Running Away From America: The Rhodes Scholar Who Ran a Male Brothel in Bali

When asked what his parents did, Atlantic CEO and competitive marathoner Nicholas Thompson had a stock response. "My mother's an art historian at Babson," he would answer, "my father runs a male brothel in Bali." Thompson's new best-selling autobiography, The Running Ground, is an extended version of his extraordinary family history, focusing on the dramatic fall from grace of his Rhodes Scholar father, W. Scott Thompson. The confessional is partly a discourse on running — a discipline that the father passed down to the son. But it's also a meditation on parenting. So was his father a good dad? "If the standard is whether you go bankrupt, lean upon your children, ask them to perform bigamist weddings, threaten to kill yourself, blackmail them, then no," Nick Thompson reflects. "If the standard is does he love you every day, then yes."Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe