Ron Chernow

Writer and journalist Ron Chernow feels very warmly about anyone who has won the Mark Twain Award for American Humor, including our friend Conan. Ron sits down with Conan for a deep dive into the life of Mark Twain, touching on Twain’s mercurial personality, his affinity for oddball inventions, the unique relationship he shared with his wife, his obsession with Shakespeare’s true authorship, and much more. Check out Mark Twain by Ron Chernow here: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/599856/mark-twain-by-ron-chernow/ For Conan videos, tour dates and more visit TeamCoco.com. Got a question for Conan? Call our voicemail: (669) 587-2847.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:03Conan O'Brien?

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• 0:16Speaker 01

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• 0:17Conan O'Brien?

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• 0:23Speaker 01

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• 0:23Conan O'Brien?

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• 0:49Conan O'Brien?

  Now, Sona, clearly, I'm a very important person to you.

• 0:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 0:52Conan O'Brien?

  Just accept the premise and we'll move ahead.

• 0:53Speaker 01

  Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 0:54Conan O'Brien?

  I'm a very important person to you. What would you get me from Macy's for the holidays?

• 1:00Speaker 01

  A vase.

• 1:01Conan O'Brien?

  No, I don't want a vase. I want something better.

• 1:04Speaker 01

  A jacket.

• 1:05Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, nice jacket. I love a nice jacket.

• 1:07Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, that jacket, nice jacket.

• 1:08Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, so now you have to do it, because you said you would.

• 1:09Speaker 01

  Aw, man, I didn't know you were doing that.

• 1:12Conan O'Brien?

  Well, I know the holidays... I know the holidays are months away, but it's never too early, Sona, to find gifts that I will love, gifts I will wear, and surprises that make the season unforgettable for me.

• 1:23Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:24Conan O'Brien?

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• 1:49Speaker 02

  Hello, my name is Ron Chernow.

• 1:54Speaker 02

  And I feel very, very warmly about anyone who has won the Mark Twain Award for American Humor.

• 2:00Conan O'Brien?

  Oh, wow.

• 2:01Speaker 02

  Including our friend Conan O'Brien.

• 2:03Conan O'Brien?

  That's so nice.

• 2:03Speaker 02

  So it's a delight to be here.

• 2:04Conan O'Brien?

  Thank you very much.

• 2:05Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:27Conan O'Brien?

  Hello and welcome to Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend. This is kind of a special episode. You probably know I'm a huge history buff and I have read every single book that this gentleman has written, I believe. If he has another book out there, he might have written a Nancy Drew mystery that I'm unaware of, but other than that, I think I have read all of his books. His latest is A Joy. My guest, of course, is a Pulitzer Prize winning author and his latest biography, Mark Twain, is out now. And Twain, in my opinion, is more relevant at this moment than ever before. And we need Twain.

• 3:11Conan O'Brien?

  And I'm just thrilled that this gentleman is here today and that he's written this magnificent book.

• 3:21Conan O'Brien?

  Ron Chernow, welcome.

• 3:27Speaker 02

  I saw in your resume, Conan, that you had studied history at Harvard and I had studied literature at Yale. So you were in training for my career and I was in training for your career.

• 3:39Conan O'Brien?

  I know, I know. We want to switch. You want to trade?

• 3:42Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 3:43Conan O'Brien?

  You've done, you know, I've noticed something, which is, there's a, and other people have pointed it out as well, that you have written this string of spectacular biographies and I congratulate you on the Mark Twain. I read all, I believe, 1,200 pages of this book and was enthralled. I love it. And I learned so much about Twain that I didn't know because you're, you've unearthed some amazing stuff about the man. And to see his life, I mean, it's very hard to contain this guy's life. And I think you have managed to do that brilliantly.

• 4:14Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 4:15Conan O'Brien?

  But I was looking at your work, because I believe I have read all of your books, which I can't say. To, um, to many people, um, Judy Blume. But, uh, but it's you and Judy Blume.

• 4:30Conan O'Brien?

  But there's an interesting, there's an interesting path to the order in which you wrote because you start out and you're right about JP Morgan. And it's great Gilded Age industrialist, which then got you interested and, and, and wet your appetite for your next book, which is Rockefeller. Which then got you interested in finance and you think, I'll go back to the beginning, the source, who's running finance in America at the very beginning? Well, Hamilton, you write that book. And I know your plan all along was for it to be a, uh, a musical with a lot of rap.

• 5:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, people, you know, people always say to me at events, Mr. Chernow, did you imagine as you were writing the book that it was going to end up as a hip hop musical? And I always say, I think the question answers itself.

• 5:15Conan O'Brien?

  Yes, there is a real, I'm sure you've seen it, but there's an amazing tape of Lin-Manuel Miranda. He's been invited to the White House to perform his latest work. This is obviously a bunch of years ago, 15 years ago or so. He's invited to the White House, to the Obama White House to perform his latest work. And he gets up to the microphone and he says, I'm now going to perform this, the, you know, President Obama and the first lady there and all these assembled people. The White House and he says, I'm going to perform my latest work. It's a musical about Alexander Hamilton. Huge laugh, huge laugh. And he goes, hold on, hold on, hold on. No, no, no, I'm serious. It sounded so absurd to people.

• 5:58Conan O'Brien?

  And then of course it became one of the most.

• 6:00Speaker 02

  No, in fact, you know, with, with that song, a few months earlier, uh, he had come to my brownstone in Brooklyn Heights and he's sat on my couch and he started snapping his fingers. And he did the opening number of the, uh, of, of the song. And, uh, when he finished, he said, what do you think? I said, well, you've taken the first 40 minutes, first 40 pages of my book. And you've condensed it into a four minute song. And I said, that's rather amazing, you know, but what I was thinking, and I didn't say to him, I said, this is kind of embarrassing. That it took me 40 pages to say. But this guy, you know, has done in four minutes. And then a few months later, he said, you know, go on YouTube. I performed it at the White House, you know, so I, you know, there he is.

• 6:42Speaker 02

  Not only performing it at the White House, but he got a standing ovation from Barack and Michelle Obama. And I thought to myself, I'm really strapped to a rocket with this guy. He's written one song in the show and he's already performed it at the White House and got the standing ovation from the President and First Lady.

• 6:58Conan O'Brien?

  I loved when I went to see the play on Broadway in its, like, in the initial run. Went into, and it's the hottest ticket in town. And I go to see it and I walk into the lobby and prominently displayed is your biography, Hamilton by Ron Chernow, is right there. And it's like, you know, it's so, it's what any historian would dream of. Do you know what I mean? That, that, and I know you would, are disappointed that your book on Grant did not become a hip hop musical.

• 7:32Conan O'Brien?

  But Hamilton leads to Washington, Washington leads to Grant. And I mentioned this to you out in the hallway. I love the Grant biography because the most shocking thing to me that I had never appreciated before about Grant, and I, I, I thought I knew about these guys. He goes to West Point, he serves in, fights in Mexico, you know, he's in the, in the Mexican American war. And he's, tries his hand at business and it's really not going well for him. And this is, and the civil war is approaching, but as the civil war is almost upon us,

• 8:12Conan O'Brien?

  he is carrying and delivering firewood, like chopping it and delivering it to people in the cold to make enough money to put food on his family's table.

• 8:25Conan O'Brien?

  And then he decides to go sign up for the war. And the period of time between him chopping wood and carrying it around to people's homes door to door, and him being the most celebrated general in the biggest war in the history of the world is about two years.

• 8:45Speaker 02

  No, it's the most

• 8:46Conan O'Brien?

  It's insane.

• 8:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, and you know.

• 8:48Conan O'Brien?

  And then two years later, he's next to Lincoln, he's the most famous man in America.

• 8:52Speaker 02

  Absolutely, you know, one of the things that attracted me to the grand story was that I felt that all the people that I had written about up until that point were kind of built for success. I mean, you know, you read about the early years of Alexander Hamilton, his a focus, a discipline, a drive, intelligence, you know, if he didn't do what, you know, he ended up doing, he would have succeeded at something.

• 9:14Conan O'Brien?

  Washington, a very impressive guy, even had the revolution, revolution war not come along, he's still a very impressive, capable.

