Page 41 of Darling Beasts

“Oh, I wasn’t trying to brainstorm—”

Gabby hesitated. She looked back and forth between Talia and Raj, a flintiness in her eyes. Finally, after issuing Raj a stern glare, she shortened Frosty’s leash and led the Jindo, and Kyle Sperber, away.

Talia felt her entire body smile. There was something in the air, and it wasn’t just the beach’s briny scent. It was hope and excitement and the realization this campaign was about to find its footing. She couldn’t wait to tell Dad.

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Will anyone in California take Marston Gunn seriously?

BY KYLE SPERBER,The North County Intelligencer

SAN DIEGO—Marston Gunn fancies himself a San Diego native. His triple-great grandfather founded F.D. Gunn Company (FDG) in America’s Finest City way back in 1871, which separates Gunn from San Diego by more than a century and a half. While his name is all over California—the college, the hospitals, the marine biological institute—he’s lived most of his life in New York.

If you’re familiar with Mr. Gunn, you probably know him as the former CEO of FDG, a media conglomerate that once included 90 newspapers, 50 local television stations, a home improvement network, and the reality television channel For Real TV. Earlier this year, he was forced to liquidate the majority of his holdings after his brother was busted for perpetrating a series of financial schemes through which he enriched himself by an estimated $250 million. Douglas Gunn is currently serving 10 to 15 years at Federal Correctional Institution, Otisville. Marston Gunn’s name is on the founding documents of his brother’s shady enterprise, but when pressed, he’s vague about how this could’ve occurred under his watch, which begs the question, was he complicit or simply clueless?

Either way, with this ignominy behind him, Marston Gunn is tackling a new industry as one of twelve Democratic candidates vying for the open U.S. Senate seat in California. Priscilla Pham was appointed to fill the interim position but is not running for reelection.

We hadn’t planned to cover Gunn here at theIntelligencer. His story was too banal, his chances too long-shot, but thanks to the efforts of one very dogged communications director, I decided to dig around and ask, who is Marston Gunn?

The failed mogul is father to three charming but dysfunctional adult children. “The smart one, the nice one, the richidiot,” as a source close to the family summarized it. The middle child—the “nice one”—is twenty-four-year-old Gabrielle “Gabby” Gunn, the campaign’s communications director. When not leaving panicky voicemails on behalf of her father, Gabby runs an experimental theater in upstate New York.

The oldest Gunn is thirty-one-year-old Talia, who serves as the campaign’s field organizer. She’s widely considered the most competent, though is known to be “a little self-conscious” and “prone to gentle paranoia.” Talia is currently on leave from one of the top law firms in Manhattan. When asked why her sister would absent herself from such a prestigious position, Gabby Gunn was evasive, but ultimately implied Gunn is paying his kids handsomely.

The youngest Gunn is twenty-three-year-old influencer @DegenerateOz. Oscar, or “Ozzie” as he’s called, resembles a thousand others of his type—tight clothes, sunglasses, hair slicked into a mini pompadour. With all the swagger he displays online, I was surprised to hear friends describe the founder and sole employee of “Rizz Holdings LLC” in a host of unflattering terms, such as “not conventionally attractive,” “overly styled,” and “on the brink of chubby.” He’s also “very strange, but in an entertaining way,” a comment that likely refers to his unusual eye for art. Rumors abound that he’s overspent on his collection and is scrambling to sell it off. Young Ozzie is not part of the campaign, and one wonders if he’s been purposefully excluded.

Despite growing up in luxury, with private planes and multiple homes, the Gunns have not had it easy. Their mother, Marston Gunn’s first wife, the artist Daphne Carter, ended her life at age forty-three. She died from hanging, in a barn, on the very piece of land from which her former husband is currently running his campaign. When asked about it, Gabby Gunn said they were separated, living on opposite coasts. Daphne was suffering a recurrence of thyroid cancer, but one senses this is not the full story. Gunn has since remarried, to a woman named Ustenya described by a family member as a cross between Elvira and Tony Soprano. A close family friend recalls a time when Ustenya made sprat sandwiches and in the process hacked off a chunk of her thumb. After spurting copious amounts of blood, “she then applied stitches to her own self.”

