Patrick Radden Keefe
About Patrick Radden Keefe
Speech topics
The Power of Narrative
According to the Los Angeles Times, "A new book by Keefe means drop everything and close the blinds; you'll be turning the pages for hours." In this wide-ranging, personal talk, Keefe discusses the importance of storytelling: why we love it, and how to do it well. Humans are hard-wired to process complex information more effectively when it is presented as a narrative—a drama about characters and conflict. With revealing anecdotes about his adventures as an investigative reporter, writing about everyone from the narco baron Chapo Guzman to the mega art dealer Larry Gagosian to the late chef and television host Anthony Bourdain, Keefe makes an impassioned case for the importance of knowing how to tell a good story, whatever industry you might be in. He describes how he sorts through years of research, hundreds of pages of interview notes, and thousands of court files in search of the narrative threads to spin all that material into a great yarn. The fundamental questions at the heart of this kind of writing (Where does my story begin and end? How much detail is too much? What are my inflection points and themes?) are the same faced by anyone who has to write a memo, or deliver a presentation, or give a speech at a wedding. Keefe imparts five simple lessons he has learned over a two-decade career about how to structure and sustain an irresistible tale.
Speaking videos
Books by Patrick Radden Keefe
“London Falling A Mysterious Death in a Gilded City and a Family's Search for Truth” (2026)
London Falling A Mysterious Death in a Gilded City and a Family's Search for Truth
“Rogues: True Stories of Grifters, Killers, Rebels and Crooks” (2023)
Rogues: True Stories of Grifters, Killers, Rebels and Crooks
“Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty” (2021)
Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty
“Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland” (2019)
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER"A masterful history of the Troubles. . . Extraordinary. . .As in the most ingenious crime stories, Keefe unveils a revelation — lying, so to speak, in plain sight."—Maureen Corrigan, NPRFrom award-winning New Yorker staff writer Patrick Radden Keefe, a stunning, intricate narrative about a notorious killing in Northern Ireland and its devastating repercussionsIn December 1972, Jean McConville, a thirty-eight-year-old mother of ten, was dragged from her Belfast home by masked intruders, her children clinging to her legs. They never saw her again. Her abduction was one of the most notorious episodes of the vicious conflict known as The Troubles. Everyone in the neighborhood knew the I.R.A. was responsible. But in a climate of fear and paranoia, no one would speak of it. In 2003, five years after an accord brought an uneasy peace to Northern Ireland, a set of human bones was discovered on a beach. McConville's children knew it was their mother when they were told a blue safety pin was attached to the dress--with so many kids, she had always kept it handy for diapers or ripped clothes.Patrick Radden Keefe's mesmerizing book on the bitter conflict in Northern Ireland and its aftermath uses the McConville case as a starting point for the tale of a society wracked by a violent guerrilla war, a war whose consequences have never been reckoned with. The brutal violence seared not only people like the McConville children, but also I.R.A. members embittered by a peace that fell far short of the goal of a united Ireland, and left them wondering whether the killings they committed were not justified acts of war, but simple murders. From radical and impetuous I.R.A. terrorists such as Dolours Price, who, when she was barely out of her teens, was already planting bombs in London and targeting informers for execution, to the ferocious I.R.A. mastermind known as The Dark, to the spy games and dirty schemes of the British Army, to Gerry Adams, who negotiated the peace but betrayed his hardcore comrades by denying his I.R.A. past--Say Nothing conjures a world of passion, betrayal, vengeance, and anguish.
“Unspeakable Acts: True Tales of Crime, Murder, Deceit, and Obsession” (2020)
A brilliant anthology of modern true-crime writing that illustrates the appeal of this powerful and popular genre, edited and curated by Sarah Weinman, the award-winning author of The Real LolitaThe appeal of true-crime stories has never been higher. With podcasts like My Favorite Murder and In the Dark, bestsellers like I’ll Be Gone in the Dark and Furious Hours, and TV hits like American Crime Story and Wild Wild Country, the cultural appetite for stories of real people doing terrible things is insatiable. Acclaimed author ofThe Real Lolitaand editor of Women Crime Writers: Eight Suspense Novels of the 1940s & 50s (Library of America) and Troubled Daughters, Twisted Wives (Penguin), Sarah Weinman brings together an exemplary collection of recent true crime tales. She culls together some of the most refreshing and exciting contemporary journalists and chroniclers of crime working today. Michelle Dean’s “Dee Dee Wanted Her Daughter To Be Sick” went viral when it first published and is the basis for the TV showThe Act and Pamela Colloff’s “The Reckoning,” is the gold standard for forensic journalism. There are 13 pieces in all and as a collection, they showcase writing about true crime across the broadest possible spectrum, while also reflecting what makes crime stories so transfixing and irresistible to the modern reader.
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