From Japan With(out) Love: David Baerwald on His Grandfather Spy Who Helped Flatten Tokyo

00:00:31 Andrew Keen: Hello, everybody. Earlier this month, we did a show with one of America's most distinguished historians of modern Japan, James M. Scott. He has a new book out. He's a Pulitzer Prize–winning author [ed.: Scott is a two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist, not a winner]. It's a book, about Truman, Hirohito, and the decision to drop two atomic weapons on— on Japan at the end of the war. Some of you may also be familiar with Scott's book before Empire of Ashes—Black Snow, about the firebombing of Japan, a bombing which actually caused more damage and more death than even the nuclear weapons. And that is the area that begins our conversation today. My guest is David Baerwald. He has a highly autobiographical novel out. It's called The Fire Agent, and it begins just after the war, in Tokyo. David is joining us not from Tokyo, but from Kingston, New York. David, the book came out a couple of months ago. It's already a big hit. Take us back to Japan just after the end of the war, and why and how this begins this highly autobiographical novel, The Fire Agent?

00:02:00 David Baerwald: Well, I had discovered some papers of my grandfather's, oddly enough during another fire in Los Angeles in an old family home. And in the— in these papers was a speech that I found that my grandfather had given as an instructor at the American Intelligence School in San Francisco. And in this— the speech was from 1943, and the firebombings, of course, didn't happen until early, well, March 1945. And, I learned through that speech that he was very deeply involved in the planning of that event, or at least privy to the details of it. And, it was shocking to me because what I had known of him was how much he loved Japan and how much he hated seeing, what happened to Japan. And, and so I didn't understand how that could be. And that just— it started a question that I needed to find the answers to. It became an obsession.

00:03:18 Andrew Keen: David, was this— was your grandfather a persona nongrata in some ways in the family? Did your father— it's a remarkable story. Your father, who was a scholar at UCLA, professor emeritus, there's even a scholarship now in his name, studying Japan. What was your father's attitude to his father, and what did he tell you when you were growing up about your father— about his father?

00:03:51 David Baerwald: You know, it never really came up much. You know, when it did, he said that— your grandfather sold— he was a violinist, and loved Japan, and was an ink seller, or— not inks, but dyes. And one of the things that I learned was that dyestuffs is actually sort of slang for, organic chemistry. So it was all of it. And then when I started reading more, I found out that he was, in fact, the director of this chemical cartel in Asia that I was well aware of because they were— they were deeply involved in the— well, the Nazi war effort. They supplied basically anything scientific to, to IG Farben. And IG Farben, you know, did things like built, you know, a work camp at Auschwitz. And, you know, they were essential to the Hitler war effort. So that was another thing.

00:05:02 Andrew Keen: So the mystery deepens, David. Yeah. So you had this grandfather who was somehow associated with IG Farben.

00:05:11 David Baerwald: Well, he was the Asia director of this whole—

00:05:14 Andrew Keen: He was the AG— Asian, Asian director, Jewish man, Jewish German, who was the Asian director of IG Farben, who, of course, provided the gas for the Holocaust. So what did you make of that? Did you scratch your head?

00:05:32 David Baerwald: Well, it was something that I had to investigate, obviously. You know, it was an upending. You know, what I've— that particular document, I've— where I learned about the directorship was a memoir written by the father of my godfather, who was very good friends with Ernst, my grandfather. And Ollie [as spoken], his son, was my father's best friend in Japan and remained so until both of their deaths. I— so, you know, it was a— it was an evolving investigation, and it, you know, and it ended up bringing me on an investigation, not only of my own family, but also of the, you know, the joining of industry and fascism in three countries. He was— as the director of, essentially, you know, German-Japanese industrial relationships, he saw— he was there for everything. And, you know, his espionage operation really didn't take a lot of work because he just was— he just was in— he was intelligence. I didn't know exactly how he became an American agent or when. I had to kind of extrapolate that, and— and extrapolate a lot of stuff. I mean, the main thing to remember, this is not a history book. It's a novel.