• 9:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, and even John D Rockefeller, when he's, you know, a young clerk on the Cleveland docks, he said, I was after something big, whereas, you know, 50, 100 pages into Ulysses S. Grant, you figure this guy's going to end up a footnote in history at best. And so I was attracted to the idea of writing about failure. I had written about so much success and after all, as we all know, life is much more about failure for most of us, you know, than, than success. And so, you know, with, with Grant, suddenly the Civil War comes along. He had West Point, he'd been in the Mexican War, he stood out all this military lore in his head, but he's working in his father's leather goods store in Glean, Illinois, where

• 10:05Speaker 02

  he's working as a clerk junior to his two younger brothers. You can imagine how that felt. The war breaks out, there's a tremendous shortage, particularly in the north of, you know, trained officers. And he suddenly meshes with his historical moment, you know, and then he rises and rises and rises. But he's almost 40 at that point, he could easily have ended up living a life of total, you know, obscurity instead. And I think this is one of the things that inspired a lot of people reading the story. You know, we all feel that we have something special inside of us, if only the right set of circumstances, you know, happens. And Grant is kind of the greatest example of that.

• 10:46Conan O'Brien?

  He is. It's, it's, it's, if you saw it in a movie, you'd say, well, we gotta fix that part. Because there's, I mean, the fact that you have him chopping wood and delivering it door to door and maybe getting a nickel for his trouble and him saying, "Thank you, thank you very much," and moving on to the next house, and then he's a celebrated war hero two years later in the most consequential, you know, war of that century, if I can say that. It's astounding. It's absolutely astounding. Today, we're here to talk about Mark Twain. You've written, I've been waiting for this book because I'm, you know, I've made my

• 11:27Conan O'Brien?

  life in humor, for better or worse, and Twain is the American humorist, and he comes from this era that fascinates me. And I was saying this to someone the other day, Twain has been turned into kind of an emoji, you know, the white suit, the cigar, the aphorisms that we see all over the place on coffee mugs and everything, and kind of a lovable, you know, yeah, emoji, for lack of a better word. And this book shows you that his life is,

• 12:07Conan O'Brien?

  I mean, it's an epic life. It's uniquely American life. He does so much, and he travels such a far distance. I don't mean, he does it, you know, obviously in miles. He circumnavigates the globe, but I mean, just from what he started as and what he became is infinite, and it's all in one lifetime. And then he has so many contrasts, and I wanted to talk about some of those. He's born in the South, and he identifies as, he is a Southerner. He is a Southerner, and he has, as a young, as a kid, and as a young man, He has all of the antebellum southern beliefs.

• 12:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, he's born into a slaveholding family in a slaveowning town in a slaveowning state. Okay, he's born in Hannibal, which is tucked all the way up in the northeast corner of Missouri. It's right on the Mississippi River, so it's, you know, then and now, rather isolated rural area. Except here is this broadshining, magnificent waterway that's kind of bringing, once or twice a day, you know, the world through Hannibal, you know, pouring off those steamboats. Uh, might be circus players, it might be traveling salesmen, it might be a minstrel show, whatever. He sees the whole world passing through, uh, him, and it kind of begins to give him an intimation of a wider world. But you're right, I mean, going through his, uh, letters,

• 13:31Speaker 02

  you know, when he's a teenager, not only statements kind of crude and racist about, you know, blacks, but Chinese, I mean, you name it.

• 13:38Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 13:38Speaker 02

  And this man, um, grows an inconceivable amount in the course of his

• 13:44Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 13:44Speaker 02

  uh, life, you know, from growing up in this, you know, small town, backwater, and he has all the prejudices, you know,

• 13:50Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 13:51Speaker 02

  of the general environment, and he becomes so much more enlightened and tolerant a figure.

• 13:57Conan O'Brien?

  I tried to touch on this in the, you know, you get to give quick remarks at the end at the Twain Prize, and I tried to touch on this, which is, by the end of his life, his views have evolved so much. And he is living in this age of imperialism, he's living this age when Americans are getting really excited about, you know, we're gonna pretty much control the Caribbean, we're gonna take over the Philippines, uh, we're gonna, we take the Sandwich Islands, it's, we're gonna take Hawaii, we're gonna expand. And Twain is saying, I don't like this. And it's very unpopular. And he's very much against All of the 19th century racism towards Chinese, he's very progressive.

• 14:41Conan O'Brien?

  He has a lot of views that are completely evolved from how he grew up.

• 14:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, you know, it's interesting because he fairly early on becomes America's most popular and beloved humorist. And he recognizes that it's something of a trap. He's always afraid of kind of alienating his readers, particularly alienating his southern readers because he had very, very strong, you know, views on not just politics, religion, and a lot of other things. But as his life goes on, I really feel by the end of his life, he's become the conscience of American society, you know, that he's dared to articulate all of those things that he was afraid to say. And I think that part of his power is he says things that all of us are thinking but won't say out loud. And you mentioned, you know, his views on imperialism because at the beginning of the

• 15:29Speaker 02

  Spanish-American War, he's actually very much on the side of the US. He feels that we're defending these, you know, Cuban rebels against their Spanish overlords. And we take over the Philippines. And he again, idealistically imagines that we're going to liberate, you know, rather than subjugate the Philippine people. And he gets up at a dinner in New York. He was very often the toastmaster. He was kind of the perfect person to host a banquet. And he gets up there and he says that our soldiers in the Philippines are marching with disgraced muskets under a polluted flag. Well, we all know, because we've all lived through wars, we know how difficult it is to criticize your own government and your own country.

• 16:11Conan O'Brien?

  During a war.

• 16:12Speaker 02

  During a war, yeah. And people in the audience gasped. And in fact, another, you know, one of the organizers of this event immediately rushed up to the podium and said, no, our soldiers are not, you know, marching with disgraced muskets under a polluted flag. And, you know, increasingly, as he goes on, he's willing to take the heat. He's willing to make the enemies. And one of the interesting things, one of many interesting things about doing this book is we all like to think as people get older, they become more mellow in their views. Twain becomes more rabid.

• 16:44Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 16:45Speaker 02

  In his rage. And he's an early take on America, the Philippines. He's writing pamphlets against the Russian czar. He's writing pamphlets against King Leopold II of Belgium for his behavior in the Congo Free State. He's campaigning against municipal corruption in New York. He's writing pamphlets defending the Jews. He's speaking out in favor of women's suffrage, et cetera, et cetera.

• 17:09Conan O'Brien?

  There's also his, uh, what's it called? He wrote a article or pamphlet in the United States of lynching. Was it, was it?

• 17:17Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 17:18Conan O'Brien?

  He was taking on topics. No one wanted to talk about lynching in, uh, in, in the Jim Crow South. And he would talk about it.

• 17:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, that was actually, you know, on so many things, he became outspoken. That was one where he finally wrote back because originally he, he was collecting a lot of clippings about lynchings in the United States, including in his own town of Hannibal. And he had originally planned and proposed to his publisher that he was going to do a history of lynching in the United States. He ends up writing an essay, The United States of Lynching, which unfortunately did not get published during his lifetime. It was published 13 years after he died. And you know, what he writes is that he, he tries to analyze the psychology of lynch mobs. And he says that it's really just kind of a few sadistic

• 18:12Speaker 02

  individuals who are instigating the crowd. And he says that most of the people are cowards who are coerced into it. I don't know if that's true. I say in the book, actually, when you look at photos of a lot of lynchings, it seems like there are a lot of smiling faces, you know, of whites in, in, in the crowd. That turned out to, that was kind of one topic that was a bridge, you know, too far for him to, to, to do it.

• 18:39Conan O'Brien?

  But I do think he was prefaced, I mean, he was looking ahead to, I think he'd be aghast at the collective thinking of the news media now, the internet.

• 18:50Conan O'Brien?

  How people love to group think. Group think is, I mean, he's talking about all these things.

• 18:56Speaker 02

  There's so many places where he's talking about group think. He actually has a very interesting essay called Corn Pone Ideas. And what he says, and I keep thinking about this with our own contemporary politics, that we have two sets of ideas. We have our secret and sincere positions on things. And then we have the positions that we take publicly for the sake of our own safety.

• 19:18Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 19:19Speaker 02

  He said that kind of life makes cowards of us all, the need to support our families. We're afraid to voice things. He also felt that, you know, politically, we all like to imagine that we're voicing original ideas, when in fact, he said, you know, 99% of the time, we are voicing ideas that we picked up from party leaders, from party organs, that we're kind of parroting things.

• 19:43Conan O'Brien?

  Well, now, we have that. We have that, I mean, we have that over and over and over again now with everyone spouts what they just heard on either CNN or Fox, or that they saw on the internet, and it becomes their opinion. Twain is talking about so many things that relate to today. And there's a couple of things that absolutely fascinated me about this guy is that you use the words to describe him glandular and volcanic. There's something driving this guy from an early age that you could almost think would show up on a CAT scan. Yes, like, oh, I see. There was a growth pressing on the occipital lobe.

• 20:27Conan O'Brien?

  And, you know, there's something going on with this guy that yields him greatness and also terrible folly. He is obsessive. He is nonstop. I've never read about an author who churned out so much. I mean, when he got writing, he would say, I mean, he would just... Sometimes standing up, sometimes writing at the billiards table, sometimes in his little octagonal writing room. You know, he'd churn out, you know, chapter after chapter after chapter and go on these streaks of writing that he, when he turns it on, when it hits him, he's doing that till the end of his life.

• 21:08Conan O'Brien?

  I mean, he's so prolific to an almost crazy degree, that would be enough, but he's also, he's traveling as pretty much the world's first stand-up, not the world's first, but a stand-up comic as we would know it today.

• 21:21Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 21:22Conan O'Brien?

  He's a very much in-demand speaker. He's traveling everywhere. He's also getting into insane money-making schemes. Mark Twain, he has an idea for a, like a board game. It's the Mark Twain Memory Game. He has ideas for a book that self-pastes for when you put in clippings. All of them bomb. And the sad thing is, he really gets involved in this printing press, this setable type press that he thinks, the page press, that he thinks is gonna revolutionize the world. And he ruins not only his fortune, but his wife's inherited fortune. They lose everything on this idea, and he can't let it go like a gambler in Vegas.

• 22:03Conan O'Brien?

  And so, he is so good at seeing the flaws in other people. He's so good at seeing the vanity in other people. And then he goes off and does the stupidest things you can imagine. Like, again, you just think he's, he's driven, he can't stop himself in good ways and in bad ways.

• 22:30Conan O'Brien?

  You know, winning an award, that's a big achievement, right? Yeah. Every now and then, in life, maybe something nice like that comes your way. Winning them consistently is almost impossible. It just doesn't happen, you know? Well, guess what? Winning five times in six years? You know what that sounds like to me? Sustained excellence.

• 22:47Speaker 01

  Nice.

• 22:48Conan O'Brien?

  Hyundai has done just that, earning the title of America's best SUV brand for 2026 from US News and World Report. You are a very happy Hyundai driver.

• 22:56Speaker 01

  I drive a Hyundai Palisade and I love my car. I love it. I love driving it around.

• 23:01Conan O'Brien?

  I've been tooling around in an Ioniq 5N, which I love.

• 23:05Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 23:05Conan O'Brien?

  Beautiful car. Well, listen, whether you need an SUV for everyday life, your next big adventure, or extra room for family and friends, Hyundai has an option for you. The Tucson Hybrid is loaded with technology and built for everyday life. The Santa Fe Hybrid's fully capable and ready for adventure. The Palisade, that's yours, right?

• 23:20Speaker 01

  Hello!

• 23:21Conan O'Brien?

  They're gonna rename that the Sona. The Palisade Hybrid, yeah, delivers premium capability and class-leading interior space. With available, I have this memorized, H-Track all-wheel drive, up to an EPA-estimated 619 miles of range on vehicles like the Palisade Hybrid and Hyundai's industry-leading warranty. It's easy to see why Hyundai continues to deliver the quality innovation technology and value drivers expect from an award-winning brand. View US News Best Cars at cars.usnews.com and call 562-314-4603 for complete details.

• 23:56Conan O'Brien?

  This fall, I want to try something different.

• 23:57Speaker 01

  What?

• 23:58Conan O'Brien?

  I like to change it up. I like to learn things, so I'm gonna try and make apple cider.

• 24:01Speaker 01

  Ooh!

• 24:02Conan O'Brien?

  Every morning.

• 24:03Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 24:03Conan O'Brien?

  This fall, just to see if I can do it.

• 24:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:05Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, fall's the perfect season to try something new, like joining T-Mobile.

• 24:09Speaker 01

  Oh, that's good.

• 24:10Conan O'Brien?

  See what I did?

• 24:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:11Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, there are 250 reasons to join T-Mobile right now. You want to hear what they are?

• 24:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:15Conan O'Brien?

  They're America's best network.

• 24:17Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 24:17Conan O'Brien?

  True story. Plus, T-Mobile has got off-grid satellite coverage. That comes in really handy. I like to just wander in the woods sometimes.

• 24:24Speaker 01

  Oh, that's weird.

• 24:25Conan O'Brien?

  When I'm thinking about, like, making apple cider.

• 24:27Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 24:27Conan O'Brien?

  And that's when it comes in handy. Here's another reason. High-speed data in over 215 countries and destinations. I travel a lot for the

• 24:34Speaker 01

  You travel a lot.

• 24:35Conan O'Brien?

  Travel show that I do.

• 24:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:36Conan O'Brien?

  Stream this podcast while ignoring local landmarks. That's always fun to do. Like, oh, look, there's the Mona Lisa. Yeah, check it out. I'm in the Louvre. I should, but I'm listening to Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend.

• 24:46Speaker 01

  That doesn't seem like a good idea.

• 24:48Conan O'Brien?

  It's a great idea.

• 24:49Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 24:49Conan O'Brien?

  You know, you can see art anytime. But how often can you listen to this podcast?

• 24:54Speaker 01

  My god.

• 24:55Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah. Now, all these reasons make T-Mobile a great choice.

• 24:59Speaker 01

  I agree.

• 24:59Conan O'Brien?

  T-Mobile is stacking up reasons to join. Go to T-Mobile.com and find yours best. Based on analysis by Ookla of speed test intelligence data first half of 2026. Can't believe I read that. T-Satellite with capable devices in most outdoor areas in the US where you can see the sky. High-speed international data with qualifying plan. Visit T-Mobile.com, consult a physician. I just threw that in there.

• 25:24Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 25:28Conan O'Brien?

  So now, you have to admit, the holidays, it's really about hanging with the people you love.

• 25:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:34Conan O'Brien?

  And getting to be yourself, not going to some stuffy holiday party where you need to conform to what the man wants you to think about the holidays.

• 25:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:43Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, it's about being yourself. Turn your holiday time into Miller time by enjoying a Miller Lite in a place where you're free to enjoy yourself on a walk with a cousin. With a cousin? Why are they getting all specific about?

• 25:54Speaker 01

  Because it's family.

• 25:55Conan O'Brien?

  But what about a niece or a nephew?

• 25:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:59Conan O'Brien?

  Like a walk with an ex-wife? I don't know. I mean, they're just throwing, that's a weird, they just made a very specific choice.

• 26:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:06Conan O'Brien?

  Now's the time for those unexpected holiday side guests and enjoy a great tasting light beer. 'Tis Miller time, as Dickens wrote. Miller Lite is brewed for taste, the taste you can depend on. The original light beer since 1975 and still iconic more than 50 years later. I like to be with my bros, my chums, my posse, crack open a Miller Lite, take a swig, a sip, look around and see my friends. We've known each other forever and we're just hanging out.

• 26:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, you guys are just doing chest bumps and high-fiving.

• 26:36Conan O'Brien?

  Miller Lite is great taste done right. Go to millerlite.com/conan to find delivery options near you, or you can pick up some Miller Lite pretty much anywhere they sell beer. 'Tis Miller time. Celebrate responsibly Miller Brewing Company, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. 96 calories and 3.2 carbs per 12 ounces.

• 26:59Speaker 02

  He writes a letter at one point to his family. He says, "I have to move, move, move!" Exclamation point. And there is something driving him. I mean, one of many contradictions of Mark Twain is he always described himself as lazy. But, you know, we know Tom and Huck in the Mississippi. He published two dozen books in his lifetime. Somewhere between one and 2,000 magazine articles, filled up 50 notebooks, gave thousands of interviews, gave thousands of speeches. And I, of course, had to go through, you know, all of this. And so, and he was very aware of his own nature. He said, "My emotions veer from one extreme to another."

• 27:38Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah. Would you suspect, I mean, today, today someone would say, "You need to go see a psychopharm, psychopharmacologist." I mean, most great men in history would probably be told, "You need to be on Prozac."

• 27:53Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 27:54Conan O'Brien?

  "Let's put a little lithium in your coffee. Let's do something."

• 27:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, and I mean, it was interesting because there were a lot of characteristics. He was, you know, he claimed that he was lazy, but then he would go through kind of this hyper-focused period. He could be very scattered and disorganized, particularly before he met his wife, who really cleaned up his act.