With each new conversation, my interest rose, and I was delighted to discover the campaign was holding a meet-the-candidate event less than a mile from my home. I missed Gunn’s opening remarks, but the literature handed out was thin, focused on “making noise” and “standing up for California.” The smattering of would-be voters were baffled about his policies, and Gabby Gunn seemed similarly in the dark. During our interview, she hemmed and hawed and danced around the softball question of “what does your father believe in?” before finally spitting out that he is keen to address the unhoused. Goodness! Fixing homelessness! Perhaps I’d misjudged his ambition. As for specifics, Ms. Gunn promised to “circle back.”

I’ll confess. The Gunn family amuses me, but I still have more questions than answers about Marston Gunn, the chief one being, why, exactly, is he running? The race is wide open, but the top three candidates (all sitting U.S. Congresspeople) are polling in the double digits, while Marston’s support hovers around three percent. In a recent poll, ten percent of people viewed him favorably, ten percent unfavorably, and the remaining eighty percent had “no opinion.” He’s also woefully behind in terms of fundraising, with a scant $1 million in the bank. The leading candidate, David Slimp, is sitting on a $32 million war chest. If Gunn can’t draw from his own coffers, will he ever catch up?

Does Marston Gunn genuinely think he can pull this off, or is he in it to play spoiler on behalf of someone else? His candidacy might seem innocuous (“local” man makes undetectable splash), but his very presence could shake up the election. With California’s top-two primary system, only Democrats have advanced to the general election the past few cycles. But the more Democrats who enter the race, the more the votes will be split, leaving room for a Republican to sneak in.

“For the past several senatorial election cycles, Californians have had the chance to voteforsomeone based on their platform and policies instead ofagainstthings like book banning, racism, and the downfall of democracy,” says independent Democratic strategist Theo Lemke, who has worked forseveral senatorial campaigns in California. “Marston Gunn has no chance to win, but his involvement will undoubtedly tip the scales. One or two percentage points could make all the difference in this race, and his doomed campaign dramatically increases the chances of a Democrat-Republican general election in November.”

How much longer Marston Gunn will last remains to be seen, but his campaign looks to be an entertaining follow. We will keep readers apprised of developments. Thank you to Gabby Gunn for ensuring we stay on top of the news.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Gabby

The article came out on Sunday morning, and the news whipped through the Ranch, California wildfire fast. Dad and Ustenya were fundraising in Santa Barbara, so I spent a full twenty-four hours worrying myself sick, waiting for my bill to come due.

“What did you say to this woman?” Talia asked first thing on Monday, clutching a newspaper as we hurried toward the conference room. The article was readable on a phone, but my sister went the extra step of picking up a few copies so we could relive my ignominy in print. “Dad is going tosolve homelessness?”

“I didn’t say that exactly.”

“You really fucked up, Gabby,” Ivan said, speaking between chomps of his protein bar. “Your father is losing his mind.”

“I don’t know how this happened. Half of it doesn’t make sense. How can Dad be haplessanda threat? Pick a lane, lady!” The worst part was, I thought the interviewwent well. Of course, I’d also been out of my depth, not to mention distracted by Talia and Raj, who stood nearby, deep in conversation. I had to keep PBS away from my family, and this was a clash of my worlds.

“Whoever her sources were...” Ivan began.Chomp chomp chomp. His teeth clicked together as he ate. “They did you guys dirty. Especially your brother.”

Ozzie.God, Ozzie.Being called chubby, unattractive, the whole deal. He played a confident game, but inside, my brother was mush. I’d texted him five times, called him once, but he’d gone dark. I didn’t blame him. I wanted to jump off a bridge.

“A slap in the face,” Talia muttered. “I’m not sure I’ll get over it, honestly.”

Talia wasn’t sureshe’dget over it? Out of everyone, she came across the best.

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