00:07:18 Andrew Keen: Right. So that's— that was one I was gonna follow up, and maybe I misintroduced the book, because I described it as autobiographical. It is, of course, a novel. Why not just write a straight history, David, of your grandfather— of this complicated man and his remarkable story?

00:07:39 David Baerwald: I just have no— I have no qualifications as a historian. And, you know, it was only as the investigations— and I was well into the writing of book, of my research— of just trying to, you know, figure out a way of writing this in a way that, that didn't dishonor anybody's memory or anybody valuable— anybody worthwhile. But I just— I didn't wanna do that. I'm a songwriter. You know? I'm a—

00:08:16 Andrew Keen: Right. And that— and that's what I wanted to throw in just to add a little bit more complexity. Your first career is as a musician, songwriter. You're very, very successful. Many hits, many associations with incredibly well-known musicians. So you came to this not either as a full-time writer or as a historian of Japan, wartime Japan, but as a musician. Did that help or hinder, David?

00:08:47 David Baerwald: Oh, I mean, to me— to me, it was essential. You know? I mean, the lessons I've learned as a songwriter and as a composer and, you know, I don't think if I hadn't had those, I would have even dared to begin. I mean, you know, I'm not— you know, I'm— I am a musician, but really what I've primarily done, well, I mean, I've done both. But I think probably what I'm best at is lyrics— at which I'm reliable and extremely fast. And I just— that gave me the confidence to know that I could write a page on demand.

00:09:30 Andrew Keen: You— you're best known maybe for Boomtown, the '86 album that got—

00:09:36 David Baerwald: As an artist. Yeah.

00:09:38 Andrew Keen: On the Billboard chart. So it's pretty impressive.

00:09:40 David Baerwald: Well, I mean, especially for what it was. We were very indie duo. You know? We didn't, but— you know, I mean, I went on to do a lot of other kinds of things, but musically. But, yeah, writing music is a lot like writing a big historical novel, instrumental music, you know, because it's— you have to keep track of all these different characters much like you have to keep track of an orchestra. You know what I mean? Particularly, if you're— if you're writing it electronically. You have to make sure that things— that instruments don't play what they can't play and, you know, all these kinds of stuff. And so I was used to thinking of multiple characters all the time interacting with one another and affecting one another, just as a musician. You know? As a songwriter, as a lyricist, particularly, you know, you kind of have to find the story of the singer that you're— that you wanna tell, and you have to find that out very quickly, something that is natural to them. So you really learn how to pick up on characteristics, a lot of the things that are useful for writers, you know, being able to imagine people doing things. You know? It's really handy. And then the composition stuff is even more so, I think, ultimately. I mean, it didn't help me in the page-by-page generation, but in terms of the larger structuring and conceptualizing of the book, writing orchestral music was really kind of the muscle I relied on.

00:11:31 Andrew Keen: Your grandfather was born into an aristocratic German Jewish family. How did he survive— in, by, in working for IG Farben and being in Japan? Why didn't they fire him? Why didn't he get brought back to Germany or just somehow denationalized?

00:11:57 David Baerwald: Well, it had taken a long time to prepare him for going to Japan, and it would have been impossible for them to find someone who had such a deep and personal relationship, for example, with Japanese royal family. He was hard to replace. They did end up firing him, but— but it was later than one— it was— wasn't in 1935, for example. And, yeah. So I don't know.

00:12:38 Andrew Keen: Well, he's certainly a survivor, which, if he hadn't survived, of course, you wouldn't be around. Right. And how complicit, if that's the right word, was he in terms of all his espionage and the bombing of Japan? I mean, he made this deal with the US government. He became a spy, of a type, I guess. Although, given his background in Germany, it was understandable. He wasn't exactly gonna be sympathetic to the German war effort. No. How important was his information in this firebombing of Japan?