• 28:15Conan O'Brien?

  Livy, yeah.

• 28:16Speaker 02

  Livy, you know, people would walk into his room and there'd be, you know, scraps of writing everywhere, there'd be, you know, pipes and cigars everywhere. It would be a complete mess. I did describe this to a psychiatrist friend who immediately said, you know, about attention deficit disorder. I try not to use contemporary psychological language. It seems inappropriate to project that, you know, back into the past.

• 28:39Conan O'Brien?

  No.

• 28:40Speaker 02

  But there's something like that, you know, that's clearly going on. But I got very fascinated by the business investments. In fact, at one point in the book, I said, "It was sometimes hard to tell whether Mark Twain was a literary man with business sidelines or a businessman with literary sidelines." That, you know, he said, "I have to speculate, such being my nature." He admits late in his life, after he's lost several fortunes, he said- That I was always the easy prey of the cheap adventurer. And there was something very, very compulsive about the speculation. Because the tragedy of this story is, you know, here is a man who made a fortune in book royalties. He made a fortune in lecture fees. He marries an heiress from upstate New York.

• 29:26Conan O'Brien?

  To a coal fortune.

• 29:27Speaker 02

  Coal and rail and timber. They're living in a twenty five room mansion in Hartford with six servants. He blows his own fortune. He blows Livy's inheritance. They're forced into exile to economize in Europe for nine years.

• 29:44Conan O'Brien?

  Because it's cheaper to live in Europe.

• 29:46Speaker 02

  Cheap to live in Europe, but but still, you know, they're living like in a, you know, twenty eight room villa in Florence. To quote unquote economize.

• 29:54Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 29:54Speaker 02

  You know, they're they're they're living in a.

• 29:57Conan O'Brien?

  There was no Airbnb.

• 29:58Speaker 02

  There's no Airbnb.

• 29:59Conan O'Brien?

  And shout out to Airbnb, by the way. You guys do a great job. Sponsor.

• 30:03Speaker 02

  You know, then they're living in a very lavish suite of hotel rooms in Vienna. In fact, they go on one trip to to Europe. And they buy so many objects to beautify their house in Hartford. That they come back with like, you know, twelve crates and twenty five boxes of things that they were like the original consumers. And Livy was usually the restraining force on Twain's worst excesses. But she herself was the original, you know, shopper. And she wrote a very beautiful letter to her mother at one point. And said, it's terrible how attached we become to material things.

• 30:43Speaker 02

  So here was, you know, a man, a couple, who should have had a lovely placid life, that everything in the world. He had talent. He was making enormous amount of money. He'd married into enormous amount of.

• 30:53Conan O'Brien?

  He's probably the most famous person in America.

• 30:56Speaker 02

  Most and and actually the most famous American, you know, in the world.

• 30:59Conan O'Brien?

  In the world, yeah.

• 31:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, but you know, particularly in the United States, he was so fascinated. That if you walked into a restaurant theater, everyone would stand up and applaud. He was that famous.

• 31:08Conan O'Brien?

  Well, it happens. When does it happen? What's that? When does it happen? Sona calls Sona calls ahead. Okay, I see. And she says Conan's gonna be there soon. And you know, you each get twenty five dollars.

• 31:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, hired actors.

• 31:24Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 31:24Speaker 01

  Lots of them.

• 31:25Conan O'Brien?

  A lot of.

• 31:25Speaker 02

  But you know, it's all, you know, the problems. A self inflicted wounds.

• 31:30Conan O'Brien?

  Oh, all of it is self inflicted and um he gets there are these contradictions, which is he's a southerner who becomes obsessed with living in the north in Hartford among all the most northern liberal elites.

• 31:47Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 31:48Conan O'Brien?

  The the Tony, the Yankees, the writers. So he does that. He makes that transformation where he becomes the most northern of northerners. Um, he hated hated Gilded Age millionaires, desperately wanted to be one and did everything he could to be wealthy. He had a publishing house, the typesetting machine, these crazy board games, all of it fails. But um, he's this kind generous. There's so many stories of his kindness, his generosity, his sweetness of nature. Yet, when he decided to turn on you, he forget it. He he was uh, his rage

• 32:30Conan O'Brien?

  knew no bounds and the language that he used when he decided. I mean, these are people who you said like this is the greatest person I've ever met. This Matt Gourley is the greatest person I've ever met. I love Matt Gourley. I love, you know, he's great. He's my best friend. I love him. He's fantastic. And then, and I've experienced this, um.

• 32:47Speaker 03

  Can we just end here?

• 32:48Conan O'Brien?

  No, no, please. You can. You can edit this for yourself. Clip that out. No, no, but then um, but then whatever the friend did that he decided was, you know, some kind of breach uh, or lapse, or any he that snake, that monster, that, you know, that lower than low and he would just, he couldn't, he couldn't contain himself. There was no gray area. There was no gray area.

• 33:18Speaker 02

  He couldn't get it out of his system. You know, when when when he was a young writer in San Francisco, he was about the same age as Bret Hart. Remember Bret Hart, the outcast of Poker Flashe?

• 33:27Conan O'Brien?

  Yep, yep. Who was the celebrity at the time?

• 33:30Speaker 02

  Who was the celebrity at the time and who Mark Twain thought was the most celebrated, maybe the greatest, you know, writer of the time. They became very, very close friends. Um, uh, they later collaborated on a a play and Bret Hart was having many difficulties, came and lived in Mark Twain's house in Hartford. He said things about the house that Mark Twain didn't like. He said things about Livy, the wife that. Twain didn't like and Mark Twain then turned on him. He would like fall in love with people. And then he would become severely disillusioned so that, you know, he finally says of Bret Hart, he never had an idea that he came by honestly.

• 34:08Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 34:08Speaker 02

  He said that he was a man without a country. No, that's too strong a term. He was an invertebrate without a country.

• 34:16Speaker 01

  Oh snap. Burn.

• 34:19Speaker 02

  And there was no one, there was no one who was better at put downs than Mark Twain. But you know, kind of one of the things that I could not figure out about him. We all have these experiences with people where we're suddenly disillusioned with them.

• 34:32Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 34:33Speaker 02

  And maybe to tell them off, but when we do tell them off, it gets it out of our system and then we sort of calm down and we move on with our life. Mark Twain would not let it go.

• 34:44Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 34:45Speaker 02

  And if you can't let it go, the one who's going to end up, you know, being victimized by it is now the other person it's going to be.

• 34:52Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, it's you that's carrying it.

• 34:53Speaker 02

  It was kind of like this wound that he keeps probing again, again, again. I could not figure out, I don't know if any psychiatrist could figure out. I mean, he's late in life. He's very disillusioned with the two most important people working for him. A man named Ralph Ashcroft and a woman named Isabel Lyon, who was his private secretary. When he becomes disillusioned with them, he ends up writing a 400 page manuscript. You know, and he says about Isabel, who had been his.

• 35:22Conan O'Brien?

  He was so close to her.

• 35:24Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 35:24Conan O'Brien?

  And she becomes really important after he loses his wife. This is someone who cared for him, took care of him, and then he writes this 400 page.

• 35:31Speaker 02

  She was like the surrogates in their wives.

• 35:33Conan O'Brien?

  About how awful she is.

• 35:35Speaker 01

  A diss track.

• 35:35Speaker 02

  She was a brute, a simple heartless brute. She was an insect.

• 35:39Speaker 01

  He's like Kendrick Lamar of the back of the day.

• 35:42Conan O'Brien?

  Which is your next biography is of Drake. Oh, he can wrap your story as well. He can wrap your story there. You heard it here first, Ron Chernow's 1,800-page biography of Drake is gonna drop in a year. But you know what's so funny is, if you ask people for the sort of the quick concept, what do you, Mark Twain, again, you think of the mustache, you think of this sweetness, sort of a slouch, grumpy, the cigar, but all these funny, funny cranky comments, and it can all seem, you know, Tom Sawyer, Huck Finn, gliding down the river, and then you look at later in life,

• 36:27Conan O'Brien?

  and there's so much tragedy. I mean, they lose this fortune, his, his, um, one daughter, Jean has epilepsy. Epilepsy, yeah. And it's, it's terrible. Suzie, uh, when they, when they've left the country, she's wandering around their mansion, which is shut down, alone, and she had meningitis, and she pretty much dies almost alone. She's raving, yeah. While the, while the family is in Europe. It's very tragic. Um, he, uh, Twain's wife is very sick, he's constantly beset by these money troubles, people suing him, trying to get the money back, and he does something that's really stunning.

