![\"Graham](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/BY5TKXYTIFEI3O3ICZMJPB7EQM.jpg\")
Graham Linehan testifying on ‘Europe’s Threat to American Speech and Innovation’ at the US Capitol in February in Washington. Photograph: Heather Diehl\/Getty <\/p>\nIn the summer of 2023, the writer and podcaster Jon Ronson woke to several alarming texts from his son Joel. The night before, Joel and his friends had been lured to a \u201cparty\u201d at a fairy-tale castle in rural Connecticut owned by an odd multimillionaire called Chris Mark. Joel\u2019s female friends were the ones who had actually been invited. There was also a number of other young women and a camera crew there.<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t a \u201cparty\u201d, Mark explained. It was, in fact, a reality show called 101 Princesses where young women vied to live in his castle with him. It did not feel like a particularly well-run reality show or, indeed, a reality show at all, so Joel had contacted his parents lest anything weird was to happen.<\/p>\n
By the time Ronson and his wife woke up, Joel was fine. He and his friends had been kicked out of Mark\u2019s castle because they would not participate. Ronson was concerned for his son, but he also thought (because he never stops thinking about work): This is the start of a book.<\/p>\n
He knew it actually was a book when Joel\u2019s friend helped him track a girl they had met at the castle. She told him that Hugh Hefner was one of Mark\u2019s idols and that he was trying to create a Playboy Mansion. \u201cThat was the moment of clarity. This guy is trying to be Hugh Hefner at the worst moment in human history to be Hugh Hefner.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ronson is a nuanced and thoughtful writer. If you\u2019ve read The Psychopath Test or So You\u2019ve Been Publicly Shamed or listened to the podcast series The Last Days of August or Things Fell Apart you\u2019ll know he needs more than a crazy anecdote. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe story itself needs to be surprising and funny and absurd and adventurous and exciting and mysterious,\u201d he says. \u201cBut also: does it have a bigger resonance? Does it say something about the way the world works? It needs to be small and also big.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chris Mark was, he realised, \u201ca man out of time … What this guy can\u2019t do anymore is have a harem in his castle. That\u2019s not relatable. What is relatable is the fact we\u2019re all at home, office life is dying, factory life died and a lot of men are realising that there are things that they can\u2019t do anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n
And so The Castle became a book about what happens to men when they lose their purpose. It\u2019s a much more interesting story than yet another about the cartoonish inhabitants of the manosphere (though manosphere figures do turn up). Ronson investigates Mark, the sexually entitled heir to a steel fortune, but he also engages with other men who have spiralled into weirdness thanks to the modern age\u2019s lack of structure. He goes to Marktown, the once thriving and now depressed town Mark\u2019s grandfather built for his employees.<\/p>\n
He draws a parallel between such industry towns and the digital worlds built by capitalists for their digital workers today. He tells the story of controversial influencers such as Greg Chism, an indebted father turned YouTuber who allowed the algorithm to morph his output into videos where he and his daughters dressed and acted like babies. \u201cIf you come to his story at the end, you\u2019re thinking: \u2018What the f**k?\u2019 If you\u2019re with him every step of the way from his childhood, every decision makes perfect sense but leads him to this insane place.\u201d <\/p>\n
Ronson laughs. \u201cMy son, Joel, who\u2019s staying with us at the moment, read the book recently and said: \u2018I\u2019m not as sympathetic to Greg Chism as you are. I don\u2019t think he should have put his daughters on YouTube.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Then again, Ronson did put Joel into his Guardian columns back in the day. He laughs. \u201cYeah, I think he was \u2018subtweeting\u2019 me when he said that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Graham Linehan testifying on ‘Europe’s Threat to American Speech and Innovation’ at the US Capitol in February in Washington. Photograph: Heather Diehl\/Getty <\/p>\n
