Transcripts For CSPAN2 In Depth David Baldacci 20240713

Blow you off and keep going. He lives in his own world. I think people take his aloofness for rudeness which is not that at all. He used to be a darius outgoing guy and then had a traumatic brain brain injury and it changed his body. I think its evolved and you see in the fall and that my wife is funny, she read this book and she said i finally like him. He reached his humanity level. At the core. It took me four books to get there but i like complicated guys and hes complicated. Host thank you for being with us for our indepth program and in this special series we sit with authors for three hours talking about their life in their work. David baldacci will spend the time with us today and we hope very much for both of us as we enjoy your interaction that you will be a part of the conversation. As we continue along here we put the phone numbers on the screen and our facebook and twitter handles so you can join in on the conversation and we very much would like to from your questions about his writing, characters hes developed and why you are intrigued about them and the key to success over the years. What makes amos decker a good hero . Especially for thrillers. Guest when i first thought about a series of him i thought what would be good to do so i get this guy who is irascible and aloof and does not get along with people and does not get jokes or pick up social cues, he walks out of the room while he talks to you and thought he be popular but it he spoke to me. Ive always been fascinated by the mind and this is guy whose mind changed and had no control over that and also he had to rebuild his life and when you are developing a series you have to have enough material to justify it more one book and its almost like the character will evolve and if people can relate to it and enjoy and watch and see a change and if the characters have not changed as a point to writing a book. With him he had an enormous amount of material. This back story about his brain injury and family being murdered and about this perfect memory. When i first went on tour with the first memory everyone in the on and said raise her hand if you think its cool to have a perfect memory and cant forget anything but a lot of people said that be great but i said raise your hand if you live in something in your life you forget and everyone raised their hand read dads dilemma. There are lots of things he rather forget but for me with school about him is that every time i put him on the page i have no idea what he will do. Host when you start and think about all of your books but much already series and you said you dont want to do the one thing but that do you have a sense of what or how many can play out with him or is this evolve as you write . Guest are not good at predicting stuff like that. I never and im not like jk rowling that said there would be seven books and thats it. For me i written series and ive series that have five and other series have more than that. Its how much gas in the tank does a character have and do i want to keep discovering things about it. Am i excited about finding him or her on the page and if the answers and that our gas then i keep going regardless of what the book count is. Host how did you develop amos decker . Is there a model in the real world that you knew him from . Guest no, it was almost like frankenstein. I knew i wanted a large guy and wanted to have this enormous intimidating presence even though hes not an intimidating guy and i knew he would be a Football Player and that was the source of the brain injury which is all too prevalent these days, professionals more than football. Ive been thinking about that stupid a lot of the players i love going up watching they are either passed away, wheelchairs and if they are 60 years old they are totally gone and the brain is gone and i wanted a story where the characters grapples with those and they have this large presence and build them into a detective with a unique feature but all the other baggage that went along with it and he does not pick up on social cues anymore and on one hand you have a superpower and this perfect memory and on the other hand its difficult to relate which is a downside. Its always a struggle with him but i love that struggle because its innately traumatized and makes and raises the stakes makes people understand this person and what makes them tick and if you can get a reader to say what makes this guy tick they keep turning the pages. Host the setting for, the fallen, is [inaudible] which is fictional but it is problems are real and would you tell our audience about them. Guest much like thousands across the country and other countries and its a coal mining, steel territory and this is where it exists because we figured out a way to make money and there is cold air and i can do river and textiles and now i needed people to work on it so they came. They put down roots, build homes and the textiles went away and everything went away except the people who live there but they still have two build somehow so they have challenges and in this novel and those often take you down a dark path. In burnsville we call come across a small town that has secrets under the skin. And when amos decker starts poking around hard bad things happen. Host one thing is opioids and we are all seen so much of the travesty in the state so what do you want readers to learn about what the country is struggling with . Guest first and foremost, i want to understand this is a manmade problem. Its not a problem that started with drug dealers in the street but Prescription Medication and when you have a West Virginia town that has 900 people and 30 million opioid prescriptions are written for the town thats a problem. Were not selling enough of these painkillers and we want to sell more so they made pain a fifth element of a diagnosis and said its good for anything that ails you. Opioids described for back pain have almost no effect on back pain but this is not addictive and dont worry about it but its all addictive. I want people to understand is a manmade problem and its decimating and its called the drug of despair. These towns have no hope and they spiral into this. Its not Getting Better and it needs to be addressed and it is not being addressed. An Advertising Campaign just say no will not work when youre talking about sentinel which you can be addicted to fentanyl after just one use. Theres a whole host of factors that needs to be addressed because we have two and next year if the trends continue the next hundred thousand people will overdose on opioids and thats the population of the city. I want people to take away the fact that even though this is fictional all the stuff is nonfiction. Host in one scene you get into that narcan debate. Guest in a lot of places there giving it to First Responders and a lot are saying theyll give that to everybody so even if you are there and the person youre with overdose, take out the north can and save his life because it is a lifesaver. People state that will encourage people and i said no, it will save lives on so we can figure out how to solve the problem. You dont want to say dont do it and well figure out the problem later but lets do both at the same time and it needs to be art out there. Everybody needs to have it particularly in this town. Give it to the Addiction Treatment centers and everybody have it in restaurants and bars because a lot of time people dont realize is that people will overdose in a public place because they know they can be resuscitated. Put it in a bar and a restaurant and a public place and its almost like having a defibrillator these days. Someone goes into cardiac racks, the glass and its the same thing with narcan. Pop it in their nose and bring them back to life. Host do you see this when you travel . Guest absolutely. My family came from the gold mining town in West Virginia pretty much like this. You have in place where they were good pain coal mining jobs where you can make 7,080,000 a year without a College Education but those are all gone. The towns are still there and when you drive through these places and through the midwest it is unlike washington dc areas and people have never finished high school and the work there is service oriented, medial, low pay, low benefits and its an old cars and old homes and a lot of that is what america is. Im not surprised people have turned to opioids to break out of this because they dont feel like they have any hope. Thats the bad thing. Greatest country on earth, richest country on earth and every citizen should have hope in life could get better but we need to get that back. Host what is the lesson of capitalism then . Guest the lesson of capitalism is an, look, im a capitalist. I have my own Small Business and there has to be a balance as well. It would be better for one person to make 3 billion a year or that person to make one billiondollar and other people instead of making 30000 a year to make 60000 a year. Buy more stuff, have a better life and have Better Health insurance and send their kids to college and with that make Society Better than everybody or is the guy that lives on 2 billion less that better for him . I think theres weve seen this before and this thing happened before we had income tax and yet phenomenally wealthy people, robert baron, railroad