00:13:14 David Baerwald: Well, I think they probably could have done it without him. And I don't know exactly what it was that he gave them. I do know that he was deeply involved in the building of the Tokyo natural gas distribution system, which they'd built after the Kanto earthquake, which had destroyed the first iteration of that. And, so he had extremely detailed knowledge of exactly where all the depots and fuel storages and, you know, pumping stations and all this kind of stuff were. I don't know exactly— you know, all of those records are gone. I have no idea what his actual job was on this— on the firebombing. I just know that he knew everything about it a year and a half before it happened. And he was a dual enemy alien. You know, he was a German who'd spent most of his life in Japan. He'd been a German agent in Japan. So I— you know, it was strange to me how he could find himself in such a trusted position. And there was a lot of supposition here. You know, it is not a history book. It's a deeply informed novel, but it's a history— but it's not a history book.

00:14:40 Andrew Keen: Are there records in DC? Did you look at least for files with your grandfather's name on it?

00:14:47 David Baerwald: Oh, sure. Yeah. I mean, I found his OSS box. And I contacted that, which was nearly empty. And I contacted the OSS Society, which—

00:14:58 Andrew Keen: And the OSS, of course, was the organization that existed before the CIA.

00:15:02 David Baerwald: Exactly. They were the ones that ran the intelligence school. And they were extremely hostile to him. I mean, you know, they said, oh, they'll look into it. And then they came back to me and said, oh, you know, he was a commie. I got it. He was never entirely trusted, I don't think. And I think he did end up, you know, alienating his, American employers. But, again, you know, I mean, his life is so shrouded in mystery. And, you know, the scraps of information I've been able to gather are just very strange. You know? I mean, I don't know how, for example, he got so close with the Japanese imperial family, but he was. He— he— I mean, he was sort of a mentor to Crown Prince Takamatsu [ed.: Prince Takamatsu (Nobuhito) was Hirohito's younger brother and held the title Prince, not Crown Prince]. There— and there's a lot of mysteries about him. And I think I really do think that it's a book meant to be enjoyed rather than, strictly, you know, tell— tell a historic tale. It's a novel.

00:16:14 Andrew Keen: It's supposed to be a novel—he falls deeply in love with two different Japanese women. Is either of that factual?

00:16:23 David Baerwald: One Japanese woman and one Caucasian woman. Yeah. That is— I mean, he did have, you know, is it exactly as I described? Probably not. I suspect that— I've made everybody probably a little better looking than they were in real life. But, yeah, he had a long-standing relationship with a Japanese woman, and he had my grandmother who was not Japanese.

00:16:51 Andrew Keen: When did your father die?

00:16:54 David Baerwald: 2010.

00:16:56 Andrew Keen: Could you have written this book while he was still alive, David?

00:16:59 David Baerwald: That would have been a lot easier. I doubt if he would have wanted me to. I mean, I don't know, actually.

00:17:06 Andrew Keen: Why wouldn't he have wanted you to write— written this book?

00:17:13 David Baerwald: Maybe he would have. I'm— you know, to be honest, I didn't really know him very well either. Not to be—

00:17:19 Andrew Keen: Maybe your next book can be about him.

00:17:21 David Baerwald: Well, it is.

00:17:24 Andrew Keen: He's a Japanese— oh, he was a Japanese scholar. He got a nice obituary in the Los Angeles Times. Why didn't you know him very well?

00:17:37 David Baerwald: We just never really had much to talk about. I— I mean, why do fathers and sons have problems? A lot of reasons, but I'm not sure that— I don't know. I'm not sure I really wanna talk about that. But, we were— yeah, we were just— we were not a— we were not a real cozy father-son pair.

00:18:09 Andrew Keen: Your father was a scholar of Japan, and he, as I said, he wrote a number of books on it. He had his own— he has his own fellowship now, in his name at least, at UCLA. What was his attitude to the war, to Japan, to the morality or immorality of the firebombing and the nuclear bombing of Japan? Did he have a moral take on it, or did he just treat it as inevitable and unavoidable?

