Before the Fall – Noah Hawley – Episode 115
The Buddies are back for their 5th year! They kick off 2025 with Noah Hawley’s, Before the Fall. The Buddies got to chatting about what this book was really about. It is marketed as a mystery novel, but deep down it’s about: the importance of never answering questions, having ‘French toast hands’, and destroying a house in the name of art. So, grab your life vests, your philosophical questions, and your disdain for the media, and join the Buddies as we take the plunge into Before the Fall.
Intro/Book Report(0:00-4:28)
Stock Up/Down (4:29-30:09)
Favorite Scene/Character (30:10-36:39)
Love/Hate (36:40-45:55)
Conclusion (45:56-47:49)
NEXT BOOK: The Winter King (The Warlord Trilogy) by Bernard Cornwell
Transcript for SEO Purposes 🙂
Alright. Welcome to the buddy book club. I’m Dylan here with the number one guide I wanna hold on to as he swam me 15 miles to safety. Keith, what’s up, buddy? I’d make it like a 100 yards, and then I’d throw you off my back and say, good luck.
I was gonna save it for lingering questions, but as the only swimmer I know, which is you, I don’t really understand swimming distances. Like, I just I know obviously 15 miles or 10, 50 miles, whatever Scott, ended up swimming in in this book is long. But, like, how long have you ever swam? What’s the longest you swam? Without stopping?
Yeah. Yes. You said I’m a summer. I saw him in high school. That was Yeah.
There’s more years in my life that haven’t been something that I had since People don’t forget. Probably, like, 500 yards in a row. Like, that was over the longest race we had to do. 500. But that’s a race too.
So but that’s a long so you didn’t do longer in practice. There was never No. Like, our practices would be 3,000 yards, but they would be you stop and rest, and you stop and go and stop. You know what I mean? So and then there’s walls also which help.
Yeah. So you’re getting, like, a break every time you hit a wall kind of for more momentumally. Swimming into me and hey. Sorry to all the people that love swimming. It it’s just such a stupid sport because, like, your practice is just, like, go swim.
And I guess you could say that about every every exercise and sport. Yeah. You could say that about every but that’s why like, exercise and sports in general, I don’t get epi board. Alright. Here at the Buddy Book Club, happy New Year to everybody.
We’re breaking down some bestsellers, and this week, we’ll be discussing 20 sixteen’s Before the Fall by Noah Hawley. If you’d like to recommend a book for us to read or reach out to us on any past episodes, you can visit our website, buddybookclub.com. Send us a message on Twitter or Instagram, but if you have a podcast, you can list those on iTunes, Spotify, wherever you get your podcasts, please download, give us a 5 star review. And if there’s anything else, you know, follow on social channels, that’d be great. Please and thank you.
So before the fall, Keith, recommended by Nevs, and then was also on a list of I saw some TikTok list when I was posting something that said, my top 10 books. And in there was Red Rising and this book, so I just trusted that person. 3.72 on Goodreads. Holly, I didn’t know this until I started looking into it, but he’s best known as a creator and showrunner and writer for the Fargo TV series. Yeah.
He’s he’s a prolific writer. He also did, like, Bones, I think, too. I think some episodes of Bones, which was less cool than the Fargo TV series. But, yeah, I also thought this was gonna be, like, a pop punk band. Before the Fall Oh.
That’s a that’s a band song. Right? No? Yeah. Well, it it is his 5th novel.
I I actually was gonna ask you that. So I’m glad you brought it up before I get into my book report. What did you think you were getting into when you started reading this book? Yeah. I didn’t know at all it was going to be a plane crash.
I wish you told me that before I you literally recommended us before the the flight I was about to take, and I’m not I’m scared of flying. Yeah. I don’t I don’t like it. I was like, wait, what’s going on in this book? So that wasn’t as, wasn’t as fun.
I thought it was going to be somewhat like that Agatha Christie book. I guess it turned out to be something totally different, but we’ll we’ll talk about that, I’m sure, throughout here. But I’m gonna get into my book report quickly. Before the Fall is a story of how far the human body can be pushed if you abstain from sex, drugs, and money. Our main character, Scott, a failing artist but a successful celibate, uses his powers of self control to survive a plane crash and then swim 50 miles to safety, all with a 4 year old boy strapped to his back.
He should come back to a ticker tape parade, but instead he goes into hiding casting doubts as to whether his survival was heroism or heroism or some sort of ocean 11s type job to get his webbed hands onto 100 of 1,000,000 of dollars the dead are left behind. A tale of randomness of fate, humanity, and whether societally we pursue truth or entertainment. By the end of the book, I found myself pursuing one single question. Do I care? Okay.
Wow. That was that was deep. I didn’t know that’s what the book was about supposed to be about. I like it. I’m not even sure.
I I still don’t even know But with with anything, it’s bad. I think it’s a solid b plus. B plus. Wow. I mean, the thing is I just don’t know if it was good or bad.
I don’t know. Best part. That’s what I was going for. That was my goal. If you actually read it, you’re like, oh, this is circular logic.
It makes no sense. And, like, at some point, he’s trying to be funny, but it still makes no sense to the story. So I’m gonna take my b plus and run. But with that, let’s get into some stock up stock down. Keep putting it for stock up.
Stock up asking a question to ask a question. Oh, I had that too. Oh, really? Kind of. Kind of.
But yeah. Did I say that right? Asking yeah. Asking a question to someone that asks you a question. Yeah.
Ask a question back. Yeah. So early on in my career, my manager had said, when you’re talking to a client and you don’t have a good answer and he said this not pat patranos, and he said this just like this is what I do. If you don’t have a good answer, you don’t know, like, the answer to the question, just ask him a question back. That’s all I do.