barons, magnates, rockefellers, carnegies and people like that and a lot of people had almost nothing and that balance is out of whack and Teddy Roosevelt came in and broke the monopolies up and indians came up and collective bargaining and that build a middle class in this country. Unions are pretty much dead. There are a very few who make an extraordinary amounts of money and the rest of the people not so much. I dont think its sustainable. I cant argue two people plausibly, at least in the United States that there should be redistribution. As soon as you say that youre a socialist but im not a socialist but but the track whereon doesnt seem to be sustainable. Host in baron built what has given people jobs to say Fulfillment Center for an online unnamed online company. Have you visited one of those . Guest yes, i have. Host what are they like . Guest first of all, the scale is unbelievable. They are football fields time 12. You have never seen so much cardboard in your life and shelves in robots and people running literally all day. If you think about it, think about the packages to get at the house or the fact that the Postal Service only operates on sunday to deliver amazon packages and when you see a mail truck on sunday look inside the truck is piled high with amazon packages. [inaudible] Fulfillment Centers are how they do it so if you have millions of americans bind billions of packages then youve got places to have the hold that capacity and volume and when you go in there. The scales are breathtaking and the speed with it moves with 400 packages processed in a sec. Come out the door and on its way and i was absolutely overwhelmed and these people dwarf the scale but its a phenomenon and grew in the last ten years. The one major growth industry for people and it was unbelievable to me. Host i will give these phone numbers and in about 15 minutes we will take telephone calls for David Baldacci. 202 7488000, mountain or pacific, 202 7488001 and use the indepth or get in the queue and we can get to your questions but we look forward to them and we have a facebook page, blast away so if youd like to get involved. In the very first amos decker book the memory man the the central plot is around a School Shooting. What year did you write that . Guest the first memory man was about five years ago. Host 2015. Yeah, since then weve seen the number of what are the thinking about whats happening with society and why did you use us as a device and what we are hoping to gain for your readers . Guest the School Shooting in memory man for me it was amos deckers hometown. She would have gone on to live in my school and you can write any story a different way and go bake and shallow or small. I wanted my memory man to have this intimate space to work hard. You see him prowling the hallways at this high school after this horrific event. Its a very small stage taking everything in an all points in building this template of what actually is the truth and in this small state i was able to go deep in the novel and thats what i wanted to do. I did not want to go broad and shallow so it was all most like hitchcock in reflecting that it was just the school and an accident moved off but primary focus when he had to figure out what happened and i think when i was overseas when i was in england they called me crying fiction had overtaken on general fiction and its the most popular genre in the uk for the First Time Ever people asked me why i thought that was and i thought everything is being equal if you cant get what you want in the real world so in thrillers and conviction we have good people and bad people and the good people get justice in the end and truth will come out and it is supposed to end. You cant go on the bad people winning. Host i was apprised when i read in the publishing trades but this is the home of Agatha Christie and Sherlock Holmes so you think thrillers have always been a part of the british popular choice. Guest they really have an crime fiction is really big over there and always has been. I dont know what happened this year but they overtook general literature in the genre. Host let me get into how this all started but you have a color so lets listen to what has to say. Brian in sioux city, iowa welcome to the conversation. Caller good morning. The question is about the memory condition. You said it started because of an injury he suffered in football. This is perfect recall something where he can recall things before that injury perfectly or is the perfect triggered by things after the football inju injury . Guest good question. Its different for different people. For amos decker it can be before the injury occurred so we have memories and things that happen to us from day one moving up but sometimes our memories arent good about bringing that back out but its there somehow and with that is that in 2018 we know very little about how the brain works, we just dont. Its almost like the traumatic brain injury unlocked in our head all along and when you think about his bandwidth went from normal to the resilient and he could access the information but he had never been able to access it before so his ramp went up significantly if you want to talk about it on a computer basis and but Going Forward everything he sees he will remember exactly what he sees and exactly but sometimes thats tricky because it will lie to him for it if your member that light and he will not say this but he remembers and down the road he finds it contradictory to that and the template over it and maybe that statement was not true at all but he can member everything from day one. Host all the amos decker books and in fact in all of the novels of yours that i have read there is always state and local local and federal agencies and there is always lots of bureaucracy to deal with. Where did you develop that worldview of Inter Agency Relations . Speak. Guest from dealing with inter agencies and personal experience in my office one time that it is to federal agencies almost came to blows in the lobby in my office because one was doing something and had not told the other what they were doing. They had somebody at the station in their office with vernaculars and walkietalkie and looking in this other agency full body armor and ak 15s and it was like what is going on and the other guys came in and coats and i wont name the agency but they came in with trenchcoat and they said he works for us and we dont tell anybody anything in whoever we are, you got to tell us but it evolved quickly into chaos but i worked and dealt with acronyms agencies over the years and one thing they will tell you is the cooperation and good mitigation is always what it should be. There is a lot of people in paperwork and intrinsic values of these places were they like to be independent and its a turf battle two. They created the federal budget and you get more money if you have more responsibility and more stuff you do. You dont want to give a piece of the pie to anyone else. Host the changes we made after 2001 was supposed solve the stuff after 911. Agencies all communicated with each other and actual ban with that for medications, Difficult Communications so what happened . Guest easier said than done but the irs is having new consist or assumes are like 40 years in the dod is to do a lot of stuff and that has been warty thousand dollars on a hammer but all those things still happen because these are, look these are aircraft carriers been if you think you will move those things in three minutes in an new direction it will not happen. They are enormous on wielding beasts and it takes times. Im not saying changes arent happening and it cannot get better but its a long slog. Host martin is in san francisco. Good morning. Caller good morning. Mr. Baldacci, good morning. I just finished the fallen recently and went through all amos deckers series. The question is there are in all your books but especially deckers there are some pretty heavy, deep emotional elements in it and do you plan those or do they come about spontaneously . Host martin, what is a scene you remember from the book that really struck you as an emotional one . Caller the latest one, the last page and i will leave it at that. Host will sambar all brewers. Guest great question, margin. For me i would have to make these characters feel like they are real and human and one way i can do that is through relating to the readers are not emotional level but we all have problems in our lives and fall down and have losses in grief and things we have to suffer through. In this book in particular with amos decker one of the shows even though he had this tremendous brain injury and was not who he used to be he seems aloof and not even part of the world anymore that he still had heart and soul and could still feel things. I know exactly what youre talking about so the relations between decker and that particular character that is my way to show this guy might have changed in a lot of ways but is still big and you can still feel and be vulnerable. As far as i dont necessarily plop these things out a lot of them if im writing them it just feels right if im writing it and you can call it spontaneous but in my subconscious you been trolling on it so long that it affects me spontaneously and comes to the fees surface and i use it when i was supposed to use it. For me i knew i wanted