Like Chism, Ronson was once guilty of being overly utopian about social media and all that happened there. \u201cWhen Twitter first started, I remember thinking: \u2018This is amazing. This is like a Robert Altman movie, but real life\u2019 … Ironically, Graham Linehan<\/a> said to me at the very beginning of Twitter<\/a>: \u2018You\u2019ve got to join Twitter. It\u2019s the place where no one fights.\u2019 Which is very ironic now.\u201d<\/p>\n [\u00a0Jon Ronson: In 2008 Graham Linehan told me \u2018Join Twitter, the place where no one fights\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n News editors will focus in on his chapter about Linehan. The Irish comedy writer was an early adopter of social media before finding the issue that would forever define him: trans identity. He became vociferously outspoken againsttransgender activism, tweeting on the subject around the clock and lashing out at old friends like Ronson (he still tweets angrily about Ronson).<\/p>\n The Castle is about \u201cmen spiralling into disinhibited behaviour\u201d, says Ronson. \u201cThe old world doesn\u2019t exist anymore, so they\u2019re creating these fake worlds for themselves … That\u2019s why I ended up putting Graham in there because it feels like the culmination of one of the arguments in the book, which is that men are being tossed around in a sea of conflicting ideas as to what being a man is these days … Some men just get so sick of being tossed around in that turbulence [that] they say: \u2018F**k it, I\u2019m going to rip off my face\u2019 … It felt more personal and more interesting to make that point about Graham than to make that point about a manosphere man.\u201d<\/p>\n In that chapter Ronson challenges Linehan but also tries to understand what drove him to blow up his life. \u201cI sat on the interview for six years,\u201d he says. \u201cIn the end Graham got annoyed with me because I didn\u2019t write about it. Well, you can imagine what stopped me. It\u2019s a very fraught thing to write about. It\u2019s a very emotional thing. I was super fond of Graham.\u201d<\/p>\n How does he manage his emotions when reporting on difficult subjects? \u201cI remember years ago I went to see my doctor when I lived in Islington, and the night before, my documentary about [conspiracy theorist] David Icke was on Channel Four … And the doctor said to me: \u2018God, the toll that hanging out with people like that must take on you.\u2019 And I said: \u2018What? I live for those moments.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Things are a little different now, he says. \u201cSince around 2019, when I made The Last Days of August [about the controversial death of porn star August Ames] something changed in me and it never really changed back. It\u2019s this idea of being just very, very aware of your moral and ethical responsibilities. The gonzo fun of those early days, I still have it. I still really love being somewhere I\u2019m not supposed to be, whether it\u2019s inside The Castle or going to Broadmoor for the Psychopath Test. But it\u2019s a bit like Eve after eating the apple. I spend a hell of a lot of time thinking about the ethics of everything.\u201d <\/p>\n He worries that, like Martin Luther, he might suffer from a condition called \u201cscrupulosity\u201d. <\/p>\n \u201cI think I might worry about this more than is healthy and more than is appropriate … There\u2019s lots of caveats. Firstly, [Ames\u2019s] husband had brought out a press release accusing other porn stars of basically contributing to her suicide. So, he was in public anyway and I don\u2019t think I would have made that show if he hadn\u2019t done that. But the fact is, she hadn\u2019t been dead for long, and there I was, investigating. That\u2019s the one thing that stays with me: Did I do the right thing?\u201d<\/p>\n There are other concerns when doing work like this. At one point, he alleges, Chris Mark repeatedly threatened him by text with a visit from his ex-con friends \u201cCarlos and Brandon\u201d. It is partly played for laughs in the book, but does he worry about safety? \u201cA little, yeah. We\u2019ve put security in and stuff like that. I think it\u2019s a very small worry.\u201d<\/p>\n What makes Ronson\u2019s writing so entertaining and funny is the way in which his meticulous reportage on serious subjects coexists with his fears, anxieties and self-deprecation. \u201cIt\u2019s weird that so many journalists don\u2019t want to do that … Journalists are raised to be authoritative, but we are just as f**ked up as the people that we\u2019re interviewing half the time.\u201d<\/p>\n His work is very much influenced by the largely American nonfiction narrative tradition that sees the form of the story as being as important to its veracity as the content. When he was younger he remembers reading an article by Luke Jennings about a professional Andrew Lloyd Webber lookalike and thought: \u201cThis is what I want to do.\u201d<\/p>\n To hell with Watergate then? He laughs. \u201cIt was so funny and absurd and human.