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After shooting the rock star John Lennon in front of the Dakota Building in Manhattan on December 8, 1980, Mark David Chapman remained at the crime scene reading his favorite book, The Catcher in the Rye, until police arrived. Chapman identified powerfully with Holden Caulfield, the novel’s alienated protagonist, and in this episode we explore Chapman’s motivations, their grounding in Catcher, and ask the question: What makes someone kill their own hero in cold blood?

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If The Catcher in the Rye resonates with people in dark places like Mark David Chapman, then it may be because the novel, and its author, passed through hell itself on the way to publication.

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Wooed by perhaps the greatest American writer of the 20th century, born from the loins of its greatest playwright and ultimately wed to the most famous performer on the planet, Oona O'Neill Chaplin lived in the shadow of three of the greatest artists of the 20th century, and her story is interwoven with them all. 

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Considered by many to be “America’s Shakespeare,” Eugene O’Neill revolutionized American drama. But O’Neill suffered greatly for his art, battling alcoholism and depression for decades, and many, including his daughter, suffered for it as well. 

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We chronicle the life and times of Louise Bryant and her husband, John Reed, two Greenwich Village Bohemians who ended up at ground zero for the greatest revolution the world has ever known. 

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In this final episode of the season, host Sean Braswell ties up some of our thread's loose ends, explores some more surprising connections between our characters and reflects on the nature of art, life, fate and redemption. 

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In this bonus episode, OZY brings you our first mini-Thread which begins with one of William Shakespeare's characters uttering a single word in 1597 and ends as a passenger plane plunges into the waters outside Boston almost four centuries later. 

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