• 37:08Conan O'Brien?

  You know, today we live in this world where people declare bankruptcy, they'll give you one penny on the dollar, and then they start another business venture. Um, not naming names here, but, but plenty of people who take advantage of this system. Uh, Mark Twain, it was very important to Mark Twain and his wife Livy, that when they had to declare bankruptcy, this publishing house collapsed that they had created, and they owed a lot of money, and they swore that they would pay everybody back every single penny, and then at an advanced age, he starts this world tour. And you, I mean, I couldn't, I couldn't do a tour like this. I have tons of energy. I'm a lot healthier and younger. I could not do what he did.

• 37:52Conan O'Brien?

  He goes, at this time, when it was difficult to travel, he goes everywhere in the world to raise the money to pay everybody back. And he didn't have to do that.

• 38:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, and he's suffering terribly from carbuncles. I, I, I mean, uh, he just, it was really grueling for him to do it. But particularly Livy felt that, um, there was this terrible stigma attached to bankruptcy. You know, and for her, it was a real question of

• 38:19Conan O'Brien?

  Honor.

• 38:20Speaker 02

  Of honor. Yeah. And in fact, um, you know, the eldest daughter, Susie, died at 24 of bacterial meningitis. Uh, when they finally paid off the last of the debts, um, Livy, um, writes that the happiest day that she'd had since her daughter died was the day that they paid off the last of the, of the creditors. In fact, there's an interesting moment. Uh, Twain became very good friends with the Standard Oil mogul named, uh, Henry Rogers. Uh, and Rogers is kind of running rings around the creditors. He was a very, very shrewd Wall Street operator.

• 38:56Conan O'Brien?

  Helping Twain out.

• 38:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, he was helping Twain out. And, uh, Twain, you know, in New York, writes very proudly to Livy, who was then in Paris, describing, uh, the way that, um, Rogers handled the creditors. And, um, Livy writes back, she said, I'm upset, by the way, we're handling the creditors, you know? She really felt that, um, they owed the creditors and they should be treating the creditors with much more dignity and, uh, and, and respect. But it's an amazing story because it did take several years to pay off the debts. But you know what amazed me, Conan? Okay, so he goes through this terrible grueling, it was a 12 or 13 month round the world, um, uh, tour. And then they're living in, um, Vienna.

• 39:39Speaker 02

  And he discovers that there is this patent for a new process for printing on carpets and textiles and tapestries.

• 39:48Conan O'Brien?

  After everything he's been through.

• 39:49Speaker 02

  After everything he's been through.

• 39:50Conan O'Brien?

  He hears about this new invention.

• 39:52Speaker 02

  He hears about this new invention. He goes to the American consulate and he spends a day reading up on this industry. He's known nothing about this before. After 24 hours, he's convinced that he's the world's leading authority on this. And he writes a letter to his friend, Henry Rogers, who is one of the main moguls of Standard Oil. And he suggests that they buy up the worldwide patents. The device was, the device is called the raster. Said, we should buy the worldwide patents for this. He said, people will call it a trust, this global monopoly they will have, but we mustn't mind that, you know, people will talk, but that's okay. And so he's gone from knowing nothing about this to suddenly imagining that he's going

• 40:37Speaker 02

  to be the head of a global.

• 40:39Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, he, he really.

• 40:40Speaker 02

  Monopoly.

• 40:41Conan O'Brien?

  He wanted to be, you know, what today we would call a billionaire. He wanted to be a billionaire. He wanted to be a financial whiz, which is so crazy because it's what he loved to make fun of, but it's also what he wanted to be. And the second half of his life, or actually the last couple of acts of his life are the, I mean, to me, he is so disillusioned and so dark. And we think of Twain, again, I keep coming back to this, that we think of him as this charming, you know, the Twain you see on stage in one man shows is just this fun scamp and rascal and, you know, the old riverboat pilot who's got his stories.

• 41:25Conan O'Brien?

  In the end, he is so dark and he's questioning everything.

• 41:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, I mean, he says that anyone who's not a pessimist is a damn fool. He actually says, there was no life ever worth living.

• 41:39Conan O'Brien?

  No life was worth living.

• 41:41Speaker 02

  Was worth, was worth living. And he was asked if he would like to live his life all over again. He said, I would like. To relive my youth and then drown myself. He he made this statement that the only gift that God gave to the race was youth. He felt that everything else, you know, after that was bitterness and disappointment. And he's always kind of pining for this lost paradise of his youth, which is why he wrote so powerfully about Tom Sawyer and Tuckerberry Finn, which of course has, you know, much darker tones to it. But it's it's it's a it's a bit of a paradox because he had this adoring wife. He could not have had a better, you know, wife than than Livy.

• 42:24Conan O'Brien?

  And she also she read everything Twain wrote and would temper him. Maybe not, I mean, but she would remove if she thought if she thought anything was a little, you know, that's a little racy or that language is a little, you don't say breaches, that's you're talking about underwear, let's take that out. I mean, so.

• 42:43Speaker 02

  She was very genteel.

• 42:44Conan O'Brien?

  She was very genteel, which is a very funny. They were an odd couple in that way, but she was a great partner.

• 42:49Speaker 02

  Yeah. And actually, one of the interesting, you know, parts of the of the story is Twain said when they first met that he, Twain, was a mighty coarse, rough, you know, customer. And she took this this man and she really, because he'd come from this little, you know, backwater town, she made him presentable in polite society. And he really didn't know how to to do it. She helped him with what we would today called anger management. He had terrible temper. So he would very often, if he was angry, he would sit down and he would write a very, you know, impetuous, no telling somebody off. And she trained him when he did that, not to send a letter, but to stash it in the drawer and wait a few days.

• 43:31Speaker 02

  And then when he would cool off, and I can't tell you how many letters there are, you know, in his archives, where the morning after a dinner party, he would write to someone who'd been at the dinner party. The madam tells me that I might have been a little brusque and sharp at dinner last night, and I really didn't intend to offend him. In fact, you know, the daughters laughingly called this mother dusting father off.

• 43:57Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 43:58Speaker 02

  In fact, it reached the point where they had this system of cards. At a dinner table, so a red card flashed to Mark Twain meant, are you going to monopolize that woman sitting on your right the whole time? A blue card meant, are you going to sit back and not say anything the entire dinner? You know, so she's kind of guiding him.

• 44:19Conan O'Brien?

  These are soccer penalties.

• 44:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, these are soccer penalties. We have those cards for Conan during these conversations.

• 44:25Conan O'Brien?

  Take it easy, Conan.

• 44:25Speaker 02

  Wrap it up.

• 44:26Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 44:27Speaker 02

  But, you know, in fact, he said, because, you know, he said, Livy edited my manuscripts and then she edited me.

• 44:36Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 44:37Speaker 02

  And she kind of really gave him a life. And, you know, in many ways, she was a long suffering wife. He loses her inheritance.

• 44:46Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 44:47Speaker 02

  We have extensive correspondence between them. She never, never threw it in his face.

• 44:53Conan O'Brien?

  He apologizes a lot. I mean,

• 44:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, he apologizes, yeah.

• 44:56Conan O'Brien?

  Another word I wrote down after, when I was reading the book, I wrote down guilt.

• 45:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 45:00Conan O'Brien?

  He has so much guilt, you know, today about, you know, he convinces his, his, uh, his brother to become a steamboat captain. He says, this is a great, I love doing this. And there's a, his brother's then killed in an explosion of a steamboat. And so Twain blames himself, Twain blames himself for so many things. You know, when his daughter dies, he's not there. He's, you know, because he's trying to raise money and because he's lost all the money. So he blames himself for that. And you just think of almost like Marley and Dickens. He's got these chains of guilt that he's, that he's carrying around with him that go back to early childhood that, and somehow he's fighting against that.

• 45:44Speaker 02

  No, you're absolutely, I mean, you know, the saddest one is that he and Livy, their first child was a boy who was named Langdon, which was, you know, her maiden name. And Langdon died at 18 months. And what happened was that they were at the Langdon, you know, place in Elmira in New York. And one chilly morning in May, they went out driving and Twain felt that he'd not wrapped the baby up enough in this chilly weather. And they came back and the baby had a cold. But then the baby recovered and they went to Hartford. And after they went to Hartford, the baby died of diphtheria.

• 46:26Speaker 02

  Mark Twain told William Dean Howells, who was his closest literary friend, he said, I killed Langdon. He was convinced that that ride in the carriage.