00:18:39 David Baerwald: Well, he was, you know, he was scheduled to be part of the invading army, that was potentially going to invade the Japanese mainland. So when the atomic bombs fell, he felt an enormous amount of personal relief. And I think he held that position all his life. I had— you know, I have a slightly different— there's a historian named Gar Alperovitz who really did a deep dive into Truman's records and into the air force's records. And I question the necessity of it. I think that a lot of the nuclear bombing was really more to send this message to the Soviets than anything else. But, the, you know, the Tokyo firebombing was an atrocity of un— of unspeakable terms. There's an industrial strip that runs all the way from Tokyo to Yokohama, and that's really where all the— where all the, you know, Japanese war effort would have been based. But we didn't wanna blow that up because we wanted to use it to, build the, Japanese economy after the war. So we firebombed the civilians. And I never— I think my father thought that was an atrocity. I hope he did. I— but, again, you know, I hate to bring in my family dirty laundry, but we never really talked about anything very important.

00:20:48 Andrew Keen: How did the research and writing of this book, this novel, which is built around at least or inspired by your grandfather, how did it change your view of— of the war, the American involvement, and of the bombing of Japan?

00:21:11 David Baerwald: Well, to be honest, I really believe that Japan, like Germany, like Italy, and unfortunately, later on, like the US, was hijacked, propagandized, threatened, drugged, surveilled, and were destroyed as a result. As far as my own family goes, I understand more of my father than I ever did when he was alive. I've forgiven him a lot. I think he had a very difficult life that I never really quite sympathized with. But, you know, there's a tremendous weight of tragedy around all of this for me— and which is maybe also why I wanted to do it as a novel so I could have some jokes and— and some stuff and stuff. You know?

00:22:23 Andrew Keen: Did you— so, again, I apologize if my questions are a little dumb or crude, but was your father aware of much of this? I mean, I take your point that this is a novel, but it's inspired by some truth. Was he aware of these truths?

00:22:43 David Baerwald: I'm not sure he knew ex— you know, I don't think his father talked to him much either, to be honest. In fact, I know he did. He knew that— well, he knew that Ernst had done something with the OSS. He did not know what, or claimed he did not. You know, he was very gung-ho— you know, he was an American agent also, in Tokyo. He was born in Japan, and he was one of the few Caucasians who— who was conversationally fluent in Japanese. I think there was something like 23 that they could find. And so he was— early on, he was sent to— to Japan, as part of what's called the purge of Japanese leadership, which was this very ambitious, in— very—

00:23:38 Andrew Keen: He wrote his book on that, The Purge of Japanese Leaders Under the Occupation.

00:23:42 David Baerwald: Yes. Exactly. Yeah. There was a list of nearly 12,000 corporate, political, business leaders, civic leaders who were to be— you know, most of them just banned from having any kind of power and authority for the rest of their lives and some to be hanged. And, you know, what— that's a whole other story, which kind of leads to the next book. But— yeah. He— I'm sorry. What was your question again?

00:24:21 Andrew Keen: Well, let me revise the question or talk more broadly about Japan. My generation, you and I have similar ages and certainly our kids' generation, are lovers of Japan, Japanese food, Japanese culture, Japanese movies. We all love going there. I'm sure you've spent some time there too, certainly, probably to research this book.

00:24:45 David Baerwald: Well, I grew up— I spent a good part of my early childhood there. So—

00:24:48 Andrew Keen: Right. Was your grandfather and certainly your father, were they admirers of Japanese culture? Did they love the place?

00:24:57 David Baerwald: Oh, very much so. My father always— I think that was one of the roots of his sort of unhappiness was that he couldn't live there for whatever reason. But, yeah. No. He loved it. I mean, I do too. You know? I mean, I'm always inspired by, you know, Japanese art, culture, and Japanese literature, Jap— you know, I even like Japanese music, which— which surprises a lot of my friends. Both he and his father were deep, deep lovers of Japan. But, you know, they were also deeply anti-fascist in Japan. You know, in Ernst's speech that I have, at one point, he says, you know, the Japanese people have, for whatever reason, you know, fallen into the thrall of monsters and become monsters themselves. And this has to be stopped. You know? I think it's a very, very, very complicated question.

00:26:13 Andrew Keen: As complicated or more complicated or less complicated than what happens in Germany?

