The Big Idea: Jocelyn Cullity

Some tales are as old as time. Corruption in power, rooting for the underdog that’s willing to take on the Big Bad, these are the stories people have loved for centuries — and it’s certainly an influence on author Jocelyn Cullity’s newest novel, The Nurse at Baker Hospital. JOCELYN CULLITY: While researching Norman Baker—the 1930s radio personality, political populist, and promoter of fraudulent cancer cures who operated the infamous Baker Hospital at the Crescent Hotel in Eureka Springs, Arkansas—I gradually realized that I wasn’t simply uncovering a flamboyant historical figure. I was encountering a type of American demagogue I recognized. Baker understood how to persuade people to distrust established expertise while placing extraordinary faith in a single, confident voice: his. The realization changed both the novel and my understanding of the present. At the same time I was researching Baker, for instance, a neighbor was traveling to a clinic in Mexico in search of unconventional…