to draw more emotion out of amos decker in this novel and his relationship with this other character you are talking about was critical. Host one relationship we should mention is Alice Jamison who starts out annoying him, i think, in the first book as a journalist who asks too many questions but how does she evolve . Guest if i wanted to critic, shes like watson to his Sherlock Holmes. She keeps him somewhat normal and even keel and kicks him in the butt when he goes too far in does something she thanks is wrong. Hes a steady influence but its frustrating for her to. She is good at her job and wants to be better and understands that he is better than she will ever be because of his unique abilities but that he has issues and together its always important to have a dual like this. You have to be complementary. If you like together they are better than they would be separately for both of them. I like that about them and alex jamison is a critical part of amos decker. I dont think amos decker could be amos decker without her. Host they work for the fbi and fbi his fed in a bit of trouble nationally with accusations fine about their role in things. Someone who has worked with this agency for such a long time, what is your view of the Public Perceptions and the arguing over the role of the fbi right now . Guest all agents i have dealt with without exception are apolitical and dedicated to what they do. They dont have time really for political grandstanding or worrying about an agenda down the road. They are just trying to solve cases and get people doing bad things or catch them before they do bad things. The criticism, im not an agent but it hits me. The bureau does not deserve the Justice Department and not saying you cant criticize institutions but you know, you can criticize individual people who you can show are doing bad things but to say that the fbi and the Justice Department are tainted and corrupt is a broad scale is unwarranted. Host martha is in billings road, montana. Caller hello there. I just reading the alex decker book and i really liked him. I have to tell you at the age of 70 i am madly in love with [inaudible] [laughter] i want to know why you dont give him a girlfriend . Please, someone he can be settled with or something. I just love that man. Host we will talk about john fuller later in the program and it seems like its jane are dangerous to be john fuller. [laughter] guest bad things to happen in the line of fire. [laughter] never say never on that. Hes in essential character so he could find love down the road but he will be back in another book. I do like knox and she may be the one to tame him and to be the one that stands the test of time. Im keeping that in mind but look, i love him too. I think hes a great guy. Host will there be more amos decker books or have you run out . Guest there will be more amos decker books. I reached the Tipping Point and revealing him more and i almost feel liberated. Host next up is joanne and elroy, wisconsin. Caller hello. Yes, ive been at David Baldacci fan for many years and my husband and i just finished watching we got it from the library the king and maxwell tv series, its a little different than the book because i just finished the king and maxwell book which i really enjoyed. I read or i listen to them when i walk and i do the audiobooks so i am really glad you do the audiobooks. The amos decker one is the last mile which was fascinating and i fell in love with that whole series and go back if i will go figure out and read about what happened to him. Guest the memory man i was in the mood to do [inaudible] and amos decker fit the bill with that for a lot of reasons and the last mile in the second one and the other cast that clicked and that was impossible for me because it was about the injustice and the Death Penalty and all of that and it gave amos decker [inaudible] and a guy on his level and i did get a lot of emails about those guys and they said when will melvin come back because he wasnt in the fall one and [inaudible] host declan is in washington dc. Caller hello, david. This is jack lane, an old friend. Guest oh my gosh, how are you doing . Caller so proud and so happy with what you have been doing over the past several years. Guest thank you. Caller i have a question that weve been pondering here in my family with amazon, hq to headquarters, trying to figure out what to put that and the major cities are vying for that and i often wondered if perhaps it would be a Patriotic Service or National Service if jeff measles would consider just basically providing, if you will, and industry for the state of West Virginia or another state. Guest yeah, i would agree with that too. The headquarters, Second Headquarters of amazon would be a huge shot in the arm for any community. I know the criteria they have to. Im sure they want a highly educated workforce and want to have other amenities and things in the area that would attract people dared West Virginia has a lot of those things as well and i certainly think communities like that should be in the running. I dont know what their exact criteria are or the final decision but amazon is sent out some of the cities still in the running a list of things they did not like about the places and apparently they want them fixed. Im not sure how you do that. I dont know what the issues are but its weird when one company has that much power. You have all these communities collapsing and clamoring for these jobs during out this money to them and its extraordinary. Host jeff bezos is a parttime washingtonian. Have you met him . Guest no, i have not had obviously when amazon first started out in the used Book Business he got it out of his garage in the mid 1990s and the fact that in 20 some odd years hes built this enormous company is quite an achievement. But its a lot going on. Host jaclyn is a former colleague here in washington is a good jumping off point for what i want to do is which spend time telling your story to the audience. It all began as a twentyyear overnight sensation. [laughter] it was absolute power. Your First Successful novel. Logged in as a reader. And my mom when i was about seven or eight of me a blank page journal some of the stuff you could write in. As soon as my pen hits the paper it was like i can create something other people can enjoy what i do and i wrote a short story for 15 years, to the atlantic and story magazine when i was in high school, very little success in doing that. I wrote screenplays and had a couple of options that nothing had a lot of success and then i decided to try my hand at longform. I would walk past the white house and they would occasionally see a secret Service Agent and im thinking what if i write a book that makes the stereotypes so as to president and mistress and cover up. And i know that seems like its ripped from the headlines but back then it wasnt and i spent three years of my life writing which is pretty intense work but when i would write from tonight until like three in the morning every day, that was my time. And some of the best fiction i ever wrote as a writer and a lawyer i would spend my whole ten years writing thinking about words and stories and how to tell something so somebody would believe it so for me it was making this transition to where it wasnt that difficult and i would work on projects for years at a time. My whole life has been about that. So it was an easy transition. Years later my mom came back to me and i said what a great gift you gave to me that today and she said im glad this worked out for you but quite frankly i wanted to shut you up because you were on my last nerve as a kid. Host i have two kids and it feels that they felt the same way about you. Guest like you havent changed, you never shut up. Host what was it like when you got the phone call saying the book had been accepted . Guest it was surreal. I just joined recently and they had no idea who i was. My whole dream is to write fulltime. At first i thought it now i find out hes a whack job. After this it changed my life. They started doing the electric slide all the way down the Conference Room table. That is all i wanted to do. And because it was newsworthy, we had to go and tell all of our friends and family none of them knew i was writing. We were telling people we have some good news to share so we went there. We are going to pick up the story. I usually see you u at the barns and noble bookstore, so its kind of a treat to talk to you. A couple of things, in the fall you exposed me to this whole structure of the Fulfillment Centers and as mentioned earlier you had actually visited one, but in the book you also bring up the working conditions in the east Fulfillment Centers. Are they becoming the sweatshops of the 21st century or do they have the potential . Are these places that are right for being unionized or as new kind of sad in the book, this is just a temporary boom for the Employment Opportunity for folks when robots may be taking over a large part of those responsibilities. Guest those are great questions. They have the potential to be the sweatshops of the 21st century. Its all some productivity and when you have these packages youve got to get out the door there is no humanly way possible you can compete with a robot that never gets tired or needs a restroom break so they should be right but whether that can happen