In the middle of this week’s press maelstrom—a tempest that deposits its debris onto your front doorstep—a consoling friend texted me a photograph of a book cover: I Married Adventure, by Osa Johnson.
We are not in deepest Africa and Michael is not tracking wildebeests so much as aspiring autocrats and oligarchs, but the spirit is similar. Never a dull moment.
I married the news cycle. The irony is that I am not at all a news person. I can remain blissfully oblivious. The world grows quieter, more eccentric, more human without the news. You notice your own thoughts—none of which appear in headlines.
But since last March, when I began producing Michael’s Instagram videos and just recently his Substack—sitting behind the camera, nudging the lighting, stitching together his apocalyptic asides with a backdrop of antique Windsor chairs—my life has tilted, gently but unmistakably, toward the public side of the glass.
And so, after this noisy week, it occurred to me that it may be of some interest—if only as a cautionary tale—to describe what it’s like to be married to a writer. Not just any writer, but one who covers the monsters of our time.
This is not my first rodeo.
Chapter I: The Murdoch Affair (Not Ours—But Then Somehow, Ours)
The first maelstrom began when Michael published his biography of Rupert Murdoch, The Man Who Owns the News. Murdoch called to request a small “correction”—the actual date he met his third wife, Wendi, as he’d fudged it for his children. If Michael would only shift the date, the News Corp papers would support the book. If not, well then…prepare for siege warfare.
Michael, being Michael, declined.