And no one does this better than Scott. He’s just doing this all day. He gets in front of the media and they’re like, what’s it like to be a hero? And he’s just like, what do you mean by hero? I am.
What what is a hero? They’re like, did you sleep with that woman? He’s like, what do you mean by sleep? Yeah. I mean, he’s he perfected this Yeah.
The whole, like, push back thing. And to someone that doesn’t know a lot of to a lot of answers and, you know, isn’t ready for those type of questions all the time either. Not the hero one I’ve never gotten in my entire life. But it is great to see it perform really, really well. And and they can go wrong.
They can go real wrong. You can you can mess this up. Have you ever seen the, R. Kelly? Oh, yeah.
Question to a question 1? Well, They ask him, do you like teenage girls? He says, what do you mean by teenagers? Or how or your news is, how old are we talking? Yeah.
Yeah. So that’s not how you do it. But, Scott did it right. Just philosophical questions left and right and asking questions back, puts everyone else on their toes. Stock out.
We’re, like, I don’t even know now, a 110 episodes in and and, like, 3 years A 115. 115 and, like, 3 years in in the making, and I’m so glad we’re starting 2024 off. It was actually my first stock up was the same thing. Oh, back. It was answer your question with with a question.
But then I slightly shifted it as I was writing this down to being excessively and knowingly obtuse because he does that as well where people would, the reporters, if he was going to actually answer the question, if he wasn’t just gonna follow-up with another question, which I appreciated, they’d ask him something like, how did you get on the plane? Which is a valid question considering he’s a starving artist and How does anyone go to a plane? And he goes, how? Well, I walked on with my 2 feet, naturally. So he knows what they’re asking him, but he’s he’s, like, taking everything literally.
The way that at least the way the audiobook presented it was he was doing this not as a joke. He wasn’t doing it to be funny or to make them pissed off. He was more this, like, fake philosophical kind of, well, I don’t know. How does one get on a plane? You know?
What is what is a plane but a car in the sky? You know? Yeah. Times a flat circle type thing. Yeah.
So I appreciated it. I thought a lot of his stuff, a lot of the like, his commentary when it came to this should be used like, people should use that as a template when they’re in tight situations with the media and just go that route. Mhmm. Because he didn’t come off like a dick. He came off aloof, for sure, but kind of kept himself away from any kind of trigger thing that he would say that would then continue the news cycle forever.
Well, what the media and trained, like instigators will do is they’ll just ask a yes or no question. And when they ask to clarify, they just say it’s yes or no. That’s like so they’ll be like, so were you there that night? And they’re like, what night? And it’s like, oh, it’s a yes or no question.
Just answer the question. Like, were you there or not? And it makes the person that’s, like, answering it look guilty. Mhmm. Like, they don’t answer it.
Even though you just wanna understand, like, what night are you talking about? Let me clarify. And by there, do you mean, like, at the party or, like, you know, so there’s a they put them in a box like that. So they’d never give him the opportunity to ask these open ended questions back. They just give him the yes Well, I feel like Bill Cunningham tried to do that to Scott when they had their their interview thing, and eventually, he would just say, no.
I’m not gonna answer. I’m just not gonna answer that. Yeah. So Yeah. Well, Bill Cunningham was kind of an idiot, so that that also helped him.
I agree. So So what do you have, for your second stock up? Next stock up, French toast hands stock up. I don’t know if you caught this. This is the beginning of the book.
No. But they’re talking about I think maybe it was, like, high school and and, you know, they’re like, oh, I played receiver. You know, you had French toast hands, which I’ve never heard in my entire life, which I’m buying because and they say you get it as an insult. I think it’s a compliment. What do you want, to have hands, D man, in football or baseball?
What do you want? I don’t know. Sticky hands? Soft, delicate hand. You wanna catch that ball.
Right? You wanna you wanna you wanna you don’t you don’t even hear it when it catches the hands. Just or you’re playing volleyball or anything like that. Soft hand. Yeah.
I I’m all for it. Also, what’s another compliment you talk about someone’s hand? They got sweet hands. You know, those those are nice Who? Your masseuse?
French toast. That guy’s, you know, that guy’s sweet. That guy’s a good athlete, you know. That’s what French toast is right there. And then lastly, and stay with me, d man, you got strong hands?
What are French toast made out of? You dip it in what? Egg? Maple Your hands are yolked. Oh?
Alright. I’m out. I’ll see you guys later. Have a good night. I want you because, you know, everyone around Christmas usually gets, like, a massage gift certificate or something even though no one ever gets massages.
I want you to take that massage gift certificate you got, go to local masseuse, and, like, halfway through just go, oh, wow. You got French toast hands. And and and I wanna see what they say. You go you report back to us, and you let me know. Alright.
Will do. I like that one, though. French toast hands. I’ll I’ll use it on you next time next time I see you, throwing the pigskin around. My second stop, stock up is destroying someone’s house and calling it art.
Pretty genius move, honestly. I know Scott was in an odd mental state when he was at that that billionaire woman’s house and just needed to to get his art out. You know? Sometimes you just gotta let a fart out. He just need to let his art out.
And, he just he honestly just destroyed this woman’s house, and I think it was, like, some perspective thing. It’s also weird if you do that to someone’s house because that’s her living room. And even if she did like it and consider it art, now that’s her living room. You can’t do anything about that. Granted, she’s a billionaire, so I’m sure she just doesn’t care.
She she also walked in and he he wasn’t he wasn’t like, I’m sorry. I just had to do something. He was like, get away from me. I’m in my moment. Like, I I’m not even me.
I’m someone else’s taking my hands and painting for me and I was like, that’s a little little pretentious but Yeah. He has the talent though. So He was also using all of her, like, probably very expensive lipstick and all these other things around the house. He couldn’t couldn’t go pick up a couple, you know, crayons or something. You know, what?