00:26:21 David Baerwald: I don't know that there's a competition. I think it was very complicated for him. But, yeah, I think listen. I think that— you know, I mean, one of the things that I learned was how— what patriotic Germans the Jewish community in Frankfurt were. You know? They were very patriotic Germans. That's complicated. But I don't know that it's a competition. It was— it's— it was just an extremely comp— complicated situation for my protagonist, Ernst, because he did love Japan. Because he was talking about bombing neighborhoods that he had traversed for thirty years. This was his home. And he assisted in its absolute— you know, I mean, it killed hundreds of thousands of people. You know, there was— there was, I think, 140,000 killed in Tokyo, and then they continued the bombing campaign through, I think, 65 more cities or something. So it was a tremendously destructive attack on civilian populations. And I don't believe that it was entirely strategically necessary, shall we say?

00:27:59 Andrew Keen: As I've said several times now, it's a novel, so we're talking in fictional terms. But do you think— as a— in spite of his aristocratic Jewishness, he was still a Jew and still, of course, discriminated against in Germany and probably would have been murdered had he gone back there. Yes.

00:28:21 David Baerwald: Relatively true.

00:28:22 Andrew Keen: Do you think that people— somebody like your grandfather— was driven in terms of the deal he made with the Americans and this decision to help this catastrophic, tragic firebombing of Japan because of his hatred of Germany and his— and his desire to have Hitler defeated?

00:28:48 David Baerwald: Well, I think no. You know? I mean, to understand Ernst, I really needed to learn to understand his father, who— who was Hermann Baerwald. And he was the headmaster of an extremely progressive school in Frankfurt called the Philanthropin. He was a very well-known historian and writer himself. Now the Philanthropin was a— sort of an— not an outpost. It was a pillar of what's called the Jewish Enlightenment, which stems from the, you know, the European Enlightenment that, you know, Diderot spread out— whatever— Thomas Jefferson. You know? And they were— so he was— before there was such a thing as fascism, he was raised as an antifascist. And he was sent to Japan to try to help, the Japanese avoid the embrace of their version of fascism. So he was, you know, he was an— he— I think before he was a German, before he was an American, before he was a lover of Japan, he was a hater of tyranny and authoritarianism and totalitarianism. And I believe that he believed that the US was the best hope for that philosophy surviving the moral landscape it was about to enter. So, you know, given the comparison between Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, and Roosevelt, that Roosevelt seemed a pretty good deal. And so I think that was really the foundation of his choices. I don't think it was really self-serving on his part. I think he was— I think he saw himself as a soldier in a very, very long war, and— and that this was the duty that he saw that he had. His brother was certainly like that. His brother was also very involved in this sort of thing. He was the founder of a group called the— or cofounder of a group called the Joint Distribution Committee, which began as a refugee organization and then became a, as Tad Szulc called it, the largest and most effective private intelligence service in history. But— so I don't believe that he was one of these sort of hustling adventure types. I think— and I think categorizing him as an aristocratic Jew— I don't think that there really were Jewish aristocrats in Germany.

00:31:47 Andrew Keen: Well, maybe Jews who thought of themselves as aristocrats or certainly upper class Jews.

00:31:52 David Baerwald: Well, they were certainly that. Yeah. Yeah.

00:31:54 Andrew Keen: David, you've mentioned that you didn't have much of a relationship with your father just as your father didn't have much of a relationship with his grandfather. But—

00:32:02 David Baerwald: With his father. Yeah.

00:32:04 Andrew Keen: So, yeah, with his father. You're a musician— or much of your career as a musician. Now you're also a writer. The tradition, of course, of musicality deeply rooted in Germany, probably alongside the Enlightenment. Germany contributed more to music— musical history— of the world than any country. Do you feel as a musician— and in a kind of odd way that you're continuing that tradition? Many of— certainly German Jewish composers, lyricists, they all came to Los Angeles where you grew up.

