possible. Two thousand years ago, that man was Agrippa. He helped turn Octavius into Augustus—and helped turn Rome's Republic into an empire. But here's the question: What does it feel like to be standing beside a dictator as he takes power? That's the question Robert Harris explores in Agrippa.

There is a version of fatherhood we rarely talk about. We talk about the sleepless nights, the diapers, the exhaustion, and the joy. We talk about the transformation that comes with becoming a parent. But what happens when a father isn't feeling joy at all? What happens when the person everyone expects to be strong, capable, and in control is quietly falling apart? My guest today knows that experience from both sides—as a physician who understands medicine and as a father who discovered that medical knowledge doesn't necessarily protect you from your own suffering. Dr. Christopher G. Choukalas is an anesthesiologist and intensive care physician and the author of Even the Darkest Night, a deeply personal memoir about paternal depression, fatherhood, marriage, trauma, and recovery. After the traumatic birth of his twin daughters nearly claimed his wife's life, Christopher found himself spiraling. He withdrew from his family, spent long evenings alone in his garage, struggled with anxiety, panic attacks and sleeplessness, and couldn't understand why he wasn't experiencing the happiness he believed he was supposed to feel. The turning point came when his wife confronted him and urged him to seek help. Through therapy, medication, the support of other fathers, and a painful examination of his own childhood, Christopher began the long process of finding his way back to his family—and to himself. Today we're going to talk about paternal depression, the pressures men place on themselves, why even doctors can miss the warning signs, and what it takes to ask for help when you're accustomed to being the person everyone else depends on. This is Dr. Christopher G. Choukalas, and his memoir is Even the Darkest Night.

What if the biggest problem with American elections isn't that election manipulation is something new—but that we've forgotten just how long it has been part of our history? From the disputed presidential election of 1876 to contested elections involving Lyndon Johnson and Jimmy Carter, from voter suppression and gerrymandering to Bush v. Gore and the modern battles over election legitimacy, American history contains a long record of political actors fighting over who gets to vote, how votes are counted, and who ultimately gets to decide who won. My guest today has spent more than five decades on the front lines of those battles. David F. Walbert is a constitutional and voting-rights attorney who has litigated election cases at every level, including before the United States Supreme Court. His new book, Stealing Elections, American Style, examines the history of election manipulation and voting restrictions in America—and the recurring patterns that connect those historical episodes to the debates we're having today. The book isn't simply a history of famous disputed elections. It examines the machinery behind them: voter suppression, gerrymandering, voter purges, election administration, court decisions, and the ways political actors can attempt to shape an election before a single ballot is cast. As the country heads into the 2026 midterm elections, we're going to look backward in order to understand what election disputes have looked like throughout American history—and what voters, journalists, lawyers, and citizens should understand about the system today.

My thoughts on the 25th Anniversary of September 11th, 2001.

America spends more on health care than any other wealthy nation—and yet millions of Americans struggle to afford care, medical debt remains widespread, and our health outcomes often lag behind those of countries spending far less. So what happened? Did American health care simply become too complicated? Did insurance companies become too powerful? Did hospitals become too corporate? Did politicians fail us? Or did something much bigger happen? Something changed in American political and economic thinking beginning in the early 1980s—and according to Harvard health-policy professor and former Massachusetts legislator John E. McDonough, that transformation fundamentally reshaped American health care. His new book, America's Wrong Turn, argues that the rise of neoliberalism, deregulation, consolidation, and shareholder-driven economics created a health-care system that increasingly rewards financial performance rather than human health. Today, we're going back to the moment when America took that wrong turn—and asking the most important question of all: Can we find our way back?

Imagine parachuting into Nazi-occupied France with no guarantee that you'll survive the night. Your mission: arm the Resistance, sabotage the enemy, gather intelligence, and rescue Allied airmen. Now imagine doing it while sometimes posing as a fashion designer or a Vichy official—and then surrendering to more than 100 German soldiers because you've negotiated to save an entire French village. This isn't the plot of a Hollywood spy thriller. It's the story of Pierre "Peter" Ortiz, one of the most decorated members of America's Office of Strategic Services, the wartime organization that became a forerunner of the CIA and modern American special operations. And one of the Allied airmen Ortiz rescued was the grandfather of today's guest. Years later, journalist Katie Sanders discovered a 1949 recording of her grandfather describing his experience—and began a journey into the extraordinary life of a man she'd never heard of. Today we're going behind the classified history of World War II, into occupied France, the French Resistance, the OSS, and the remarkable story of the man who saved her grandfather's life.

1985. A small Oregon town. A teenage girl named Lou Miller is preparing to graduate high school when her father makes an unexpected announcement: a coworker named Jim—and his two Pomeranians—are moving into the family home. But there's something Lou doesn't know. Jim has AIDS. At a time when fear, misinformation, and stigma surrounded the disease, one teenager's decision to look beyond the diagnosis and see the person underneath it would create a friendship neither of them would ever forget. Award-winning artist Emil Wilson brings that true story to life in his forthcoming graphic novel, The Nightingales—a moving, funny, and ultimately heartbreaking story about friendship, queer history, mortality, and the extraordinary power of simply choosing to care. Today, Emil Wilson joins us to talk about the real people behind the story, the AIDS crisis that shaped it, and why a friendship between a teenager and a dying man still has something important to teach us four decades later.

What do you do when your father leaves behind an unfinished novel—and your father happens to be one of the most beloved and prolific storytellers in American literature? Do you finish it? And if you do, how do you make it his story while also making it your own? That's the fascinating challenge Beau L'Amour faced with Skyring Water, a new novel based on a partial manuscript by his late father, legendary author Louis L'Amour. The story takes us to 1961, when the Cold War is reaching a dangerous point. The Berlin Wall is dividing East and West. Nuclear tensions are escalating. Empires are crumbling. And then, in Barcelona, a rogue East German STASI officer sets off a chain of events involving struggling arms dealers, organized crime, intelligence agencies—and 30 tons of stolen gold hidden in an icebound wilderness at the end of the world. At the center are Mike Fowler, a former Navy salvage diver and OSS assassin, and Anton Voss, an expatriate German scientist whose mysterious past becomes increasingly dangerous. Once enemies, they've become inseparable friends. But when Mike discovers Anton standing over a midnight visitor with a gun, everything changes. Soon they're running from gangsters, the CIA, Israeli intelligence, and a mysterious organization intent on building an invisible empire. The trail stretches from Marseille to Caracas to Patagonia—and eventually leads straight into Anton's Nazi past. Today, I'm joined by Beau L'Amour to talk about Skyring Water, the extraordinary process of completing a story his father began, and what it means to collaborate with a writer who has been gone for years—but whose voice remains unmistakable.