The Churchill Thrillers: An Interview with Michael and Patrick McMenamin

"Churchill was more fun than anybody else in the 1930s," explains writer and TV news producer Patrick McMenamin. "He drank, he smoked cigars and he had better one-liners than anyone else. What's not to like?" Along with his co-author father, Michael, the McMenamins are the creators of the Winston Churchill Thrillers novel series, described by one reviewer as "Winston Churchill meets Indiana Jones."

The series takes place during Churchill's "wilderness years" in the 1930s when he was out of political office. Michael McMenamin, a Reason Contributing Editor, describes the '30s as a time when "democracy was in peril...thought to be a thing of the past" and that "fascism, Nazism, communism (were) thought to be the wave of the future." It was during this time that Churchill was a lonely voice warning against the rise of totalitarianism.

The McMenamins chose as their protagonist the fictional son of Winston Churchill's American mentor, Rep. Bourke Cockran (D-NY), who's politics would be considered strikingly libertarian today.

"This guy actually existed. It's amazing to me that there actually was an American politician who was libertarian in almost every sense of the word. Unfortunately, he didn't have any children, but we created one and gave him Indiana Jones-type of adventures."

About 3 minutes.

Produced by Anthony L. Fisher.

Special thanks to the Irish American Historical Society.

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