00:32:42 David Baerwald: Yeah. Well, I've always been fascinated by that, by that period. There was a little breakfast joint on the Pacific Coast Highway that, my friends and I used to meet in the morning to, to go surfing. That's where we— that was our sort of meeting place. And, in the thirties and forties— it had been there forever. And in the thirties and forties, and I think up to the mid-fifties, it had been a hangout for not only the first wave of Hawaiian surfers, like Duke Kahanamoku, but also people like Bertolt Brecht and Stravinsky. And, there was— it was this neighborhood in Santa Monica that all these people lived in. Thomas Mann lived there, and, I mean, I've always been fascinated by that as a milieu.

00:33:34 Andrew Keen: Yeah. I mean, imagine showing up on the beach to surf, and you find Thomas Mann and— didn't even see— Stravinsky and Bertolt Brecht there. [as spoken]

00:33:42 David Baerwald: Yeah. I mean, it was quite a little area. I mean, James Dean later lived on the same street. It was that kind of a place. So— and also my— you know, as a lyricist, my favorite lyricist was always Bertolt Brecht. Although I couldn't— never afford to tell anybody that.

00:34:05 Andrew Keen: But— why? Because your father was so conservative?

00:34:09 David Baerwald: No. No. No. No. Not— no. Just because, in Los Angeles, if you talk about you wanna write songs like Bertolt Brecht, you get— they lock you up in a padded room. So I had to keep that to myself. But, no. My father really was not a conservative in the way that one would think of a conservative. He was, you know, he was a political scientist. He was a— he was a political scientist who got his initial education in the intelligence trade, in the— and then later developed a much sort of deeper understanding. I mean, he was still— you know, he was more conservative than I was.

00:34:52 Andrew Keen: Do you think he fled the complexity of, certainly, of his father's life and his background by escaping into social science, political science that claimed to have all the answers? But in retrospect, it probably didn't.

00:35:08 David Baerwald: No. No. No. He was— he lost his security clearance because he was not sufficiently pro-Chiang Kai-shek, and— and not as hard on Chinese communism as his bosses would have liked. So he was tagged as a communist during the McCarthy era and lost his— his security clearance, which changed his plans entirely. I think he was not intending to become an academic initially.

00:35:51 Andrew Keen: James Scott told me that his new book is gonna be translated into Japanese and maybe next year, and he might come back on the show and discuss how the book went down there. I'm guessing that certainly, if the rights to The Fire Agent haven't been bought in Japanese, they will do. How would you expect this book to be read in Japan differently from the way it's being read in the US and Europe?

00:36:19 David Baerwald: Well, Japan is going through a very difficult period right now itself. It's really struggling with— with an upsurge in, you know, kind of fascist thinking themselves. So I think that the conservatives are gonna have a difficulty with it. I think I'll probably be yelled at by some people. The—

00:36:48 Andrew Keen: Why? What will they object to in this book, the con— Japanese conservatives?

00:36:53 David Baerwald: Well, you know, I mean, for example, many people are still trying to deny that, the Rape of Nanking ever happened. That did happen. They— many people deny that, you know, these comfort women. You know, there's so many things. And not just the Rape of Nanking, but the savagery of the Battle of Shanghai and the looting, you know, the systematic looting of China that is— that plays a big role in this. These are comp— these are controversial topics among conservative Japanese who are— they're— they've take— they've taken a few hits recently. But, for instance, you know, Sanae [Takaichi], the new prime minister, she's very much in the— in the legacy of the Kishi Nobusuke and the— who was a fascist and the founder of the Liberal Democratic Party. And, Abe, who was assassinated about five or six years ago, four or five years ago. She's very much of that ultraconservative, you know, some would say, you know, proto- or neo-fascist Japanese movement. So, you know, those guys, problematic. The more moderate or— or more left people, they're not gonna have a problem. So to speak. I hope it'll spark, some debates. I really do.

00:38:33 Andrew Keen: Speaking of speaking. Final question, David. You've been very generous with your time. Speaking of the reappearance of quote, unquote, neo-fascism— all novels, of course, are written with one eye or half an eye on the present. Why or how is The Fire Agent relevant to the America of the twenty twenties?