Go to the 711 down the street, grab some Crayola, and just do it. But it it got me thinking for us less talented folks. You know? Next time you’re at a next time you’re at a dinner party or something along those lines and and the bubble guts come up, and you have to go. You know?
There’s nothing you can do. You gotta go. If you leave some skid marks, just tell the people, hey. That that’s hard. You know?
Why? Where did you jump to that conclusion from that? French toast 2 things related at all. I got a French toast mouth right now, Keith. Alright?
I’m I’m laying out the dulcet tones. Yeah. No. I’m I’m I’m reaching. But, yeah, destroying someone’s house and calling it art is is a saga.
Okay. Yeah. Oh, I see what you’re saying. You’re, like, destroying someone’s bathroom Yeah. Just leaving in a fucking absolute log in there, and you’re, like, oh, yeah.
Yeah. Same difference. Hold on a second. That’s in the shape of a queue. That’s unobtainable.
Alright. Do you have any other topics? Last one. Knowing astronomy or astrology or whatever one you believe in? That’s astrology.
Great sciences. Either one. Astronomy is an actual science. Astrology. No.
Yeah. I’m talking about astronomy, but I know you’re a big astrology guy. He is. So I just wanted to include that for you. If we’re in the middle of the ocean and it’s freezing after a plane crash, I got a little concussion, and you’re like, we gotta decide which direction to go.
And I had to point up to the sky. I’m dying because I don’t know where the North Star is. I don’t know any astronomy stuff. Like, he’s like, oh, yeah. And there’s obviously, the ring of, Mormon or whatever.
I don’t know any astronomy up there, and that that will tell me by that’s east by east west. Would you be able to do that? Like, do you know where the North Star? Do you know the big difference? I think I know the North Star just because it’s the brightest star in the sky.
But on any given day, I would say, oh, that’s the North Star. And if I was swimming like, if I was in a situation where I had to swim that way or die, I’d probably be right 25% of the time. I don’t know think that everyone says it’s the brightest star. That’s like we learned Harriet Tubman and all that stuff when we were kids. But That’s right.
Sky, every night it’s different. It’s not like, oh, it’s always this one, obviously. It’s sometimes still, like, others, like, places are brighter. I don’t know. Maybe I’m crazy.
Yeah. I don’t know. I also think and maybe I’m making this up, but if you follow the big dipper straight up, you find the north star. I don’t know where the big dipper is either. So Well, I don’t either.
I know what it looks like. I know I couldn’t say, like, oh, it’s in Sagittarius on the western side. Yeah. Yeah. Alright.
Yeah. He Scott had a pretty good situation once he’s I mean, just surviving the plane crash is obviously a good situation. But the fact that he also understands astronomy or where the stars are or whatnot and has been, instead of drinking, has transitioned all of his motivations to swimming in the last 5 years or whatever the case is. Pretty fortuitous. Yeah.
It worked out really well for him. Yeah. So, I guess you you never know, but that I think that’s also part of the point of the book. Granted, I’m not a 100% sure, but just the idea that there’s this level of randomness, and he just happened to be put in a pretty good randomness situation where everyone else on the plane, not so good. My last stock up was was just Jack LaLanne.
I had to throw it out there because he was referenced a bunch in in the book. I’m not sure why Holly as a Jack LaLanne thing or, you know, either way. Are you were you familiar with Jack Lalanne before this? No. I thought he was a made up person.
I looked him up mid book and I was like, oh, oh, alright. Once I saw the name in actual text rather than the audiobook, I was like, oh, that’s that looks familiar. I didn’t have cable growing up. So and in the nineties when he was already pretty old, I think he was he was probably in his late seventies or early eighties, whatever the case is. He’d be on those channel 2 shows and stuff like that every every now and then, or he’d be on, like PBS.
Talk show host. Yeah. PBS. So I would see Jack LaLanne randomly and, you know, they’d show his exploits or they’d show clips from the old Jack o’-Lane show. Is he Wishbone?
Because I don’t know that. I don’t know that show on PBS. No. I don’t know that show. It’s not That’s where I learned half my history.
I don’t know. Yeah. I was I was more of, reading Rainbow and, Magic School Bus kinda guy. Oh, okay. But I honestly don’t think anyone had talked about him since his death in 2011.
And yeah. So Holly just brought him back. You called back. Brought him back for this. So I I respected his his, legacy lives on in this in this book.
Mhmm. What about stock downs? What do you got? Stock down mystery. Oh.
I thought the book was well written, not that was entertaining, but I think the only one element that was missing is the is the real mystery. Mhmm. Obviously Ben Kipling, he was a guy that you said, oh, like whatever he was doing, the shady business he was doing that could have caused it. But other than outside of that, every other character where you like got into their life and we’re just like, alright cool. They they’re they’re not they’re good.
They’re clear, you know. I really wanted what the order of, well, I wanted it to come down the end. I was getting the the poll started quickening at the end when he’s getting interviewed and like we’re hearing the plain plain audio because I was like, here’s the big twist. It’s coming. And the 3 top candidates who I wanted it to the person that actually crashed the plane, I wanted one, Scott.
I would love to he was actually the bad guy the whole time and we’re in his head and he’s, like, this pretentious dude that’s that’s kind of, actually been bad this whole time, but we’ve been rooting for him. What would his what was his motivation, you think? Was it his disaster paintings? Was, like, oh, this will get me front page news because I’m in a disaster even though my chance of survival is, like, 0. Yeah.
I also think we’re setting it up this whole time of, like, class warfare, and these people don’t understand what it’s like and all that stuff. You know, you could’ve you could’ve twisted it to be, like, I did it because these these people need to, like, realization of the real world. I don’t know. Something like that. I don’t know.
