Ed William on David Rhoiney: Writing a Biography That Reads Like Fiction

First-time author Ed William explains how he wrote No One’s Coming to Save You, a biography of surgeon David Rhoiney that reads like fiction, and what Rhoiney’s journey from homelessness to the operating room teaches. On Infinite Loops, William tells host Jim O’Shaughnessy how a former lawyer with no book experience earned his subject’s trust, why he chose a fast, profane, cinematic style, and which small moments in Rhoiney’s life turned out to matter most.

TLDW

David Rhoiney was five when his father left and told him to be “the man of the house.” He grew up through Compton, Oakland and Long Beach with a mother who had severe bipolar disorder, lived in a Volkswagen Jetta and a homeless shelter, then used basketball to reach the Naval Academy, became a cryptologist and finally a surgeon. William and O’Shaughnessy discuss his relentlessness, his guilt about leaving his mother, the mentors who changed his life in a single conversation, and how he learned to trade black-and-white thinking for incremental change. William also explains the craft: interviewing dozens of people, building scenes from Rhoiney’s own words, cutting the boring parts like Raiders of the Lost Ark, and getting his own ego out of the book.

Thoughts

William’s reasons for writing a biography that reads like fiction are a useful checklist for anyone writing about a real person. His first draft used the cerebral style of his film newsletter and did not fit. The style he landed on (direct, punchy, profane, with no pretension) was chosen for four reasons: it matches how Rhoiney actually talks, it suits a story that has the shape of a novel, an unknown author needs a book that feels different to find readers, and he wanted teenage boys looking for a role model to finish it. He borrowed the pacing idea from Steven Spielberg’s approach to Raiders of the Lost Ark: leave out the boring parts and keep moving, so a life that could fill 400 pages fits in about 200. The lesson is that voice is not decoration. It should come from the subject and the audience, not from the writer’s habits.

The most moving detail in the conversation is a teacher who gave Rhoiney one or two hours of help with his SAT English score, the one subject he could not stand because it had no right answers. He remembered her for the rest of his life and kept calling on that memory before later exams. When William tracked her down, she remembered him as “one of the special ones” but was shocked he remembered so intensely: she said she had given him almost nothing and was just doing her job. William says the book is full of people like this who appear once and have an outsized effect. Two lessons follow. Small acts of attention can change a life when they land on someone ready to use them, and a big part of Rhoiney’s success was his ability to recognize those moments and take everything they offered.

O’Shaughnessy’s observation about how Rhoiney has changed is the best character note in the episode. In their weekly calls, Rhoiney instantly spots what is wrong in his hospital and how to fix it, and O’Shaughnessy is careful to separate that from online complaining: he is not looking for problems, he notices them and goes straight to solutions, out of care for patients and nurses rather than ego. The change over the years is that he has gone from black-and-white thinking to accepting incremental progress: if he can get five or ten improvements into the system, it gets materially better. That is the same arc as the bully story, where a family rule of “we do not run” served him well until he had to learn tactical retreat. Relentlessness got him into the room. Patience is what lets him change it.

William’s account of his own mistakes is honest advice for first-time authors. He calls writing a book “a series of existential crises” punctuated by brief moments of self-belief, and says his first draft failed because he tried to force the story into something it did not want to be and put too much of himself in it. The fix was to swallow his ego, stop trying to impress people, and let the story emerge. He built scenes by starting from Rhoiney’s exact words in dozens of hours of interviews, then rewriting them completely, so every scene grew from the subject’s real voice. The only part of himself he left in was a scattering of film references, which suited a subject who also loves movies. His conclusion is reassuring: if you keep getting up, keep writing and have a ruthless editor, eventually a book appears.

One more craft point comes from a chapter William never planned to write. Rhoiney had mentioned, almost in passing, staying with his best friend’s family in Houston after the Naval Academy, burned out and waiting to hear about the submarine program. William meant to give it a paragraph. Then he interviewed the family, including a mother who said she considered Rhoiney her son, and the quiet stretch became one of his favorite chapters: the one moment in the book where Rhoiney rests, considers staying with a found family, and chooses to go back and chase something bigger. It reminded William of the old man in Into the Wild. Plot does not always decide what matters in a life story. Sometimes the slow chapter is where the reader finally understands the character.

Key Takeaways

The book began when an NFT auction winner nominated Rhoiney as a guest on Infinite Loops, and O’Shaughnessy asked to tell his story right after the recording.
William, a former lawyer, interviewed Rhoiney for five days and spoke to dozens of people, including some who do not like him, from a list Rhoiney supplied himself.
His plan to start with softball questions collapsed in minutes, when Rhoiney told his whole harrowing childhood in half an hour.
The father’s parting words, “you need to be the man of the house,” are the framing device for the whole book.
Rhoiney’s relationship with his bipolar mother mixed neglect with fierce love, including stepping between her son and a shotgun, and leaving her for Annapolis left him with lasting guilt.
Rhoiney reframes even the worst moments: he says he was lucky to be homeless in a car in California rather than freezing in New York.
His prep school basketball coach became the father figure he lacked, cut off his credit cards and sent half his paycheck into an IRA, which started his interest in personal finance.
At five foot two, he shot against a no-parking sign for hours and wrote a prayer every night asking to be six foot two by morning, then grew enough to be recruited by Navy.
Facing racism for the first time at the academy, he decided the only answer was to be not just better but a “quantum leap above.”
He pointed to kids in a childhood photo and said “jail” and “dead,” and said he knew he would end up like them if he stopped taking action.
He became a cryptologist without a math PhD by outworking everyone, and as a doctor of osteopathy he also took the MD board exam to prove he could.
William sums Rhoiney up in one word, relentless, and O’Shaughnessy adds “relentlessly self-critical.”
The Navy transformed his life and career more than his personality, which people from his childhood say was always there.
The two ideas William thinks Rhoiney would give the world come from his commencement speech: strive to be better, and treat everyone as if they were your mom and dad.

