Jon Ronson on The Psychopath Test

The author explains how a bigamous husband led him to 'a huge thought' about how the world is run – and turned into a book
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Jon Ronson
Jon Ronson, psychopath hunter. Photograph: David Yeo

1. How did you come to write The Psychopath Test?

  1. The Psychopath Test
  2. by Jon Ronson

I don't put it in the book, but I met a woman called Mary Turner Thomson. In fact I made a radio documentary about her.  If you want to hear the show and not know the twists, do skip past the next part.

Mary married a man she met while internet dating. He worked for the CIA, so he'd often vanish for months, to Jenin, or wherever. After years of this Mary discovered he didn't work for the CIA. He was a bigamist and when he was "in Jenin" he was actually at his other family's house down the road.

Two things really struck me about the story. First, when I asked her if she felt hurt by him, she said, "No.He's a sociopath. It's not personal. Does the wildebeest take it personally when it's being chased by the lion? No. It's their nature."

And, second, I talked to a Harvard psychologist named Martha Stout who said that his condition – psychopathy, or sociopathy, or whatever you want to call it – is prevalent in the rulers of our world. The wars, the economic injustice, she saidl; a great deal of it is initiated by sociopaths. Their brain anomaly is so powerful it has remoulded society all wrong.

This struck me as such a huge thought, I kept wondering if I could verify it. Could I become a professional psychopath spotter and journey into the corridors of power?

2. What was most difficult about it?

I had polemicists on both sides desperately trying to get me to write from their ideological viewpoint.  On the one hand, I had Scientologists and Scientology fellow travelers who believed psychiatry and the pharmaceutical industry was corrupt to the core. On the other hand I had the psychiatry mainstream, who basically felt that anyone who disagreed with them was nuts. So I was being pulled hither and thither about topics like mental health labelling and checklist-diagnoses. Were they useful or tyrannical?

Trying to work out what I actually thought about this ate me up for about a year, although I think in the end I reached a place I felt comfortable with. Sometimes labelling is only useful, like with OCD. Once you're labelled you can be treated. On other occasions labelling leads to tyranny, like with childhood bipolar disorder in the US. And when it comes to psychopaths - the checklist I discovered is onto something, but it can turn practitioners like me power-crazed.

3. What did you most enjoy?

It's an honour to get to go to mysterious places, like Broadmoor, although when I told a nurse at Broadmoor how honoured I felt to be there, he looked at me startled, and said, "We've got a spare bed if you like".

4. How long did it take?

Two years.

5. What has changed for you since it was first published?

It's made it harder for me to write about the mental health world, because it's a world I understand better now, and I can only write about a world that's a mystery to me. Trying to solve the mystery is what I enjoy most about writing. Now, since Them and The Men Who Stare At Goats and The Psychopath Test, it's harder for me to write about conspiracies or the paranormal or the mental health world.

6. Who's your favourite writer?

Maybe Kazuo Ishiguro? Or Paul Auster?

7. What are your other inspirations?

Werner Herzog and Errol Morris documentaries. Sceptical podcasts like The Skeptics Guide to the Universe. Radio shows like This American Life and Radiolab.

8. Give us a writing tip.

Discover the time of day when you write best, and write then. For me it's about 7am to noon. For other people it's overnight. Try not to do anything other than write between those times.

 9.  What, if anything, would you do differently if you were starting the book again?

That question can drive you mad. It's best not to think about it.

10. What are you working on now?

A new book. And also a film screenplay that's hopefully going into production next year. And a new series of my Radio 4 series Jon Ronson On... And an internet documentary series called Esc&Ctrl. And more features for the Guardian.

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