I think it could be a nice little twist. 1, him. 2 would have been Maggie. Oh, Maggie. I thought that’d been cool if she got turned down by Scott, and she’s, like she seems like the sweetheart, 2 kids.
That’s the that’d be a nice little dark turn. That’s that’s where I go. That’s my head goes. I want I want I want the biggest turn. Kill her kids?
That’s right. Because I don’t know why she wants to go like spurned her advances because he’s celibate? Yeah. Yeah. That’s right.
Yeah. I’m sick. I’m also just saying Scott’s celibate. He’s not. He just wasn’t into the billionaire, but whatever.
The third would obviously be JJ. That’d been great if he was the the 4 year old who crashed the ball. She just rolled the ball under the foot. Like, there’s a pedal put a gas pedal on an airplane or something like that. Did you accidentally roll some ball in there?
And Right. Right. It’s just terrible happenstance. I’m surprised Gil didn’t make your list because I was thinking my first inkling was that it was Gil because Gil was an ex Israeli military guy or whatever the case is. And it turned out the other guy who’s the guy that that was doing the shady deals?
Ben was that Ben Kipling or something like that? Yeah. Yeah. It turns out he his shady deals were, like, funding terrorist organizations. Like, he was using money, like, terrorist money and, like, investing them or whatever the case is.
So I thought Gil had gotten wind of that and terrorists, you know, is Israel anti terror sure and decided to take like, secretly try to take him out. You think he was, like, a kamikaze type, though? Well, the fact that he his body wasn’t found. So Oh, okay. His body wasn’t found.
He, like, jumped out Yeah. You know, parachuted out. Exactly. Like, killed the pilots, jumped out of the airplane, and said, see you later. I like when we just change the books.
Just change the Every every book it just becomes an action book. That’s I know. It’s like we’re just creating Mitch Rapp books out of the out of the other way. But it’s funny you said that because once again, we’re on the same page, except my first duck down was was marketing and specifically mysteries slash thriller slash pulse quickening suspense novels. I just I just felt a little bit cheated by the way this book was sold.
I mean, even on the cover and hold on. I’m gonna move my mic so I can read this because it’s small. It says, Mesmerizing. One of the year’s best suspense novels, New York Times. I was intrigued throughout the book by what by what caused the plane crash, but at no point did my pulse quicken, or did I grip the book tighter due to an unbearable weight of suspense.
I mean, what are we talking about here? That, you know, this isn’t Gone Girl. This isn’t The Silent Patient. I know you love The Silent Patient. I do love it.
I I don’t even think that Holly himself would call this a suspense novel. I, you know, I’m not even sure he cared so much as to the why or the how. I feel like he was more interested in the who. Who’s, you mean? Who’s how who these people are, you know, their back stories, and then the intertwining and more of this stuff I’m talking about when it comes to, like, fate in the news and those kind of things as opposed to why this plane went down.
But everything I read afterwards and a little bit before, just in summaries, and what I was saying about how it was a thriller and a suspense novel, and I just didn’t I just didn’t feel that. I I think that it was improperly marketed to try to hit those big words that people wanna read it and feel like it’s a page turner. I didn’t think this was a bad book by any means. I enjoyed it for the most part. I continued listening to it and wasn’t like, let’s get this over with.
But I didn’t find myself really intrigued by what was going on, and I was hoping there was gonna be some I don’t need a twist, but I would hope there would be some sort of interesting reason why this plane went down and it just turned out to be a spurned lover who decided to kamikaze this plane because he got too fucked up on drugs, I guess. So it I just felt like I was I was I was cheating a little bit. Can’t market it as, like, a character study. You know, like that’s what the book is, but you can’t market it as that. So I get why they did that.
I was a little disappointed that the book was like, yeah. So here’s the bad guy. We got introduced to him with like 50 pages left. It’s like, well, that’s not really a mystery. Yeah.
And it’s just like his motivations are to your point. I was just like, yeah. I’m gonna kill, like, 10 people because I’m upset with someone. It’s like, oh, so this guy’s just the worst person ever? Alright.
Yeah. And it I think it’s it’s mostly about the randomness of it all that he happened to be on that plane with her. You know, how and it just happened to be giant media mogul. The idea that not everything is a conspiracy and some things are just randomness. But at the same time, I’m I’m all for that.
But at the same time, if you’re gonna have a cover and say one of the year’s best suspense novels, then I’m intrigued to see what the rest of your list is because there was no real suspense. And I do get what you’re saying towards the end when it was jumping back and forth to the cockpit in there. You were thinking Yeah. I like that. Something’s gonna happen here.
And then it fizzled. I do also like to I was like, it’s so ridiculous that the the guy would kill kill 10 people because of he was spurned and I just said Maggie should have done something. So, yeah. But Maggie at least was like a character we got introduced to early and there was some backstory that you think that would be part of the main story, you know. Whereas this guy wasn’t part of any of the other characters we were introduced to, like, wasn’t involved at all with the family.
He’s just a random person. But I guess your point is, like, it’s supposed to be random. So Yeah. Anyways. Do you have other stock downs?
Last one is just a quick one. Just smoking and drinking stock down. Yeah. On our last book, we bought cigarettes. I I almost went and I got a pack of Marlboro Reds and and, you know, some some Virginia Slims, you know, started smoking those down.
But this one Those are such different cigarettes. Like, literally the opposite cigarette. I used to be my always my line if someone I would always be like, oh, yeah. I’m a big smoker to anyone that was smoking. And they’d be like, what’s your, like, what pack do you like?
And I would always be like, marble reds or Virginia slippers. It always just be like it always give me the look like I fucking hate this kid. So good. It’s a great line. Yeah.
It’s Thank you. It’s a very George from Seinfeld kinda line. Just trying to fit in but also having no idea what the fuck he’s talking about. Yeah. In this book, it seems like if you’re not living a clean, alcohol free life, like anyone that it was drinking, it was I immediately knew it was a bad guy.