or not i dont know. I think that they can be and are being exploited because for 12 an hour you shouldnt literally have to work yourself to death for ten hours a day. In the long run it is cheaper than these jobs. Robots monday will do all those things and you will have the Fulfillment Centers you will have two people that work in them and they see this stuff going on behind computer screens and robots will do all the work. As it is noted in the book he talked to a guy explaining this and said if they are going to do all the work, who is going to buy all that stuff on the shelves and his answer was i dont think that they figured that out yet. I think somebody needs to. Host if you are a regular watcher you know we have spent 20 years looking at nonfiction authors and their work. Our channel is going to be celebrated its 20th anniversary this september but for this particular year on our indepth series we have been focusing on fiction and the reason is their stories also help us understand the society and we are going to talk about a lot of issues in our three hours together so if you are new, welcome and we hope that you will enjoy our programming and if you are a regular book tv viewer hope that they will enjoy this for 12 times this year. Bill is watching us in alaska. Hello, bill. Caller good morning. Books on the shelves coming as you know the history for centuries authors incomes were based on actual books sold and the announcements on papers to release thousands the first day and so on. Is that still happening . It seems like its gotten to a point where people are not buying books and what is the effect on incomes of authors . Three to four years ago i think they hit their height and really piqued the sales markets went to the floor in the early for me i had six or seven books in a row where each book sold more than a million which was those were really high numbers probably three years ago it started to plateau and it started to go down again. Maybe just the fact that there is fatigue. It may be an issue for some people and there was a big fight with some of the sellers and publishers. At the same time, i could look at my own statements i get, the print books started to go up again, the covers or going up again, downloadable audio has exploded. Its the Fastest Growing category now in the country. And i think people could download it fro on there i and listen to stuff. But for a while they had really taken over the entire industry. I think things are getting back more into balance. At this point in my career i am a full partner with the publisher, so they go up and what we are trying to do is increase it and as it gets bigger i make more money and the publisher makes more money but for a lot of writers out there, that ebooks were a good thing for some that couldnt be done traditionally. But it also could end up being a bad thing. It is a complicated area. Host what are your habits both with how you read and take notes and because you travel so much. Guest my wife used to be a bookseller and now her notebook is loaded and she reads a lot. I read online on my phone. Funny i like to take a look out and smell it, hold it, feel it and turn the pages myself. As far as notes and all that, wherever i go, my laptop goes with me. But do still do pan for ten notes because i felt like that is the thing i wanted to do it. I dont have the keyboard between me and what i want to see. Host did you go to Catholic School . Catholic writing i thought maybe that was from childhood. So, the, im wondering if of your books have descriptions. You see that character in front of you when you are reading. Do you watch everybody and take notes about how people dress and wear their hair from later on when you are writing . Guest i love to watch people and these days im in front of the camera and in front of them talking tha but i would prefer to be in the back watching everybody. People fascinate me how they relate to each other or something so they dont and other mannerisms and how they hold themselves and what they talk about. So, all of that for me is material. As a writer i just think that you have to be a good observer and listener. Those are two attributes. You cant be the main center of attention you have to be eavesdropping and watching everybody else and for me people ask me where do you get your ideas from. I say i get up everyday and walk out the door. I do not have my face buried in an iphone. Im watching and trying to seize the potential. I saw two people talking on the corner had one of them turned and walked down the alley and i think what is going to happen to the person who just walked down. So i try to take it and extrapolate that to something that might be interesting. Host youve reference to your wife michelle and the conversations of all times. Guest we met at a vegetarian barbecue and neither of us is a vegetarian but its just the way that it happened. The first thing she said to me she insulted me. I was a trial lawyer full of myself and i felt a tap on my shoulder and i turned about and there she was. She said i heard people saying you are a lawyer. She wanted to hear a story i thought. She said can i give you some advice. Stop telling people that. Then she turned and walked away. I was like i have to date her. [laughter] it took me a long time to find out who she was. She just moved to the area. I heard she had been on a motorcycle accident. That wasnt true. I found her number and called and we went to lunch because lunch is easy. If it isnt working out, you are out of there in an hour. We went to the old nathans in georgetown and we sat in a booth and we were there for three hours. I remember before i went to mother was a lawyer that i worked with and before the launching a walk to my briefcase and aunt had like nine ties, what do i want to wear. I gave it and we dated for a couple of years and just celebrated our 20th anniversary yesterday. Host congratulations to both of you. And you have two kids. What did they end up doing . Guest our daughter is in the notforprofit world. And before that that is all she ever wanted to do. That is the most important work we have done is raising them. Host is it hard for them to have such a famous dad . Guest when she was in College People said my dads part of the name is skip. Everybody started calling me skip. Im like whats happening here. My son would tell people that neither one of them has ever walked in my shadow. They have their own lives. Herriot in bloomsburg pennsylvania. Caller it is a pleasure meeting you. I am such a big fan of starbucks but i immediately pre order as soon as i get my news from amazon. My question im very familiar with how you write yours and your descriptions are absolutely wonderful and it puts me right there. I thought how does he do this. Is this being done while you are writing the book or is it that you have pretty much completed the book and fill it in afterwards . Before i sit down to write a book i think about the subject areas i need to learn about to write a book while and in a very authentic way through him i going to talk to so that is one of my battle plans if there is a place. But at the same time as im writing the book, ive gone and visited other places. The more interesting plot twists i can come up with because i know information that maybe isnt Common Knowledge and that it is stuff you can easily look up so i like to visit the places and talk to people. You seem to get into places other people couldnt. I have become a journalist and what ive always done, and my sister was a journalist. I quickly learned theres a couple of things one, find out as much as you possibly can so that when you are talking to them on the phone or sending an inquiry interest in immediately this out of the blue and i respect that. If you can get someones respect, they are more open to you. When i go in and get backgrounds and i can ask questions because they can quickly tell whether ive done my homework at all. If you havent, then people that work in these agencies the interview is going to be short so i would ask questions and show them im respecting what they do, they get more comfortable and i tend to ask broadbased questions. Its something that theyve worked for and they like to share those stories. It shows me what excites them about their work and i can bring that sort of into their. The breakthrough of absolute power as we go along here with the powers and they were ten to 12 pages long and now they seem to be three to four pages long. They also seem to always leave you wondering what is going to happen in the next chapter. Theres a hook line at the end how did your writing style evolved . Guest i think they need to continually work on themselves and part of it was becoming a lot more economical in my word and my descriptions and my dialogue. If it was sort of part and parcel of the screenplays i could write where every word counts. Every scene had to have multiple purposes. So i would say im going to streamline because a lot of the story im going to pull the potency of it is diluted by me not being able to. Im trying to write everything out without regards to the sto story. You could be going through a particular scene into Something Else is going to happen and then the last line is and that didnt happen because. Then you turn the next page. People say you know, i am really mad at you. Why is that . Because i