This is getting plenty of coverage, but I’m posting it so you don’t miss the back story. Lawrence Wright’s article on Scientology — prompted by screenwriter Paul Haggis’s departure from it — appears in this week’s New Yorker.
Writer Friends Take Note: The story behind the story — the one that tells what it took for Wright to get from that first request for an interview to publication — blew my mind. Listen to him talk about it here: Wright’s 20 minute interview with Terry Gross on NPR’s Fresh Air.
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Listened to the piece while I had my lunch. I would have hated to be one of those fact checkers going through all those documents. Don’t mess with the Scientologists.
I skimmed the article -what a trip down TV memory lane from Welcome Back Kotter to thirty-something… Haggis has worked on some amazing films too – who knew he came from London, Ontario? – that’s where I did my law degree.
It takes so much courage to stand up to a bully who you’ve thought of as a friend your whole life. I admire Paul Haggis’s strength. You have to wonder where his wife stands with all of this, especially when it comes to her own parents.
That’s the part I really don’t get and which makes it seem like a cult to me.
And can you believe all the documents they showed up with — 7 linear feet — at the New Yorker offices?! That’s a 10 hour meeting I’d have paid to sit in on.
That’s what I mean about not wanting to be one of those fact checkers. Fiction is looking pretty good.