A Thrilling Book Exploring Harvard's Secret Societies

welcome back to show doctor Ian Smith is best known for his work in the fitness and nutrition world he's written 15 books a lot eight of them New York Times bestsellers a lot about this food diet he went to several prestigious universities little Harvard a little Dartmouth no big deal this book it's his second novel it is the newly released work called the ancient nine and it's all about male secret societies and get this he drew on his own real life experience love it we are excited to welcome dr. Ian Smith back to the morning

blend good to see you hey guys good to see you as always yeah what's that was very different confident no we're not talking about health and nutrition but I've been writing the ancient nine since I was a senior in college 25 plus years in the making it's based on my experiences in one of Harvard's elite secret societies called final clubs and it's so funny I was punched they call it punched or pledged I was punched for this club had no idea what these clubs were in the middle of the night and envelope got slipped under

my door I chosen the mill tonight envelope name room number no postage no return address I open it up and it says the the members of the Delta club president members invite you to a cocktail party well with a date and location had no idea what a cocktail party was by the way as a 1904 kid war student you knew the word cocktail though I knew cocktails but but it was interesting it was like idea Harvey even had secret societies I thought was secret society I would choose you - wow that's very nice but but

but I am everything these clubs are not for example these clubs are starting the 1700s membered by the most famous people of President Kennedy Teddy Roosevelt Franklin Roosevelt Oliver Wendell Holmes a Supreme Court justice so these very powerful people having members of these clubs and I was like a poor kid from the other side of the tracks and I got invited to this world where a privilege which was just like amazing and so I wanted to write about what happens to get into these clubs and kind of what happened on the inside well there's some

names I mean Matt Damon was in the know my club in your ears in your class behind me with my club okay look what we brought him in the class behind great guy but you know Jack Lemmon was in my club JP Morgan Jr right founded the club right so so it's a really crazy heady experience actually yeah so what's you know when you two start writing about something of this when I think about secret societies I think you getting in trouble or talking about it so in terms of being able to give some of

these secrets away or some of this I and I understand now it's it's fiction it's fiction but as I say is based on real events I didn't ask permission you get in trouble well I don't know got it heard you have people heard of this yet well it's interesting so this is the Harvard Crimson this is the owl Club actually where Ted Kennedy was a member that's the fly Club right there where Franklin Roosevelt and this is my club it's a double Club I took it as far as not too great but but you could

see the big blue door which is on the cover of the book that's my club right there and the interesting thing is I didn't ask permission by the way I figured I'm old enough now that I could do something like this but the other thing is this listen these come around for a very long time and they're a lot of secrets and they close a lot of mysteries in fact the ancient nine is a group of men who protect the secrets within the club students for years are trying to break into these mansions they're huge

mansions on round Harvard Square and students have tried to break in to find some of the treasures the artifacts and so this story is about three things one it's about this student who gets punched for this club but it starts in 1927 two students are trying to break into the Duffek mansion and one student disappears that's how it starts is this true is that a true part of the story I'm not gonna give it away people to read it okay but then it fast forwards for the 80s when I'm a student and the student is

trying to piece together this information there are two very famous books at Harvard amongst others one is a book that was in the private library King James the first and the other book is the last book remaining of the John Harvard collection the other ones burned this is Widener Library here but this is that book I was talking about this book is the last book remaining of the John Harvard collection because all the other books burned in the fire in the 1700s and this book remained because the student had taken out from the library and

had not returned in time here's what I want to know because people with secret clubs you talk about artifacts and books and all this stuff but what do people do inside secret plops you have a secret handshake yeah that's real language do you the past play last well we do get dressed up so we have this huge ballroom and so I have a huge dining hall with there's a staff that prepares meals we have Black Tie dinners we have galas it's like from another ear or literally and like drinking and drugs I've never seen drugs

but there is drinking I mean it's a full bar we have a bartender that's that that's on staff for these events but it's you know a members grab members come back to the club and participate there's also a dinner we have in other cities so we'll say you know the off years we'll have a dinner maybe in New York and so we go what's called the New York dinner so these things are still active as you become a grad member you're always a member of the club and they're your brothers do you do you reference

any of the famous members of these clubs in your book yeah so we talk about some of the famous man I don't mention Matt Damon per se and that's a friend of Mines I don't want to but but everyone knows that Matt's a members Club but there are other very famous members who are in there and the other thing is it's a fun story because there's a little love story in there so the main character falls in love with the dining hall worker who wants nothing to do with him because she thinks he's a harvard

stuff stuffy Harvard kid yeah and he pursues her to try to win her over really quick we're there were you one of the only african-americans during your time in the club punched yes one of the issues been diversity very few african-americans know women in these clubs by the way the university's try to get them to open up or to disband the club till Thursday yes exactly so but we got a great mystery if you go to our Facebook page it's called the ancient nine you can win twenty five hundred dollars if you can solve three

sets of questions related to the mystery inside of the book oh great it's your major Lit what was your mouth I was pre-med alright thank you so much for being here