cant get any sleep. Its 4 00 in the morning. But the book down, but i cant. Its all about reinventing yourself into keeping yourself fresh, energetic. I never want to ask myself this question. I always want to ask the question how can i do it differently Going Forward. Host mik mike is in bridgept delaware. Caller i just wanted to share an anecdote about how he first became acquainted in your writing. I was in the airport and did a lot of traveling and worked for the federal government, as an auditor and investigator and i went over to the area and i saw this with absolute power and i looked at the jacket and i said this looks like it might be interesting. So i bought it and i sat down and while i was reading it i thought this would make a really terrific movie. As i was reading the book i thought i have already seen th this. Lets see. What i like about your writing is how you hook the reader from the very beginning and like the lady was saying she cant get any sleep how do you change your technique at the chapters so fast. And that is what i like so much about your writing is that you cant put the book down and as soon as you pick a new one up you get hooked on it from the very beginning so i appreciate what a turkish writer you are. Host every writer likes to hear calls like that. That is a great segue into hearing how you had the movie rights have been. What was the story . Guest there were a number of studios building on it simultaneously. What happened is they have both agents that are in all of the publishing houses and people feel and they send it out to hollywood right away. So, back then probably five or six of the major studios were bidding for the rights. This was before cell phones. Penn station and payphones. I got like ten people behind me and warner bros. And paramount, they were all on the line bidding on this book as the price keeps going up. Im shouting over the phone certain things and no idea what i said. People behind me were looking like this man, we should call the police and have them taken away. I had gotten home on the train and it was the whole period but i told myself one thing, never forget this because this is the time this is going to happen for the first time. Everything else is secondary to that. And with Clint Eastwood i got a call from before eastwood signed on so they called and said i have great news for you and bad news for you. Hes the store director, congratulations we are going to make the film. I got Clint Eastwood, unbelievable. Whats the bad news . The iconic filmmaker, your book is pretty much they wanted it to be a mother or daughter picture and a young lawyer was going. Even to that point when i was on the train when i heard that news they had payphones on the train back then and i had a credit card. I got on the phone and called everybody that ive ever known in my whole life. You are not going to believe what has happened to me. [laughter] host how old were you . Guest 34. Host and this kind of happened so fast after 20 years. You must have been hard to process. Guest it was dreamlike integrating was something new. I was on [chanting] channel nine. They wanted me to come on and talk about it at the end so are you handling and doing all that, we can stop you right there. I always wanted to say this. I paused and said my lawyers are handling it. I heard later on everybody was cheering. Every lawyer has wanted to say that. Host how long until you quit the wall from . Guest i stayed for almost a year because we just joined, my partner and i just joined, he was recently hired after the distinguished loan curvier. We had been brought over to the Corporate Department for that and i didnt want to leave after that. We had been together for a long time. I stayed on and i was going to be on book tours. I went in and said im not being the best lawyer i can be. Jennifer is in richmond, your hometown. Caller hello, how are you new. I was actually calling i love how do you go back into the thick i was shocked and didnt think that they would carry on the character that i was actually calling what advice do you have for a 13yearold who wants to be a lawyer but also wants to be a writer . That is a great question. I was in the same situation. I would say join a book club or writing group and you will find a lot of people with similar interests. There are a lot of organizations around. They encourage people to go into the wall and look at some of those or summer camps. But they share a lot of commonality so you might find there are people there that have the same dreams. I would say open up a blank page journal and start writing something down. It doesnt have to be anything that comes out of their head. It could be a little plot or narrative, some observations and to do that every day. At 13yearsold you havent seen a whole lot of life. Write about what you would like to know about because passion can drive you to create storytelling. Host we are going to take one call from nancy in stafford virgin and then we will show you a little bit of the trailer from absolute power. You are up. Guest caller it is nice to be able to put a face with the book. I am 80yearsold and i have neurological problems so i cant hold my head still to read. I listen to audio books and i started listening to them. I try to get other seniors to listen to them but they cant understand how you can listen to a book. So, i just want to thank you for all of the books that youve written. I cant recall one specific one. Ive listened to probably four or five books a week. I can listen to a voice because i live alone and its nice to hear another voice i can visualize that getting down to scenes changing in a movie and they dont have the same pair of shoes on they have in the last scene. I can visualize things like that. So, thank you for all of your books. Host what a nice call. Do you read all of your own audio books for the readers . They are not hearing my voice, they are professional actors. I have learned my strengths and weaknesses and breathing, but isnt onthatis if one of my str. It is a performance though. They act out these themes and there is a lot of drama. I think 158 is phenomenal but its a whole other experience. I sat in my garage listening with the car running listening to one of my books to see how its going to end even though i wrote it and i know how it is going to end because it is a different experience. Host this is the book and then the movie that made you a household name in the country now over 140 million books in print and we will show you how it all began and then after that we are asking those details of their own authors and youll see the list. It will be about three minutes and then we will be back with our number two. The murder weapon has disappeared. The killers identity has been concealed. Clint eastwood, laura linney, hugh david and scott klein. Absolute power. And we begin our three hours on cspan2 booktv. We are learning about his writing life and his own personal life and how they all blend together to produce 140 million books in print. How many countries now . Guest over 100. Host how many languages . Are you popular . Your last name is popular. Are you popular in italy . Guest my first book just because the publishers called up and said we loved the book absolute power but you have to change the name. He said italians want to read american thrillers, so with this name they think you are telling in and they are not going to buy the book. Much like american films. What sort of name do they want . I looked out in the driveway and saw the blue emblem. It isnt going to be my name on there. Host it must be now. Guest my third book i was David Baldacci and then ever since absolute power. What is your interaction with the italian readers . Guest we promised we would Start Talking about john poehler. Who is this . Guest he investigates crime involving personnel around the world. Host what does it stand for . Guest criminal investigation. They will investigate minor crimes. We will talk for ten to 12 minutes into an begindoublequotes and so if you have questions about this particular series you are welcome but you can ask about any of the works we are here to learn about his writing so join in the conversation for numbers on the screen and we will also give you the twitter address as well. John has a very famous father. Legendary guide and a three star and his name is general poehler. I kept thinking about the legendary marine. That is where it came from. With the political differences with eisenhower he volunteered for combat duty in vietnam but of course they did an didnt ham go. They were ready to fight. Host u. S. Military readers and they ar theyre in a spot te not true to the realities might add in all of his own goals. A friend of mine is a retired with tenant colonel and i said im going to write a book of a military character. They spin you ar around until youre sick to your stomach and then eat grass is what they call it. I did Fitness Training are at a sergeant behind me and in front of me and you do one hour nonstop of this circuit that emulates what they do on the field and then everybody from private to the two two star, t the. To continue to do that they were writing this phenomenally. I wanted to do some of the things these people did and also talk to them. You have to be a good listener. Thats all there is to know about me. We get out of