Yeah. There or anyone who was outside to take take a cigarette break, bad guy. There’s no good people that were like, I’d like to have a glass of wine at dinner. There was just, like, bad Sad. Use sesh.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Don’t do those things.
Unless you’re at the farmer’s market buying organic beets, then you’re a terrible, terrible person. My stack of Suckdown is the 24 hour news cycle. That just seems like low hanging fruit. I mean, it’s Yeah. It’s talking about on the nose.
It’s a little on the nose. Too easy. I get it. But it’s a big part of of this book and just the idea that airtime and eyeballs matter, and a story just has to continue to evolve so that they can continue to generate content. We’re just like a content based society, and the 24 hour news cycle is part of that.
I’m really thankful. This Christmas, I had my my family over here at my house, which was wonderful. But because it was my house, I feel like they didn’t wanna just necessarily turn on the TV and put CNN on for, like, 4 hours, which can happen when I’m at when I’m at their house. And it it felt like a really nice time because those things are tough. And it’s a different generation.
I understand that. But you sit there doing the dishes or whatever you’re doing in in the kitchen for an hour, and you just have a CNN going on in the background, as you turn to the person next to you, say, can you believe this guy? Or can you believe what they’re doing here? It’s just not for me. I know it’s for some people.
That just ain’t for me. I’ll I’ll put on an episode of Seinfeld that I’ve seen a 100 times and just, you know, watch it as background fluff noise. I don’t need talking heads yelling at each other about some embargo for an hour. It’s I’m I’m good on that. But obviously, situationally, there’s a plane crash, a bunch of rich people go down.
It’s the the sharks are the sharks are out there. So I I get it. It’s just, I don’t know. Obviously, right, this is a commentary, a societal commentary in this book. Right?
It’ll get right into my one of my hates because of those. This is why I don’t like reading real world books because I’m just like, I already had enough of this. I don’t want any of this shit. I want fantasy. And if it’s gonna be real world, give me espionage or bank robberies or treasure hunt.
You know, stuff that’s, like, not I don’t need more Fox News guy. I’m like, I don’t wanna hear any of this shit. So some of that was, like and that’s the reason I didn’t really like White Lotus every single show. People love that show. And I’m like, just a bunch of rich people complaining, and and then Paul I’m like, don’t we get enough of this?
Give me give me some dragons or something that’s not this world. Yeah. Or if you’re gonna do this world, I feel like we’ve we’ve done a few real world stuff that we enjoyed, like, anxious people that Stockholm one where they’re all in that room. Yeah. Yeah.
Well, that was another, like, character study one. It was a character study one, but it was entertaining and also Super entertaining. Yeah. It it meant something so that we’re not just mouth breathing idiots who only like fantasy and action stuff, granted we are. But that was an enjoyable way to go about real world stuff where all the news stuff and the the the tapping people’s phone, I was like, I don’t really I don’t really care that much about that.
It’s Like, what’s good about the Mitch Rapp books, I love when we bring this up, but, like, the bad guys are grounded in some sort of I understand their world perspective because they grew up this way and this thing and this is how they believe and this is what, like, drives them. They’re not gonna do dumb things just to be bad guys. They’re just doing things because this is what this guy is just being bad for no reason. Like, the the book ends and he’s, like, releasing a recording tape and it’s, like, you just outed yourself. Like, why would a smart person that’s famous, that’s a multimillionaire do this?
It doesn’t use when you’re gonna put yourself in jail, it doesn’t make any sense. Yeah. You say that, but then there’s people like Alex Jones who That’s true. That’s a good point. I guess who this is supposed to be based off of.
So it makes yeah. Yeah. Good point. Alright. Sounds a lot of it back then.
But at the I agree with you, though, that there’s just no nuance to, like, the Bill Cunningham character. He’s just a totally hateable conservative news anchor, like, ultra, ultra conservative news anchor. And they’re bad on both sides. So I like when there’s a little nuance to it because even like you were saying in the Mitch Rapp books, you have these terrorists who are deplorable people, but they’re talking about how their village was blown up from by a drone when they, you know, when they were kids and their entire family was killed, and so it radicalized them. It’s like, I I can understand that.
That makes more sense to me than this. I think the point of this one was more of the fact that these news organizations and people in particular just go so deep into these crazy tangents and spend so much time working on these conspiracies just to and they don’t even care about the truth. They’re just looking to validate their point. You know? Right.
Right. No. I I get that. And I I saw what it was doing and it’s it’s very accurate to real world, but I’m also, like, I know. Yeah.
I don’t wanna see I don’t wanna hear anymore. Back to my book report. The only question I asked myself is, do I care? And I didn’t about that. My last stock down was it was the 10000 hour rule.
You know, I think some people are familiar with it. I think Malcolm Gladwell was the person who coined it. But, basically, if you do something for 10000 hours, you become a master of it. Gil was a one man army that had his 10000 hours in both hard and soft skills of being the best personal bodyguard that there is, and he still got taken down by some drug addled flyboy with a broken heart. So 10000 hour rule stuck down.
Wait. Can you explain to me what hard and soft skills are, d man? Hard? Soft skills are like French toast hands. Okay?
Okay. Perfect. Alright. I get it now. There’s boiled egg hands, and there’s there’s boiled egg skills, and there’s French toast skills.
Okay. Yeah. So soft skills would be his ability to recognize that this pilot coming on to the plane was on drugs at the moment or had just had been off a bender. You know? I think his ability to be a good bodyguard would include his ability to understand that someone is not right to fly an airplane when they walk on the airplane.
Whether that be chatting with that person, whatever the case is, that would be his soft skills. And then his hard skills would be taking that person down physically and restraining them Yeah. Before before they could before they could take the plane off. Did you have a favorite character in this one? And I’m not gonna go through the character list.
