THE FIXATE & BINGE PODCAST, with Host, Joe Curdy: Deep dives into cinema and storytelling with voices who create it · Joe Curdy

HBO's Boardwalk Empire's influence on author JL Flannery's 2025 novel 'Trouble in Atlantic City'

·1 hr 1 min·3 clips

A fortune-teller’s line in Trouble in Atlantic City directly evokes Macbeth and Banquo.

1. Fixate and Binge Podcast focuses on Jeanette Flannery’s 2025 novel Trouble in Atlantic City and its connection to HBO’s Boardwalk Empire. 2. Joe Curdy is the host, Jeanette Flannery is the guest-author, and both matter because Curdy has read the book while Flannery explains its origins and historical choices. 3. The episode asks how a Midlands-based writer built a Prohibition-era Atlantic City novel that feels anchored in American gangster culture. 4. Curdy says he read Trouble in Atlantic City in short breaks at work because he could not find a quiet space at home. 5. Flannery says the novel is split into two sections, with Milton first and Pearl second, and both are tied to George’s disappearance. 6. She says the back-cover blurb already signals that one of the narrators is lying. 7. Curdy points to the boardwalk scene where a fortune-teller tells George, “you won’t live long, but you will be greater than Milton.” 8. Flannery confirms that the line is a deliberate Macbeth reference and says there are more Shakespeare nods later in the book. 9. She says she has studied Shakespeare through her master’s work and expects readers to catch the allusions. 10. Flannery says the first chapter came to her in a dream during lockdown in 2020. 11. She connects the novel’s opening to a seagull-and-bird image that arrived fully formed when she woke up. 12. Flannery says her father died in 2019 after five years of illness with cancer. 13. She says her father loved Peaky Blinders and had also received the first season of Boardwalk Empire from her. 14. Flannery says she wanted to write something her father would have liked. 15. She says her interest in the 1920s includes women’s changing roles, flappers, and the limits of gangster stories told through men. 16. She explains that Pearl was added because she wanted to show what it might feel like to live with a gangster and not know his business. 17. The conversation stays informal and very specific, with Curdy asking about Shakespeare, research, and the historical texture of Atlantic City. 18. Flannery answers in detail, often moving from one example to another, including family memory, research, and writing choices. 19. Readers who like Prohibition history, Boardwalk Empire, and gangster fiction with Shakespeare references will likely enjoy this. 20. Readers who want a brief, plot-light chat without historical detail will probably skip it.

As heard by us

A conversation about prohibition, Atlantic City, and how historical fiction balances fact with myth.

The host opens with a warm welcome and a long personal setup before the conversation settles into prohibition, medicinal loopholes, Atlantic City corruption, and the way historical fiction threads fact and myth together. The material lands well once it gets moving.

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Why you'd press play

For when you want prohibition history, Atlantic City corruption, and a conversation about how historical fiction balances fact.

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