the car and then you go down the alleyway and as he said true to catch bad guys. So we were walking out of an alley and i think his street name was peanut. We passed this fence walking pass something on the other si side. So i am like stun stammering back. With his teeth hes trying to pull off another board so he can get through the opening. So i look and say what do we do and he said we run. So we ran down this alley trying to repel this motherboard. I looked at him and said what is that and he said that these psychos dog. The jumping at fort benning was quite weird as well and dicey but you have to do it because there were paratroopers. Host it came out in 2011, 2012, 2014, 2016. Is this typical for you they want to tell those . Guest i was also enthusiastic about the character. I wanted to keep involving the character. The last four spring 15, 16, 17 and 18 in succession. When you get energized about the character you want to spend time with them on the page. Host theres a couple of things i want to have you talk about. Once again we return to the scene of the economically stressed towns. This is a coal mining town and sounds like your family roots. What is the story that they were telling . Guest it is a talented that has seen better days. Its right on the border. If you are in southWest Virginia, these towns are all along about asia. I like making up places and people cant write any and say its not on the Street Corner you said it is. No, i made it up. But its a place that had a military footprint and there is an object there was an enormous dome. He comes across it and its sort of over by the military from four years ago and nobody knows what is inside. Its all covered and reclaimed. I like going to these small towns looking at its history little by little and shoving it has secrets that nobody was aware of. Its almost like peeling away the layers of an end until you get to the core. I like reading these books and concocting stories where i turn it on and off and people sort of overtime realize i never saw that coming. Host are there places from world war ii that have dangerous material in them . Guest the epa didnt exist until nixon created it. It was just easier and more costeffective to leave it behind and move on and go someplace else. But obviously that has repercussions. Host you told me during the break that you did more Research Work in almost any of the others. Why is that . Guest is a complicated piece. Theres all these acronyms and rules and regulations and tradition. Just understanding you have to get into the weeds a little bit. I need to know how to write this so when he pulls out a weapon, i dont have to describe it in great detail. Everybody knows that it is a firearm hes going to pull out because that is what the kerry. Or the particular duffel bag used for investigations were the uniform, what do you have to wear on certain days whether he is the cover on or off. But they have that mentality its really hard to do that. I never want to write a flip book. Its where theyve done a lot of research and want to leave it all on and dont want to integrate the stories. They find a spot and slept in their slap it in their. Host we are going to take some calls. Massachusetts. Hello, welcome. Are you there . Guest caller i am here, thank you. My question is kind of fact versus fiction. Theres a lot of evil in the world of that informs your writing and you have characters like jessica out there saving the world from the evil and i believe that evil does exist. Im also wondering why theres all these characters and probably reallife that are always trying to tie the hands, trying to save the world. Host those are good questions. Every country has enemies. Some have more than others. We certainly have more than our fair share. It is a tricky balance. We live in a democracy with a wad of Civil Liberties and rights. So you want people to be able to do their job and protect the country, but you also have to achieve a balance. We dont want someone to do something that would interfere with someone elses constitutional rights. So, sometimes people take shortcuts. They dont get awards when they are supposed to where they take a shot they shouldnt have. People make mistakes, too. I like the idea that people are working and risking their lives to protect us from evil. But at the same time understanding that nobody is ever free. One thing i learned i that i lew school is the slippery slope is very slippery and once you sort of cut back on peoples rights, then its much easier to cut back on the enforcement of all rights and it is a slippery slope where none of us really want to be. So, protecting peoples rights at the same time protecting everyone from evil is a tricky balance but i like the challenge in the books i write because complicated stories i think make for great fiction. Host you have hundreds of ways for people to buy your books. How do you deal with the psychological . Guest kind of the dark side of me i guess. When i my kids were little we didnt have the house at that point does my wife made me do it because it could be locked and all these crimes and murders and how people do bad things. Again i am fascinated by this stuff and i think that it is a good way to when i write about books like that its fascinating and if you would like to read about them i think that my books allow me to com kind of do thatt for me its part of what i do. I read the whole book while i was in a shopping mall. I was intrigued with how you could apply the intrinsic science and resolve issues. I knew about a lot of different subjects. I could write about implausibly and a good story. Caller i love all of your books. I have another question i want to ask you about one summer. How did that book come about because i laughed and i cried. That was a great book. I was at a book signing in atlanta and i walked up to give my remarks and a guy stood up, has a huge hole and stuffed camel he raised it 10 feet in the air and yelled out what do you think i want more of and i looked at him and i looked at the camera and was like medication . If i can think of a great story to bring them back, i will. And believe me i havent stopped thinking about them. I would like to if i can. As far as one summer, one summer on the havent because my son was having his confirmation in Catholic Church which is kind of the last big catholic rites before you get married and last rites when you pass away. My wife sent me to church because there were friends i was there like an hour and a half early it was just me and the priest. My dad passed away and my mom wasnt doing well. My youngest was being confirmed, life is moving on. I think i was thinking about my own mortality. The hour and a half i was alone in the church was instilled in my head and i spent the next two months writing it. Nobody knew that i was writing it. So i sent it to them and my publisher was like where did this come from . My wife sent me to church for mass. Can you go to church more often . [laughter] caller the lady from texas guard in front of me from the camel club, thats what i was going to ask. I have read approximately 90 of all of your books and loved them all. And if i had time, the divine justice, ive got it in my mind it was on page 196. The driver of the van and that one page was the best writing that ivive ever read. It was just outstanding. What i like is you captured us in about the first three pages and then were gone. I dont know if it is your writing instructions or editors but i like the fact that your chapters are short for ten most books and you have periods at the end of pages. I just got done reading one i think it had like 13 pages before there was one with a period at the end. Now that is because im elderly and id like to feel like i could stop. Host do you feel most of them know your books and they really like them . Guest i think thats probably maybe 20 are on a particular character. The rest over the last 20 years or so, last five years in particular i have people coming in with cards and every single book ive written. I cant remember the last time i did a bit event i didnt have at least two or three people there with every single book ive written. It was much more to the point of the majority as youve written including the kid stuff. Host do you have a recall of almost all of the bucs . There are people in specific chapters youve writtechapter i. Can you recall all of them . Guest if you give me the name i can recall the plots and all that. I dont use ghost writers, it is me that writes all the books. Host total recall. Jean and washing them. Caller i am just so excited. I have two personal questions. How do you stay married it sounds like you sleep only three hours ive been impressed by the books that were displayed that you said were your favorites. Its impressive. How did yo do you choose another authors books and how often you get to read . And god bless you for being there. Im going to hang up. Caller i waited until everybody was asleep. We had one kid. My wife was probably very glad i wasnt around. I spent time with them and family is very important. The second question how do i choose what to read . I have recommendations for friends and family and they will say youve got to read this book. A lot of times i get hundreds of these a year and others will simply publishing books. Tongueincheek i say i will read it but sometimes