It’s basically all the people on the airplane plus Bill Gunny. I actually liked the and I couldn’t find his name. The The husband. And the the FBI and the Oh, okay. I guess there’s a lot more there’s a lot more people than I I don’t know what his deal was, but I I liked him.
He was just kinda like a robot kind of, which I liked. Yeah. He was like, yeah. I divorced my wife because she wanted me to talk more, but I adequately talked enough to her. And I was like, nice.
This guy gets it. Yeah. Was that that wasn’t Gus Franklin. Right? That sounds right.
Was Was it him? It might have been a Franklin. I don’t know. I forget his name. Sorry.
This is this is not a great, name. I know. I couldn’t find the names. Are you talking you’re talking about the guy who said to not mess with Scott’s paintings. Right?
Yes. Correct. Yeah. Glad you took the paintings, O’Brien, or whatever your name is, whatever you wanna do, but don’t don’t mess with them. Like, that’s that’s someone’s stuff.
He was the rational viewer of the whole thing. You know, I feel like he was the reader that was let’s not jump to conclusions kinda situation. I did like his because everyone has that backstory, like, the the narratives that are going on for the most part. And they did a short one for him in the beginning and just how he had issues with his wife because he views things as a, like, an actuarial, just so matter of factually. And, you know, he’s doing a a a, you know, a cost analysis or whatever the thing’s called for everything.
So I respected. I feel like I have a a little bit of that in me where I can be unemotional and really just thinking, okay. Like, is this is this worth it or not? And so I I I appreciate that. That that’s simple as that.
Yeah. I did too. I also wanted to throw a quick one to for Rachel Bateman. Tough tough life. Kidnapped when she’s young and then just dies.
I thought that she should have been the one that survived, not JJ. Yeah. It was it was tough for her and they didn’t They didn’t have a better story. Really get into much of her kidnapping. I feel like they started the kidnapping story and then just it kinda trickled out.
You saved her and she, like, went mute as a 9 year old. It would make more sense and she would be reliving her trauma and that would be a much more, like, harder thing to for someone to recover from a second huge traumatic thing with under 10 years old. But, like, a 4 year old, I’m like, alright. Like, this he’s like, I don’t even remember half of this, like, you know. Yeah.
Who’s the other not Bateman. What was the the sister’s name that Scott probably ends up with? I thought her husband was pretty hilarious. Doug, I think. So Eleanor is her name.
And and Doug I thought Doug That was your favorite character? My favorite character just because he was so hateable, but also so every man. He he was, like, just like to drink hip beers and work on a restaurant that he’s never gonna start. He just kinda, like, putzed around. But he was like all of us in the sense of, you’re telling me that if this kid came into our care and he’s worth a $100,000,000, and I know your sister’s dead, but that’s not pretty cool.
You know? Talk about dropping the bag, though. Bro, just have a little empathy for maybe a week, and then you get that money. Then you get whatever you want. He’s got he got too greedy.
Keep the eyes on the prize, bud. Which car should we keep? What do we think about the house in in in the UK? Should we keep it or should we just visit? Because we’ll have a look at asking good questions to be fair.
I’m not gonna blame him for those. And, also, she’s calling Scott late at night. That’s kinda weird. No? Or he show he shows up and just and just stays there, and you come home.
Like, what’s, what’s that guy doing on our couch? I I think he’s definitely a piece of shit. There’s no there’s no question. But I I understand a lot of his points. And to not feel little bit Drinking IPAs and being an RT dude when you’re, like, 40, come on, bro.
Yeah. Drink a flashlight one time for me. Place a pickleball. To pretend like we’re not all thinking a little bit, Eleanor or whatever is like, it’s it’s JJ’s money. It’s JJ’s money.
It’s like, I know it’s JJ’s money, but we’re gonna have a per diem that’s pretty cool considering where we’re living now. So are we at least a little bit excited about that? She’s like, my sister’s dead. He’s like, yeah. But we’re alive, so let’s enjoy that money.
Also, not, like, taking any of that money to help the restaurant as a nonstarter. I feel like that’s kind of that that’s gotta be on the table. Yeah. Of course. Of course.
He’s like, I need, like, $10,000 more. And she’s like, we only get a 100,000 a month. So no. It’s like, The interest alone from JJ’s estate is going to pay for anything he’s ever gonna need, his kids are ever gonna need. There’s there’s a little left over for the rest of us.
You know? Throw me a freaking bone here. Did you have a favorite part of the book? You said that you like the ending when it Oh, yeah. I like the ending.
Yeah. That that was I I think I said pulse quickening and you said that was a quote from the front. Maybe that was awesome osmosis into me there. No. I think I I added I added pulse quickening suspense.
But Oh, alright. I came up with that. Nice. Yeah. I thought I don’t know.
The ending was pretty good, I guess. Like, just that back and forth whatnot, you know, a final head to head with Scott and and Bill Cunningham. I think the original conversation when he talks to the media, though, I like that the most just because he went so philosophical and whatnot, like we were talking about earlier, that I just accepted it. I was like, this is I I I kinda like this guy. So so I was cool with that.
Also, the idea as as someone who lives on Cape Cod, the idea that there’s just someone on Martha’s Vineyard just living in a hut doing paintings and stuff like that, I was a little bit jealous of just someone that cared that little or about the things that we as society tells us to care about. Granted he had, like, so much hardship in his own life. His sister died in a in a terrible accident, and he’s had, you know, his failing career that he’s not proud of in dealing with alcoholism. So, yeah, I mean, he’s not a happy man by any means, but he found something. The dude is just destroying houses, going to parties, swimming in their pools.
He’s kinda living the life. I don’t know. That that scene was actually pretty cool when he just decides to be sober and just goes swimming nonstop. Just he’s, like, in the guy’s pool swimming. Yeah.