• 46:36Conan O'Brien?

  When it was emphatically not that.

• 46:38Speaker 02

  Emphatically not that, yeah. In fact, his sister-in-law, Sue Crane, afterwards said, you know, they left Elmar and went to Hartford because the baby was better, the baby was was fine. So he had this tendency to flagellate himself, you know, and take responsibility. And it was really kind of crazy. You know, what happened with Susie, the eldest daughter, that he was not, you know, there at the time they had just come back from this round the world tour. There was no cure for meningitis at the time. You know, his being there would not really have helped matters. And in fact, she was sort of delirious and raving.

• 47:14Conan O'Brien?

  It's really, I mean, it's Shakespearean. He's built this massive house, which is, by the way, you can go see it.

• 47:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's still there.

• 47:21Conan O'Brien?

  And it's absolutely beautiful.

• 47:28Conan O'Brien?

  Kind of almost garish. It's like this insane, it's it. Someone said it looks like it's a steamboat.

• 47:33Speaker 02

  A cross between a steamboat and a cuckoo clock.

• 47:35Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, it's but I mean, you would go crazy for it. It's the kind of thing you and I would tour and go crazy for. And it's not a little, it's not unlike Theodore Roosevelt's house in Oyster Bay, this just big, long thing that people built back then. Massive, huge ceilings, lots of flourishes, lots of different colored stone and brick.

• 47:56Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 47:57Conan O'Brien?

  But that was their joy. I think they lived there for seventeen years.

• 48:01Speaker 02

  Seventeen years, that's right.

• 48:01Conan O'Brien?

  And then they have to leave it because they can't afford to live there. They banish themselves to Europe. And then, of course, she's there at some point alone, wandering around, dying, going from room to room, and all the furniture is covered up with blankets. And you're just like, oh, my God, this is, I mean. The sadness that he endures in the later part of his life, it's just like a boxer being hit over and over and over again.

• 48:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's interesting, you know, because he's a novelist and I think that he himself becomes a character perhaps greater than any of his creations. I think the life he lives is a story actually more dramatic than any that he created. And it's full of light and shadow because it's full of literary triumphs, to be sure, full of personal calamities. And, you know, I haven't had a chance to tell you just how much I loved your speech that you gave for the Mark Twain Award.

• 49:02Conan O'Brien?

  Oh, thank you.

• 49:02Speaker 02

  Because I think that I was so glad just the tone of it because Mark Twain was much more than just a humorist. He was a sage, he was a moralist.

• 49:12Conan O'Brien?

  He was a conscience.

• 49:13Speaker 02

  He was an activist, you know, he was a conscience of the person. I think that, you know, you really touched on that, you know, very, very exactly. But it's interesting because we know Mark Twain is a humorist and we tend to think of him with the white suit and the cigar. But Mark Twain said a couple of things about life. He said, "Life is a tragedy with comedy distributed here and there only to heighten and magnify the pain by contrast."

• 49:42Conan O'Brien?

  Unbelievable, yeah, yeah.

• 49:44Speaker 02

  And then he also said that life is a fever dream with sweetness embittered by sorrow and pleasure poisoned by pain. I know you're all gonna go off and jump off a bridge after, you know, I'm telling you these comments that he made, you know.

• 50:01Conan O'Brien?

  Oh, it's, I mean, it's so funny because you have this quote, and this, I underlined a few things in the book because it's the later parts that really got to me. At the end of his life, he's pretty much saying, I didn't do any of this. This was not, you know, you can't think of a more self-made man.

• 50:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 50:22Conan O'Brien?

  There's Lincoln, there's Twain, there's a couple of like great self-made people.

• 50:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 50:27Conan O'Brien?

  Who just comes from absolute, you know, nothing and is this force of nature. And you think, well, he really made himself. And at the end of his life, he's saying, I, it was just impulses, urges, I just did things and now here I am and now my life's over and it all meant nothing. I mean, that's kind of his philosophy. You said this here, in his work, he thought he bravely said what he knew to be true, but hadn't dared to voice, that the mind is a machine, that we mistake instinct for original thought, that free will is a farce, that our lives are predetermined by outside forces, and that all acts are selfishly motivated. It's funny, that struck a chord with me because the last couple of years, I've had

• 51:12Conan O'Brien?

  this thought that's just been rattling around my head where people have said, hey, you know, you've, you know, you've been around for a while and you've done some cool things. And I think, I didn't do any of it. I don't know why the fuck, sorry for the language, but Sona does the writing.

• 51:27Speaker 02

  I've heard the language.

• 51:27Conan O'Brien?

  I'm so fucking sorry. Yeah, please, Mr. Chernow, I apologize. Sona writes these things for me. Yeah, I'm sorry. And I'm not going to say this other stuff.

• 51:36Speaker 02

  Would you please substitute it with breaches?

• 51:37Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, yeah. But, you know, in my own opinion, I think, I can't explain any of it. I just have had these crazy impulsive drives and impulses and I, maybe it is glandular. What I mean at the end of the day, what did I do? I don't know what I did, but, and certainly it's, and it's one one-millionth of what Twain did, but it's, it's funny that at the end of his life, he won't take credit for anything and he thinks that we're all just in the void. He's very.

• 52:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, he has this kind of deterministic view that we're just kind of, you know, machines and they're stimuli and we react to it, that we're really not creating anything. The funny thing is, Conan, you know, that someone reading that, if it had not been written by Mark Twain, they would have said, well, what about Mark Twain? Mark Twain would have been, you know, the best example of the fact that there is true originality in the, in the world.

• 52:37Conan O'Brien?

  You know, winning an award, that's a big achievement, right?

• 52:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, I love awards.

• 52:40Conan O'Brien?

  Every now and then in life, maybe something nice like that comes your way. Winning them consistently is almost impossible. It just doesn't happen, you know? Well, guess what? Winning five times in six years? You know what that sounds like to me? Sustained excellence.

• 52:54Speaker 01

  Nice.

• 52:55Conan O'Brien?

  Hyundai has done just that, earning the title of America's best SUV brand for 2026 from US News and World Report. You are a very happy Hyundai driver.

• 53:03Speaker 01

  I drive a Hyundai Palisade and I love my car. I love it. I love driving it around.

• 53:08Conan O'Brien?

  I've been tooling around in an Ioniq 5 N, which I love. Beautiful car. Well, listen, whether you need an SUV for everyday life, your next big adventure, or extra room for family and friends, Hyundai has an option for you. The Tucson Hybrid is loaded with technology and built for everyday life. The Santa Fe Hybrid's fully capable and ready for adventure. The Palisade, that's yours, right?

• 53:27Speaker 01

  Hello!

• 53:28Conan O'Brien?

  They're gonna rename that the Sona. The Palisade Hybrid, yeah, delivers premium capability and class-leading interior space. With available, I had this memorized, H-Track all-wheel drive, up to an EPA-estimated 619 miles of range on vehicles like the Palisade Hybrid and Hyundai's industry-leading warranty. It's easy to see why Hyundai continues to deliver the quality, innovation, technology, and value drivers expect from an award-winning brand. View US News Best Cars at cars.usnews.com and call 562-314-4603 for complete details.

• 54:03Conan O'Brien?

  We all have those pieces in our closet we can count on. Sona, I imagine for you it's that leather jacket I got you.

• 54:08Speaker 01

  Are you gonna do a bit?

• 54:09Conan O'Brien?

  No, no, it's a really nice leather jacket I got you once.

• 54:11Speaker 01

  I had that and then I replaced it and yes, I use it all the time.

• 54:15Conan O'Brien?

  We all have that versatile jacket, the perfect t-shirt, and those are the pieces that make getting dressed easy. And you know what I was thinking about this morning?

• 54:24Speaker 01

  What?

• 54:25Conan O'Brien?

  Quince. They do it best. They really do. I was really thinking about this.

• 54:28Speaker 01

  What a coincidence that we're doing an ad for them.

• 54:30Conan O'Brien?

  No, a co-coincidence.

• 54:32Speaker 01

  Oh, no!

• 54:34Conan O'Brien?

  That's why I get the big money.

• 54:36Speaker 01

  I gotta go.

• 54:36Conan O'Brien?