00:38:59 David Baerwald: Well, fascist movements have a very limited vocabulary, and sometimes it's easier to hear how stupid it is from the mouths of foreigners, than it is to hear— than it is to recognize that yourself. The, you know, the mechanisms of the formations of fascism have been very similar, and— you know, the echoes in our current circumstances are impossible to avoid. They're identical. And, you know, that was really one of the main reasons that I did this was because, I thought that it could help in the general understanding of how fascist movements develop, how they are funded, how they function, and then what they intend to do when they have complete and total power. And that's what we saw in those three countries. And all three of them ended up, you know, just piles of rubble. And, you know, and the end of that war and the beginning of the Cold War created the landscape that we're now occupying. So it has everything to do with it. It's you know, when I started writing it, it was not so easy to say, hey. These people are actually fascist. But then, you know, Jason Stanley and Tim Snyder and, you know, people be— it began to be more acceptable to say— to call it what it clearly is. And, and it was certainly one of the engines that made me so obsessed with finding the story because, you know, I was under a tremendous amount of dread watching all this happen because it was so bloody repetitious. It was so bloody blatant. And, you know, also, I realized that I needed to know more about it myself before I could really talk about it authoritatively. So, you know, I think it— I think if you're curious about how fascist movements not only start, but how they— how they support themselves, how they comport themselves, and— and what they do when they finally achieve power. I think this book would probably— it seems to have, even for people who are experts in the field, brought up new information for them, that helps to identify what we're actually experiencing in a way that's not as disorienting as it can be.

00:41:57 Andrew Keen: Yeah. The Fire Agent, a novel, does— definitely does it in prose rather than music. Final final question, David. Given your musical background, what does neo-fascism sound like? What is the music of neo-fascism? Is it repetition? Is it the sound of marching feet? Is it people screaming at one another?

00:42:21 David Baerwald: You know what I really think it is? I think it's kitsch. Do you know— and I'm probably gonna pronounce his name wrong— but Milan Kundera— the— he wrote this brilliant essay on kitsch and how imperative kitsch is for, for fascist systems to blossom. You know, it's so lovely to see a child running through the field, but isn't it so— isn't it even more lovely that I am so moved that there's— that I have to brush a tear off my cheek, you know, this world that, you know, believes in sanitized absurdities because the truth is so bloody awful. And so I would say, you know, I would say this is what I would— if I was composing it, I would start out with kitsch. And I would have a little simple music box melody, and I would gradually, gradually start torturing it and besieging it with dissonance and— and horror. You know? I think— you know, I think if you took the music of György Ligeti and you started it out with a little music box, ting ting ting ting ting, and just gradually this horror starts—

00:43:48 Andrew Keen: Sounds a little bit like Mahler or Shostakovich too.

00:43:53 David Baerwald: Yeah. But I think even more dissonant. But, yeah, that's what I would— that's how I would score it. I mean, the most fascist character in my book, I would say, was a Japanese— a real-life Japanese gangster, really. It was gangster, spy, mass murderer, named Kodama Yoshio. And when I was thinking of him as a character, there's a thing in— it's actually become quite common now to use in film scoring. It's called a Shepard tone. And it's this kind of— it's an audio illusion of an ever-climbing tone that never quite arrives. I don't know exactly how they do it, but it's sort of once something gets to the range where it's out of hearing, it cycles back, and so there's something always rising up to this note. And that's how I would picture fascists. It's, you know— it's this never-satisfied, dissonant climb to nothing, you know, to ruin.

00:45:10 Andrew Keen: Well, there you have it. The— David Baerwald's new book, new novel, based on or inspired at least by his grandfather— the fire eng— the— not The Fire Engine. The Fire Agent [ed.: Keen says "the fire engine"] is out. It's getting tremendous press. It's quite an achievement for a man with— who's— it's a first book, but you're right, working on another book— with a man with such deep musical background, David. [as spoken] I think many people can be very envious of not of your success, but your ability to go from music to— to writing and perhaps back. It's quite an achievement. I know you're working on a second book, and I hope you'll come back on when the second novel comes out.

00:45:52 David Baerwald: I'd be delighted, and thank you for having me.