It’s like, alright. Yeah. Hey. Why not? Okay.
What’d you love about, Before the Fall? I will say this is a Papa McGonigal, mama McGonigal classic book right here. This is, like, one that’s on their shelves that that I see lying around at the McGonagall household. Yeah. They they they have, like, David Lynch or whatever that guy is.
Like, do you know all, like, David Balducci or, like, James Patterson? The ones you see at the airport, like, top 20 and you’ve seen the name a 100 times, you don’t like, you’ve only read a few of their books. You pick it up. You’re pretty happy. Oh, like, that’s good.
And you like, I would ask my parents, like, oh, is this gonna go there? Yeah. Great. I’m like, what happens to it? They’re like, no idea.
Nope. None. Like, you know, it’s one of those books. Yeah. That that was was this.
So you’re saying it’s right in their wheelhouse, not that they have this. Exactly. No. No. No.
Yeah. Right in their wheelhouse. It’s one that’s, like, you know, they have lying around. They’re all they both read it. They couldn’t tell you what happened in it.
They enjoyed it, period. Yeah. That’s it. So, yeah. And I thought it was this.
My stepdad crushes those books. Like, he brought over some James Patterson book, and I was like I was like, aren’t his books ghostwritten at this point? Doesn’t he just ghostwrite? And I think the general sentiment is, do we care? Like, it’s the same Yeah.
You know, same thing over, you know, John Grisham stuff. It’s like, yeah, whatever. Like, they’re they’re fun. They’re page turners. They’re like, like, an NCIS or c like, a CSI episode, but they’ve turned into a whole book, and then, you know, print it and good to go.
Yeah. And and it’s and there’s something to that because we’ve read some books that are supposed to be that and they’re not. So to be able to have that down is a pat on the back for sure. Pretty impressive. Yeah.
Yeah. I thought the dialogue was really good in this. Obviously, Holly writes screenplays and stories and stuff like that, like, for for TV. So being good at the dialogue makes a lot of sense, and I thought the give and take was really well done in this. I could just the dialogue itself, I was like, oh, I I enjoyed this.
It it felt real. You know what I mean? Yeah. So I had to I’d say that I loved the the dialogue itself. What else do you like?
I like that the guy when they actually reached the Long Island, I think it was, that they helped Scott and JJ. So I think if if I were vacationing on let’s say Martin’s Vineyard or Cape Cod or Long Island and I was at the beach and some dude just pulls up with a kid on his back and he’s like, hey, bring me to the hospital. I’ll be like, bro, get out of my face. I don’t I don’t I wouldn’t trust him. I don’t maybe that’s me being cynical, but I would just be like, this guy’s a weird dude.
I’m out. Yeah. Good luck on that. So society is good. Like, someone picked him up and put him in their car.
He’s soaking wet, and I appreciate that. Yeah. I feel you there. I would hope if someone was hypother like, you know, purple lips and there’s a I would hope so. And there’s a child I mean, just the fact there’s a child shivering on this guy’s back, I’d be like I I well, the reason I say that is I was just at South Station and In Boston, that’s the big train terminal.
Yeah. It was like 4 AM. Why were you at South Station at 4 AM? Before I got delayed and from San Diego landed, I was gonna stay at a hotel but it got delayed so much that I got in at like 3:30 AM. So in my first the first train out was 6:30.
So I went to a diner for an hour and I was like I was gonna South Station. I’m sure people will be there. I’ll just, like, hang out. It was just all 25 homeless people walking. It was like a zombie apocalypse.
People will be there. I was very, very scared for my life. And they just came people would just keep up at me. It was like, hey, I need, like, this, this, and this because I love this. And I’m like, totally.
It’s just like it really made me question all about things everything about society. I like how your mentality is at 4:30 in the morning. I’m gonna go to the biggest train station in Boston and think Yeah. People will be there. So, like, it’ll be cool.
I’ll be with the people. Yeah. It was also, like, freezing in there. It wasn’t I also was just like, this is the most I was all on on no sleep, obviously. Yeah.
You should’ve stayed at the diner. Got some French toast. It was also snowing. So so Drink coffee nonstop and you know? Yeah.
I I probably should’ve, but what are you gonna do? I like that story, though. I was I’m a big fan of that one. My love was the parallel narratives. I thought that played well in this book.
I thought it was a good way to do it where we witnessed the whole or we don’t even see the the plane crash itself isn’t really a a thing. After Scott, you know, saves the saves JJ and they go back, then it jumps into all the other characters and what they did kind of going up to the plane crash, plus these ancillary characters like the the police and stuff like that. So I was a fan. How’d you feel about that? I wish there was a little bit more understanding for why like, Bill Cunningham’s bad because he didn’t go to Ivy League school.
And he was like, ah, everyone doubted me. So I’m gonna be a piece of shit for the rest of my life. It’s like, alright, I guess. Yeah. You know?
And, and the pilot who ends up taking everyone down and is has, like, a nepotism issues, like, his his grandfather is a governor or his uncle is a governor. Yeah. I had too good of a life early when I was younger, so I’m pissed at everyone. Everyone’s mad at me because I’ve been the kicker on the football team because my uncle allowed which also that I guess that’s a hate for me because if there is one thing that is purely merit based, it’s sports. Obviously, there can be when you’re in Little League, like the father puts his son as the pitcher or whatever the case is.
There’s some some Nepo situation there. But once you’re in college, you’re not getting on the starting roster because your uncle is in is in politics. Football coaches wanna win. That that dude in particular, all of the sports stuff he was talking about was not well researchers. They he was talking about throwing a knuckle slider.