  Cut to very small amount of money. Quince makes elevated everyday essentials using premium materials and designs that are timeless, thoughtful, crafted, and made to be worn again and again. And when the temperature starts to drop, Quince makes it easy to build on those everyday staples with versatile layers. Layer up. That's the key. Now, Blay, you're using some Quince. That's right. I'm spending a lot of time back east in Michigan. It's getting a little colder, so I got a featherless quilted jacket, an Atlas Navy, and I just feel like a different guy. I feel classy. You look like a different guy, because you're well dressed. That's right. No, I'm serious. He looks like a hobo half the time. That's true. He's right. That's true. No, they really do great stuff. Find your next fall favorites at Quince. Download the Quince app for app exclusive offers, or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your

• 55:21Conan O'Brien?

  order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK as well.

• 55:26Speaker 01

  All right.

• 55:27Conan O'Brien?

  And when Quince asks where you heard about them, let them know it was Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend. Please do that. Say, "By the way, I heard about this on Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend." Oh, I didn't really ask. I just want you to know.

• 55:40Conan O'Brien?

  It's the best way to support the show.

• 55:45Conan O'Brien?

  So, what are some of the things in life that really get you down?

• 55:47Speaker 01

  Uh, driving?

• 55:49Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 55:50Speaker 01

  That's the first thing that popped in my head.

• 55:51Conan O'Brien?

  No, but I've seen you drive, and it's true. I'm always picking mailboxes out of your grill. You're a creative driver. Look, let's face it, just living on Earth can be a lot, right?

• 56:02Speaker 01

  It can.

• 56:03Conan O'Brien?

  I mean, oy vey, it's a lot.

• 56:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:05Conan O'Brien?

  There's gravity, there's mosquitoes, there's the... You know that they say the sun is going to, at some point, go supernova and incinerate the Earth, probably in five billion years?

• 56:13Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 56:14Conan O'Brien?

  But watch your diet. We might be sticking around for that.

• 56:16Speaker 01

  Oh, man.

• 56:17Conan O'Brien?

  So, cosmically speaking, you've earned a break.

• 56:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:20Conan O'Brien?

  And you know where this is going? I think you do.

• 56:21Speaker 01

  No.

• 56:22Conan O'Brien?

  Pluto TV.

• 56:23Speaker 01

  Oh, right. Of course.

• 56:24Conan O'Brien?

  To escape all of these hassles in life, you gotta get Pluto TV. Turn off all your earthly problems and turn on the movies and shows you already love. You've seen them, but you want to see them again. They're old friends.

• 56:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:35Conan O'Brien?

  Anchorman, The Legend of Ron Burgundy, Dirty Dancing, Alias, X-Files. Pluto TV is completely free.

• 56:40Speaker 01

  Ooh.

• 56:41Conan O'Brien?

  These streamers, all these things cost so much money these days. And I won't mention that when I do an ad for them, but no subscription, no fees, zero dollars. And as any mathematician will tell you, zero is one of the most profound numbers ever conceived. I was thinking about that this morning.

• 56:56Speaker 01

  Wow, that's profound.

• 56:57Conan O'Brien?

  I really wasn't. The best thing on TV are free. Escape to Pluto TV. Stream now, pay never.

• 57:09Conan O'Brien?

  He's obsessed with the idea that Shakespeare didn't write any of it, that it was all Francis Bacon.

• 57:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, he actually gets up after.

• 57:16Conan O'Brien?

  And can't let it, can't let that go.

• 57:18Speaker 02

  I know, can't let it go. Yeah, and he gets up after he's watching a performance of Romeo and Juliet with a friend. And he gets up at the end and he says to the friend, "That was the best thing Francis Bacon ever wrote." You know, he was convinced that his discovery that Francis Bacon had written it, said it's the great discovery of the age, you know.

• 57:37Conan O'Brien?

  Also, I couldn't, I couldn't help but wonder if it was a little bit of professional jealousy. Like, you know, you know, there's no way that guy did all that.

• 57:48Speaker 02

  Well, you know, he loved the play and I think what misled him is that, you know, as Mark Twain became famous, reporters were constantly, you know, flocking to Hannibal, Missouri and other places that he had had lived. So like everyone who ever knew Mark Twain was interviewed 25 times. And he couldn't figure out why there wasn't that same kind of trove, you know, of anecdotes. And why weren't the people in Stratford telling all these stories about Shakespeare?

• 58:16Conan O'Brien?

  If Shakespeare was doing all this, why weren't they writing, why aren't there anecdotes about? There's so many anecdotes about me, there'd be that many anecdotes about Shakespeare. And you're like, well, no, no, it was, it was.

• 58:26Speaker 02

  It was a different time.

• 58:27Conan O'Brien?

  Different time.

• 58:28Speaker 02

  It was, it was a different media environment, you know, and his life was covered so extensively. And, you know, with the kind of a handful of stories about Shakespeare. But if Shakespeare had lived in a different media environment, you know, we would know everything about him. But so, you know, Mark Twain wrongly extrapolated from it to Elizabeth in times. But he actually wrote this book called The Shakespeare Dead that he thought was gonna, you know, set the world on fire. It didn't. He also thought that John Bunyan had not written Pilgrim's Progress. He thought John Milton was, but.

• 59:03Conan O'Brien?

  Maybe he didn't write his own works.

• 59:06Conan O'Brien?

  This is his guilt.

• 59:07Speaker 02

  Yes, yes.

• 59:08Conan O'Brien?

  It was all Livy, it was all his wife cranking it out.

• 59:13Speaker 03

  It was Bret Hart.

• 59:13Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, Bret Hart did it all. No, he was dead. Uh, but, um, I just, you know, it's funny. I think of if Twain were alive today, he'd be on the internet. He would be into every conspiracy. He'd be, and also, talk about a guy who you'd have to keep away from an infomercial. Any pop-up ad, anything. And Twain would be like, "I've gotta have the abdominizer." "Why, that's the darned tootnissed. That's the best invention I've ever..." You know, and Lily would be there saying, "You bought 10,000 abdominizers?" You know, uh, you know what I mean? "I've gotta have those gels in my shoes."

• 59:57Conan O'Brien?

  "A sneaker you can just step into? I've gotta have it." But I mean, you could just think-

• 1:00:02Speaker 01

  Shake weight, "I gotta have the shake weight."

• 1:00:04Conan O'Brien?

  "I gotta have the shake weight."

• 1:00:06Speaker 01

  "I got a gel like Magellan."

• 1:00:08Conan O'Brien?

  "I got a gel like, I like the way that rolls off the tongue." But he would just, um, be full prey to every, you know, every, the word would get around soon. This is the guy, as it does, as, you know, uh, as these programs start to know, oh, this sucker, you know, they're on to me, you know? They know that I like, you know, like a new kind of leather wallet that has like a little, they're on to me, so I'm just constantly bombarded with a new way to, a little travel gizmo. I'm constantly being bombarded with those because the, the algorithm figures it out. They would have figured out Twain.

• 1:00:43Speaker 02

  Well, I'm so curious if he were alive today, if I can get to ask you a question.

• 1:00:46Conan O'Brien?

  If I was alive today?

• 1:00:47Speaker 02

  That, that, um, with, with, with Mark Twain, there was just no filter whatsoever. You know, there was no kind of political correctness. He really felt there's a sadness that everything was fair game. So that, for instance, you know, when he wrote his first book, which turned out to be his bestselling book, called The Innocents Abroad, you know, he went, he went with these tourists, kind of early tourist crews to Europe and the Holy Land, and, uh, he's just sounding off on all of these things there in Italy, and he's making jokes about dwarves.

• 1:01:17Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:18Speaker 02

  He said, you know, "If, if, if you want to see, you know, dwarfs..." Retail, go to Milan. If you want to see dwarves wholesale, go to Genoa, you know. Yes, all of these different things. Well, no one today would dare to make these sorts of

• 1:01:31Conan O'Brien?

  Right, right.

• 1:01:32Speaker 02

  jokes. And he really felt that the whole world was his, you know, field for, uh, for humor. And I wonder how he would function today, you know, where we're much more sensitive, you know, about offending different groups.

• 1:01:45Conan O'Brien?

  Well, I mean, I think it's a, it's, it's a really interesting area because, as you know, you talk about it a lot in your book, Huck Finn is very controversial.

• 1:01:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:01:57Conan O'Brien?

  On one hand, Ernest Hemingway called, said, the American literature begins with Huck Finn.

• 1:02:02Speaker 02

  Right, yeah.

• 1:02:02Conan O'Brien?