Chapters

1:30 How an NFT Led to This Book

O’Shaughnessy explains that an Infinite Loops NFT experiment led to Rhoiney appearing on the show, and that he wanted to make a movie about him. It became a book instead. William recalls taking a 4 a.m. call from Thailand to earn Rhoiney’s trust, flying out for five days of interviews, and being handed a contact list that included people who do not like his subject.

5:05 “Man of the House” at Five

The book opens with Rhoiney’s father leaving after a funeral. The family’s early years in his grandmother’s crowded Compton house were chaotic but happy, including seeing his uncle carry a TV out of a shop on the news during the Rodney King riots. After they left Compton things fell apart: homelessness, a Volkswagen Jetta, a shelter and gun violence. O’Shaughnessy describes how Rhoiney, nervous before a high-powered event, ended it as the center of the room.

11:54 The Chapter Ed Never Planned to Write

William explains how a passing mention of Rhoiney resting with his best friend’s family in Houston became one of the book’s best chapters. He compares it to Into the Wild: a found family offers a quiet life, and the hero chooses to leave and pursue something greater.

16:47 His Mother, Fitting Out and a Father Figure

Rhoiney’s mother failed him at times and protected him fiercely at others, and his central conflict is whether leaving her to succeed is for her or for himself. O’Shaughnessy shares Rhoiney’s line about being “born to fit out.” William describes the men who filled the father-shaped gap, from the son of one of his mother’s boyfriends, who had been in juvenile detention, to the prep school coach who drilled financial discipline into him.

23:38 From Living in Cars to Annapolis

After a shotgun incident, a preteen Rhoiney looked for any way out: first art, then basketball. William describes the practice, the prayers for height and the recruiter who spotted him. At the academy, poverty stopped being his main problem and racism began, and he decided to outperform everyone. The chapter also covers the schoolyard bully his cousins brought back so he would learn that “we do not run in this family.”

35:25 The Photo That Drove Him and Going Deep

O’Shaughnessy recalls Rhoiney showing him a teenage photo and naming which friends were in jail or dead. That drive shows up in how he learns: reading every finance textbook, studying basketball manuals at the library and scouring Southern California forums for the names of players he had to beat.

39:40 Why the Book Reads Like Fiction

William says the biggest surprise of writing was how much of the book came together in the last 5%. He explains the four reasons for the style, how he captured Rhoiney’s voice from interviews, podcasts and videos, and the films that shaped the structure: The Pursuit of Happyness, Good Will Hunting, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Mad Max: Fury Road and the idea of E.T. as a “micro epic.”

51:33 Relentless, Nature Versus Nurture and One Hour

William sums Rhoiney up as relentless. They debate nature, nurture and agency: William, a new father, now thinks nature matters more than he assumed, and O’Shaughnessy recalls behaviorism’s failed promise to shape any child into anything. William then tells the story of the English teacher whose hour of help Rhoiney never forgot.

1:00:40 Cryptology, Medicine and Incremental Change

Rhoiney moved into cryptology on short notice after the submarine program fell through and won over skeptical PhDs. He sat the MD exam on top of his DO boards. The book ends in 2017, as he finishes surgical training and fulfills his promise to be the man of the house. O’Shaughnessy describes how Rhoiney fixes problems rather than complaining and has become more patient with incremental change.

1:10:38 What Comes Next, Fatherhood and Lessons for Authors

William expects Rhoiney to find a new mountain to climb, as he did when he retrained from general to vascular surgery. Both describe him as a devoted father, and William retells his nervous first meeting with his future stepdaughter. William shares what he would do differently as an author, his ideas for a film book or fiction next, and the two lessons from Rhoiney’s commencement speech. The book is out December 8.

Notable Quotes

“It reads like fiction, but it’s true.”
Ed William, on No One’s Coming to Save You

“I’m going. You need to be the man of the house.”
David Rhoiney’s father, leaving when David was five, as told by Ed William

“I always felt like I was born to fit out, but then I worried, how will I ever fit in?”
David Rhoiney, as recalled by Jim O’Shaughnessy

“David, we do not run in this family.”
Rhoiney’s cousin, after David ran from a school bully, as told by Ed William

“I knew that if I didn’t take action and if I didn’t just keep taking action I was going to end up like them.”
David Rhoiney, on a childhood photo of friends now in jail or dead, as recalled by Jim O’Shaughnessy

“Relentless. Relentless in everything.”
Ed William, asked to describe David Rhoiney in one word

“I find writing a book is just a series of existential crises.”
Ed William, on what he learned from his first book

Watch the full conversation with Ed William on Infinite Loops here.