i will give it to my wife or friend and my wife will read a little bit of it and say you should read this, this is cool. A friend of mine used to be my editor she liked to go to another Publishing Company and sent me a book that shes publishing. I know you get hundreds of these each year but this is something that you will enjoy. People ive loved reading since i was in high school and college and they continue to publish and i continue to read them. Host one thing that is notable you constantly promote other writers. Guest we need new writers out there telling us stories and one way to do that is to support them. When i was a new record coming up there were those that would support me and give me the benefit of their experiences. So id like to do that with other writers. I would give them the benefit of all of the mistakes that i made. Host there are some that are not up and coming. So we did that podcast together which was a blast its not like that show where they sit around playing cards, castle. But we get to together from time to time and talk shop trying to catch up. Next question from pennsylvania. Caller yes. My comment is i got in the weeds of my father he forced us to read so when we argued he wanted facts not just emotions thats how i got into reading but what i saw based on your book did they take a lie the liver one liberty . The first act is right from the book the burglar and what he sees. And then after that everything changed. Because Clint Eastwood wanted to be the hero of the film and back then he was enough also in the book the character is killed halfway through. But the one time that he died back then then he came back. [laughter] he cant die. So back then they had to change the second and third act in the film. We have a twitter comment most want to be writers would be taken aback and you had to borrow money from the taxi driver to get from the nbc studio in new york. [laughter] a client of mine and we scored a great victory. And then to borrow money from a cabdriver to get to nbc studios and also to get out of parking garage. Before that ive never even been on a television show. That i was a totally different person. Back to the hero the most recent event and the relationship continues that he has dementia. So tell me about the family dynamic and the story we are telling. There is a lot of opportunities to have action and that is all well and good but i needed to have some emotional component where you can relate to this guy on a human level. So a father who was a legendary combat commander who always walked in the shadow to be a shell of what he was and to always know he would never measure up that was the albatross around his neck. So for me, the emotional baggage was from john junior and john senior and he can no longer and because of that. Host they wanted him to have a relationship his relationship with his brother evolved in the whole story is the disappearance of their mother there is a lot of family dynamics. Its not and to come closest to be with him for a long time but i have the same problem people would write that after the first two books. Some people were very graphic and i said there was an old sitcom with bruce willis and cybill shepherd. It was a great tv series until they fell in love and got in bed together than the magic fell away. That is that sexual dynamic and sexual tension is a great thing but once it is resolved. Host s and their explicit sex scenes in your book . But sex sells. But i also like to leave it up to the imagination. The shower scene from psycho no violence its all in your imagination. Host next from West Virginia. Caller hello mr. David baldacci i have been a fan of yours for many years. Beginning with absolute power to wishing well and in between i have read your books in english and german and i would like to ask you, a book with my experience as a child with germany in world war ii and it entails events about my family and where we lived and what its like right next to the swiss border so we were very fortunate. However we did feel the effects of the war and saw the bombs falling. So i went into quite a bit of detail so then coming to america which is extremely emotional for me to see. What i would like to know everybody who has read this encourages me to write a book and publish it. How do i go about this . Host i bet you get that question. There are a couple of ways even if you want to get your traditional mainstream publisher providers digest writers magazine you can find some agents some in washington dc or other placements they will tell you they specialize in memoirs or nonfiction. Send them a query letter the first chapter in two or three other sample chapters no longer than a paragraph or two or three chapters they will be the make it back to you at some point and then an agent to represent you or if you want to publish yourself you can do that online with barnes noble and amazon and have a platform to self publish but your book sounds interesting you might want to get an agent to publish it first. That would be my advice. Host in no mans land the main character is paul rogers. He is the subject of military experiments to increase soldiers capabilities on the battlefield is there such a thing as our product of your imagination . Yes those that are already in effect those that the capacity those are already deployed. About making the minds on the field more precise and lethal. Survey of highly qualified and intelligent people there are all sorts of things. There is work going on to repair those that are on the battlefield how does that work . Allied of the soldiers were iraq and afghanistan wars. These are non survivable loans and then they are airlifted out and then they have this amazing work done but at the same time and the soldiers, thank god they are life that they may have missing arms or legs or brain injuries talking to troops years ago in their different places and walter reed and those for traumatic brain injuries. And he had been injured he was at the tbi camp that he lost both of his legs because of an iud and what are you doing and whats your names response is very slow and i could see he was struggling and then i pulled his doctor aside and said but hes not tbi. He has been blown up they are all tbi. They just call them amputees because they lost a limb but his plane was knocked around hundred times in the school he was blown up so yes we can fix the soldiers but it leaves them a lot of challenges. Host do you spend time with veterans . I do. Yes ive been to the air force base in germany and i continue to do more of that because iraq and afghanistan wars and all the guys you talk about all those that died in the war talk about the 100,000 that were injured and 181920 yearold people. Joe thanks for waiting for montana. Caller yes. I stock your book so i can read them on airplanes because im a terrible flyer and i get so engrossed then i forget about any fears that i have. It works like a charm. How come you dont have an accent . My wife lived on monument avenue and never lost it even in montana. A good question ridgewood has its own virgin one version just like charleston. She was born on a naval base she moved all over including atlanta my wife will tell you she puts on the richmond voice. [laughter] but i think mine has been out because i travel a lot and living in the dc area but for any period of time the southern drawl can come back texas judy you are on. Caller mr. David baldacci i am wondering are you planning any more books in the future . There will be more theres more than i have to write to be he has a lot of baggage and the no mans land you saw what happened to his mother and a lot of things ahead of him i think his character has a lot more room to grow and havent touched the relationship with his brother yet when they got out of prison and escape he will be back. That is that will stand alone book and thats the name of the book and the foundation. Tell me of the story of wish you well and why its so important to you. You speak about it emotionally. By far the most personal book of ever written. And every element based on my moms life growing up in southWest Virginia. And in 2004 they finally had Running Water and electricity. 