That’s not a real pit. Like, what are you talking about? That’s a wimple ball pitch, maybe. Not a not they were like, everything that was referenced there, I was like, this would never happen in any real sports world. I mean, other than the French toast hands, that’s a real common saying.
Everyone says that. That’s fair. But everything else didn’t make any sense. What do I hate? Oh, how at the end, when it’s most convenient, does he all of a sudden remember that he could not kill them all.
That was my only hate. Was I get that. It was, like, all of a sudden, Bill Cunningham is chatting with him, and he remembers it all even though he couldn’t remember it before, and he’s saying it’s all cloudy. That would immediately reopen the case for me if I was the cops. I’d be like, wait.
We’ve had so many conversations with you and you forgot, and then now all of a sudden you remember? Yeah. It was all inconvenient. I mean, I understand that sometimes as you’re talking about something, it can flesh out some memories, but that seemed pretty specific. And it was slowly coming back to him throughout the book, but at the same time, nah.
I don’t think so. Mhmm. Yeah. So, I mean, that was really my only hate besides, like, some of the stuff we talked about. I guess, on the whole, I liked the book.
I guess I liked it, but it was, like, you know, 60% on Rotten Tomatoes liked it where I was like, oh, that that was fine. But if someone said, should I read it? I’d say, probably not. Out of other ones that we’ve done on the pod in the in this wheelhouse, I feel like there’s other ones. If someone wanted a thriller I think there’s a lot of ones on this pod that I did not want.
I did hate it. Agreed. This one was not that. Exactly. Somewhere somewhere in the middle.
Agreed. How do you feel about art? Has it ever moved you, you big art guy? Art’s like dreams. I think we already had this discussion already.
I don’t know. Yeah. Probably. We’ve had hundreds of hours of of this. What do you think about art?
In general, I’m not a big art guy. My mom and stepdad and my dad and my stepmom all went to Paris separately recently. Mhmm. And they were saying how crowded it was or whatnot. And I went as a kid, and I was like, yeah.
I’m probably good. I don’t need to go back. Like, I went to the Louvre. And I I was like, it was whatever. And my uncle or excuse me.
My cousin who was in the room, big art guy, he’s like, I could spend days days days in the Louvre. And I was like, fucking go for it, buddy. So, you know, I understand that people, you know, are big art people that like that stuff, but, I don’t know. I’d rather catch a ball game. We’ve talked about this before, but I get I get jazzed up when other people are jazzed up about things.
If someone gets excited about something, I can get excited about it usually. Yeah. Someone’s like, oh, Dungeon and Dragons is fucking awesome. I’m like, yo. I did that.
Let me jump right oh, yeah. You did that. Yeah. Well, but I could jump in. But the problem with most art people are they’re not like, oh, man.
I’ll tell you why I love this so much. Like, it’s like this is so sick that he did this painting when he was blind and had one ear and whatever blah blah blah and like lit the strokes here. And someone did that to me. I’d be like, oh, that’s it is sick. But instead, most are people and, again, this could be a piece of stereotyping but they’re like, you don’t like that?
Like, yeah, you just don’t get it. They’re just gonna talk down to you about it and you’re like, well, what the fuck would I wanna be in, like, part of this thing? So I’m I’m a 100% on the same page as you. I’ll I’ll get jazzed up about anything if someone’s jazzed up about it and, like, wants to wants to talk about it, which is why if I ever do do these art stuff and they offer it, I’ll always get the audio tour because it’s pretty straight to the point. But they give you a little history background, and then they talk about, like, if you look at the bottom left corner, you see, like, these specific brush strokes and you’re looking at it.
You’re like, oh, okay. Yeah. I see that. Oh, interesting. And, like, at this time, some this, this, and what happened.
It’s like, oh, okay. Like, now now I’m interested in it. I think art is also about how it makes you feel and stuff like that, and it’s it’s really just not how I’m I’m wired. Yeah. Like, I’m the actuarial guy.
I’m like, whatever. I don’t know. Tell me about how there’s 40,000,000 brush strokes on this, and I’m trying to do the math at how long that must have taken to do 40,000,000 brush strokes. So well, that was before the fall. I, I think I’d give it a a 2 out of 4 buddies.
I’m gonna rate them this year. I’m gonna go I’m gonna go for a rating. For when we finish the year, we can do, like, what people do on Reddit, where they’re like, here’s the 57 books I read and here’s the ratings on all of them. Like, oh, Jesus. Just because we’re here, we’re doing this, I was reading reviews of this book afterwards, and the top one on Goodreads was this woman saying she had read she’s like, oh, I’ve read like, the first thing she has to say is how many books she’s read.
She goes, I’ve read a 107 a 107 books since January. And I was like, dang. That’s a lot of books to read in a year. I look at when it was posted. It was the end of February.
I was like, you’ve read 50 books a month? What? That’s not even fun. That’d be awful. It sounds it sounds terrible, honestly.
So, yeah, I’m I’m not for it. Well, with that, what do we got coming up next after before the fall, our 1st of 2025? We have another listener recommendation. The Winter King, The Warlord trilogy by Bernard Cornwell. Get your thesaurus out.
Get your, history book out. Bring your education levels that are higher than middle school because you’re gonna need them. I’m struggling, but that’s okay. Yeah. That’s what that’s what we do.
We gotta challenge ourselves on that. It’s like an Arthurian tale that’s written like it was by the guy who did 1776. This this story about the year 17 76. It was basically by, like, a an Arthurian tale by a history professor is what it kinda sounds like. Arthur tale for those that don’t know what Arthurian means.
Jesus Christ. I was like, what are you talking about? King Arthur. Yeah. King Arthur.
So, yeah, the the Winter King, check it out. Not too too long. So, yeah, we’ll catch you back for that. Indeed. Alright.
Alright. Good good seeing you. 2025, here we come. Here we come. Alright.
Bye now. Alright. Bye now.