\u201d<\/p>\n [\u00a0Jon Ronson: \u2018I still see myself as marginal\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n He thinks it is interesting that his friend and fellow longform reporter Patrick Radden Keefe<\/a> has also, in his book London Falling<\/a>, written about \u201clost men acting out in these weird ways\u201d.<\/p>\n Ronson\u2019s own evolving personal worldview is evident in all of his work. For example, with So You\u2019ve Been Publicly Shamed, he had \u201ccome to this realisation in my life that empathy and trying to understand people is better than cold, hard judgment. Yet, I\u2019ve come to this conclusion just when the world has come to the opposite conclusion. And then with this book, Joel gets lured to the mysterious castle just as I\u2019m [getting colon] surgery. It\u2019s about fragility.\u201d<\/p>\n He thinks the two books are linked. \u201cThe excesses of public shaming have partly led to disinhibition, to [some people] behaving exactly how they want, [saying]: \u2018F**k people\u2019s feelings.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n I wish I could be more confident. It\u2019s a real problem for me. I get incredibly shy<\/p>\n He realised when writing The Castle that his obsession with work was bound up with a masculinity he barely previously considered. \u201cAnd then I find myself in Nantucket on my wedding anniversary, chasing this story. And I think: \u2018F**k, my masculinity is more toxic than I realised.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n He complicates his workaholism by turning his books into shows and then going on the road. \u201cThere\u2019s an American storyteller called Sam Green,\u201d he says. \u201cI went to see him [in] this tiny little venue in New York City called The Kitchen … I was just mesmerised. He was doing his storytelling in sync with both the band live-scoring it and all of these images on the screen. And that just really inspired me. With The Castle, it\u2019s going to be like that, a live documentary unfolding on stage.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s possible he does all this, he says, because he is \u201cs**t at parties\u201d.<\/p>\n I tell him I think journalism has made me more outgoing. \u201cInteresting,\u201d he says and laughs. \u201cI remain socially inept.\u201d<\/p>\n Later he says: \u201cI think I\u2019ve gotten worse, to be honest … My favourite sort of party is where I\u2019m recognised and praised.\u201d (We both laugh because I also like this sort of party.) \u201cSo clearly, there\u2019s an insecurity there. For the same reason if I\u2019m on stage, I\u2019m fine because it\u2019s like I\u2019ve come pre-approved … If people don\u2019t know who I am and I\u2019m just starting from scratch, a massive insecurity takes over, just a feeling of low self-worth … I wish I could be more confident. It\u2019s a real problem for me. I get incredibly shy. I blurt out the wrong thing.\u201d <\/p>\n Was he similarly underconfident when touring as Frank Sidebottom\u2019s keyboardist as a very young man? He laughs. \u201cSuddenly you\u2019re my therapist. I have very clear memories of thinking: \u2018Everybody in this van is cooler than me.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n This is why he loves being out in the field amassing material where \u201call the awkwardness vanishes\u201d. <\/p>\n Does he feel anxious confronting people such as Chris Mark? \u201cWeirdly, no. I guess this is where the spectrumy side of me probably takes over, which is that I\u2019m so excited about amassing the material and being in the moment, you find yourself asking very difficult questions, but you do it with such excitement and buoyancy that I think [the interviewees] like it too … I leap into those difficult moments with joy and abandon because I\u2019m so excited about being on an adventure.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the summer of 2023, the writer and podcaster Jon Ronson woke to several alarming texts from his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":609034,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[93,1460,61,60,75254,976,4621],"class_list":["post-609033","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-graham-linehan","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-patrick-radden-keefe","tag-weekendreview","tag-youtube"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/609033","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=609033"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/609033\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/609034"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=609033"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=609033"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=609033"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}