  And, and many great writers have said that is the first great, great, truly great, original, uh, American, uh, creative, uh, novel. And then, um, but it's got the N word in it countless times. Um, yet it also is exploring a real relationship between Jim and Huck and, uh, and, and, and Jim is not a cardboard character. Um, and so, but, and the N word is part of the dialect of that time. But for that reason, a lot of people say it should be banned. It shouldn't be read,

• 1:02:42Conan O'Brien?

  or the word should be removed. And you think, um, if he were alive today, he'd be canceled for things he did when he's 20 years old. I mean, in his personal correspondence, when he's writing about race, when he's, when he's, before he's evolved. And that, when I was reading that, I was thinking, we live in this era now where, you know, kids go online and do things, say things, and they get tagged.

• 1:03:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:03:13Conan O'Brien?

  You're the kid who said that. You're the kid that did this. You're the kid that sang that. You're the kid. Um, and I don't know, you know, there wouldn't be a Mark Twain. He'd have, he'd have, he'd have, you couldn't, he couldn't exist in a world that's. Keeping account where anyone can say, wait a minute, we just found something in your personal correspondence or in a speech you gave when you were 25, you're canceled, you're done.

• 1:03:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, you know, Mark Twain is a type of writer almost inconceivable today. He had no inhibitions. He felt no need to have any inhibitions.

• 1:03:48Conan O'Brien?

  Although he was puritanical about sex.

• 1:03:50Speaker 02

  Very puritanical about sex.

• 1:03:51Conan O'Brien?

  Which I totally get.

• 1:03:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:03:54Conan O'Brien?

  And it's only late in life that he starts to kind of, I mean, that's another thing you bring up in the book, and I don't know that we have the time to go into it, but it's a facet of his life, late in life, he is hanging around a lot of young women. When I say young women, ages, what, like?

• 1:04:11Speaker 02

  10 to 16.

• 1:04:11Conan O'Brien?

  10 to 16, and

• 1:04:13Speaker 01

  Ugh.

• 1:04:14Conan O'Brien?

  And what's interesting about it is that there's no evidence that there was anything sexual about it.

• 1:04:22Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:04:22Conan O'Brien?

  No one, and he seemed, he was depressed. I'm not making excuses because it was strange. Everyone noticed it.

• 1:04:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:04:32Conan O'Brien?

  What did he call them? He called them?

• 1:04:33Speaker 02

  His angel fish.

• 1:04:34Conan O'Brien?

  His angel fish.

• 1:04:35Speaker 01

  Oh, God.

• 1:04:35Conan O'Brien?

  And so he's having, and to the point where his wife and his kids are saying, they're trying to suppress any of the information, you know, if there's a, if there's a, if there's a write-up, he doesn't want the young kids around, but there is no evidence that it was anything other than him playing pool with them and liking to have them around because he loved the attention of, I mean, first of all, he was fascinated with childhood. He loved having the attention of these young women who kind of adored him.

• 1:05:10Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:05:11Conan O'Brien?

  So, but it is kind of pathological.

• 1:05:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, absolutely. I mean, this is kind of a good

• 1:05:16Conan O'Brien?

  And who knows? We don't, I don't know. It could have

• 1:05:18Speaker 02

  Kind of the difference, right? Things were perceived then and and and now because he he collects and that was the term that he used that he collected the a dozen of these girls. He called them his angel fish. They were became members of his aquarium club.

• 1:05:32Conan O'Brien?

  They would come over with their mom or their dad or their governess.

• 1:05:36Speaker 02

  He was very careful to incorporate the mothers, the grandmothers into this. There was nothing secretive. He actually flaunted it. Actually, one of the girls, Dorothy Quick, he met on the transatlantic liner. And when it docked in New York, there would always be, you know, a scrum of reporters waiting for Mark Twain in New York. And he gets off the boat with this 11 year old girl. And the next day, newspapers across the country, you know, the headlines are, Mark Twain captive of little girl, you know, and people found this a very kind of charming

• 1:06:09Conan O'Brien?

  Avuncular.

• 1:06:10Speaker 02

  And said, oh, Mark Twain, you know, he's written beautiful books about American children. Of course, he he loves it. So far from being secretive about it, you know, he he flaunted it. And in fact, I tell the story in the in the book that one of his friends, who was a famous actress, you know, came to dinner one day dressed as a 12 year old girl, you know, with kind of buttons and bows and everything because she wanted to be one of his angel fish. So this is the way it was kind of handled. It was people reacting in this kind of very jovial way to it. Whereas we look at this behavior now and it's, you know, very disturbing, very, very, you know, odd and disquieting. He never he never acted on it. I mean, it's

• 1:06:52Speaker 02

  very different. I when I was doing the research, I read a book about, you know, Lewis Carroll. In the case of Lewis Carroll, where superficially might seem similar, but Lewis Carroll, you know, collected nude photos and nude drawings of the girls. You know, there was nothing like that with Twain. What the underlying dynamic was, I really don't know. But he had kind of enough control over himself. But he liked it. He would read aloud to them. They would play pool together. He did announce during his last three, four years of life, he said, I worked hard enough in my life. I just now want to play, you know, so it was like kind of a a second childhood. But it's really strange and weird. I mean, I'm not here to defend it at all. It's really kind of very creepy. And I think that everyone

• 1:07:37Speaker 02

  who reads the book will have that reaction to it. But I also kind of have to describe in fairness to him, you know, what it was and what it wasn't.

• 1:07:46Conan O'Brien?

  That is. One of the things that I really love about the book is you're like Twain, you're not afraid to go everywhere. You're not afraid to look at everything.

• 1:07:56Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:07:57Conan O'Brien?

  You're clearly odd and impressed by this guy. You are also, you're exploring every nook and cranny. There are, he was fallible. You know, when I keep saying he was, people like to think of him as this emoji. He was a great, you know, I'm thinking of people like Lyndon Johnson, who embodied greatness, but their flaws are also great. That, you know, which has been so well documented by Caro.

• 1:08:23Speaker 02

  You had a wonderful line in your Kennedy Center speech, you said, talked about the colossal mess of being human, you know, that's kind of what Twain is about. You know, he was once asked how he knew so much about human nature because he traveled a lot. He'd met a lot of people. He said, oh, no, no, it's, I look into myself. He felt that every human being has all of nature inside himself or herself. And I think that that's true, you know, that we can feel that, you know, we act on certain impulses, but we have inside of us almost every impulse. I think it's why you even, you know, watch a movie about some crime or something. And we can sort of imagine one side of ourself can identify with it. We, we control that. We control this urge.

• 1:09:07Conan O'Brien?

  So you want to kill and kill again?

• 1:09:10Conan O'Brien?

  Are we getting this?

• 1:09:11Speaker 02

  I've been accused of a lot of things, not yet of being a serial killer, but somehow we.

• 1:09:15Conan O'Brien?

  Well, hold on a second. I've got your travel records, suspicious behavior.

• 1:09:23Conan O'Brien?

  Well, the book is a delight. You've done it again, Mark Twain. And I, he's just, I mean, the sign to me of a great biography is that there's no way to completely capture this guy. But I think, I think this is going to be the, the standard bearer. I think you're gonna, you need to read this book. You need to read this book because it's not just about Mark Twain. It's also about America. It's also about. Where we were then, and it's also somewhat about where we are now. So I congratulate you and huge thrill to have you on the podcast because I love this stuff.

• 1:10:04Speaker 02

  Oh, I feel like it's a privilege to be with you and the whole group today. And I feel like you really have done honor to the book and to Mark Twain. So thank you for reading it and reading it so closely and attentively. It's really been a great experience.

• 1:10:20Conan O'Brien?

  I guess we all win then.

• 1:10:23Speaker 03

  Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend with Conan O'Brien, Sonam of Sessian and Matt Gourley. Produced by me, Matt Gorley. Executive produced by Adam Sachs, Jeff Ross and Nick Liao. Theme song by The White Stripes. Incidental music by Jimmy Vivino. Take it away, Jimmy. Our supervising producer is Aaron Blair and our associate talent producer is Jennifer Samples. Engineering and mixing by Eduardo Perez and Brendan Burns. Additional production support by Mars Melnick. Talent booking by Paula Davis, Gina Batista and Britt Kahn. You can rate and review this show on Apple Podcasts and you might find your review read on a future episode. Got a question for Conan?

• 1:11:07Speaker 03

  Call the Team Coco hotline at 669-587-2847 and leave a message. It too could be featured on a future episode. You can also get three free months of SiriusXM when you sign up at siriusxm.com/conan. And if you haven't already, please subscribe to Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend wherever fine podcasts are downloaded.

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