2004. A very hard life. Host we have some pictures we will put on the screen. She had a lot of siblings but a difficult life an incredibly strong person. She was a force of nature but by writing the story i heard all the stories from my mom and grandmother who lived with us the last ten years of her life. And we were talking about the civil war. And she had a great uncle who fought in the war and he left her something the only thing she had was in 1861 rifle. In even had a bloodstain on it. Thats in my office at home my grandmother said the only thing wrong about that but i would pull her chain and said but we one. [laughter] thats a longrunning battle between us so that was my way even with my own mother i sat down for multiple interviews and hundreds of pages of notes of her recollection that happened several years before. I asked her about that when she said you go you will never forget it. What did she think of the book . That was on the most dramatic moments of my life. We both cried when she finished reading the book. I said thank you because thats all that mattered. She didnt live to see the film but i think she would have liked the film of what life was like back then. Host asking the producer to put the photograph with a gentleman with a checkered shirt back on the screen. Yes the guy with a half is my grandfather he passed away before i was even born. s name is columbus so if you read by columbus roads ltd thats i get the name of my company from. That is a coolest name and then my other grandfather 6foot 4 inches who also died before i was born nobody at richmond to pronounce any of my names so they just called him mike. What generation was he in the United States . And immigrant coming from italy the last century and a lot of the times they got on the train and got up on the first stop on the south so there is a huge Italian Community because of that. Will take more calls and then how the book also became the foundation for the David Baldacci family. Caller hello mr. David baldacci. I very much enjoy your book. And i do encourage you to bring the club back when you get there. My concern is you dont write quick enough. [laughter] because i have read all of your books have to wait so long for another to come out. I have not read the fallen. To the library to get it. I am 92. I am on the waiting list. I will wait. It will come. I do enjoy your work and i ask you to continue with your wonderful talent. Thank you so much for listening. A wonderful comment. Glad you enjoy it so much. My wife keeps telling me to slow down. Host libraries seem to be on the decline in our society. Im a big fan of libraries they made a huge difference in my life. I think the use of libraries is going up the funds that we support them is going down people use the Community Centers to go online because the job resume is posted there they have had to evolve but the problem is there are fewer books on the shelf and fewer librarians working so for me that is putting money to invest in our future and that made me the person that i am today the person that youd want to have in society all the Founding Fathers look at them. And welleducated men you can tell from the letters they will in letters they drafted were intelligent and well read people but thats why we have this great country so why should we not be well read . I am reading the fallen right now what number does it stand for the nfl . My football number in High School Number 68 that definitely would have fit what he did on the playing field. Hello charlie. I started to read your books mr. David baldacci i get mine from the library also. I just finished the maxwell and the psychoanalyst and the consequence the brother had torn down the rosebushes outside the house so did i read something that reference that like another character . Or is that something i read in the charlie book . The rosebush you are talking about is memory reconstruction of what happened to her parents when she was a little girl and the reason why she loves garbage. The cover is up so you have to read the novel to know what that means. So that rosebush incident happens in virginia if you have that recollection it could have been from another book for another series but thats like him i have used that. Host you had some difficult challenges over the past five years a scandal within your organization, whats going on . The secret service is an interesting agency that large amounts of tedium and thats difficult to do longterm. And the things that happened over the years and agents going off and doing things . And they needed a total housecleaning. And then we have a tremendous problem. And then we can go off and have some fun. And there is a lot of agents there that did not do any of that. And a member of the gold standard. And people are human and then make bad judgments. Hello. I just want you to know i become one with your book and i need nitro by my bedside. But that is how i get. So do you yourself become part of it . And then we need to grab some nitro for the chest pains. Even though i am writing and creating it that is that emotional connection is your writing a novel. Kansas go ahead what is on your mind. Caller i am here. I have a question. The outline, do you know the twist and turns and exact endin ending . I never know the ending of the book i sit down to write. I know the outlines outline from start to finish. But i just type to a conclusion almost as a reader you read the last page first to see if its okay but for me not knowing the ending. They wish you well foundation when did you start it . We started that in the year 2000 with those programs across the country. And from those organizations we approve as many of those as we can and of those of all 50 states and will continue to do so. We accept donations from other people and we get a lot of donations as well. But ive never seen a reading. Is not just enjoying a book on the beach. If you cannot read at a sufficient level you cannot be an Effective Member of democracy. We are in the Information Age as we saw the last election a lot of stuff is thrown at you every day if you cant differentiate between what is real and what is not then they will not tell you what to think that we need to be a nation of readers again. Even today if youre a mechanic to have those strong cognitive skills and all of that but we are in the Information Age we are at the forefront of that and with the food banks and the big white box in the prepared to have the box shift where they were collected we collected nearly 2 million books and those that have poor reading skills with job prospects. How much money does the foundation raise . Hundreds of thousands each year. Host you get many more applications. Absolutely. But very little government money ask them how they feel about that but the government starts funding the de facto to acknowledge that program in one of those leading proponents. Host did you Work Together . Yes we did. And with that literacy theyve done a lot of great things. Host and then a donation to your elmo matter what is that money for . That is to endow a couple of things. And to allow Financial Assistance for people but there is another and we set up for exponential learning. So before the 2016 election my wife and i paid for 20 students to travel to the New Hampshire primaries but the party of money allow students in dc to travel the world to engage in the exponential learning experiences. And with that political campaign. You have to spend all four or five years in your life. And they want to learn and study and get ahead agree a degree. Host Fort Walton Beach go ahead in florida. Caller hello mr. David baldacci im honored i found you today. My eye doctor signed me up for congressional tapes so i listen to you on tape. Thats great. Its one way to read a book its a different sense but thats okay its the same story i like to listen to books on audio its a different experience. Its another dramatic way to experience. Host kirkland washington. Caller hello. Hello mr. David baldacci i am a self published author on amazon. I know i am missing on messing things up by not having a publisher. Have you ever had a character in a role in one of your books you are very attached to but they want you to change that character or how you fit into the role and you didnt want to . Thats a really good question. I have never encountered that. Given the comments about Plot Development or the character arc of a particular person in the novel they say we dont want this character i dont think its right for the story. But those relationships are important to me with my editor that has edited my last 20 books Mitch Hoffman he was a publisher now hes an agent but we got along so well they allow him to edit my books maybe thats one time its ever happened but hes a great guy. I dont want to start over at this point in my career i like the comfort of having mitch. So at this point its very unlikely the publisher will tell me dont do something if they want me to write the book they know after 20 novels thats what im doing. But you should listen to editors you dont always have to agree with them and at the end of the day you are the king and queen of the story and you can do what you want but its always very respectful to listen all they are trying to do is make the story as good as it possibly can be. Host st. Petersburg florida go ahead. Caller hello mr. David baldacci. Contrary to the other callers i have never read any of your books. Ive always been a nonfiction reader. However listening to you you these couple of hours i cannot wait to read your books. But which one do i start with . For first time readers its called the winner or the widow and the third novel that i wrote. Its called the winner you can play the lottery nobody will ever find out its not a crime to do that. But i can make you rich. So a lot of people they find out then they do but there are always consequences for decisions like that most people read the winner say they love the story if thats the first book then i thank you will enjoy that. Host on facebook heres a question i read your book while simultaneously watching the movie. Can one participate in an auction to have a character named after us . Absolutely. I have done that over the course over 22 years maybe 100 times. Charities come to me its a great process like united way and can we auction off a character name in the art novel i cant say yes to everybody but i say yes to organizations so i grew up in agreement you have to sign the agreement that basically says i can make you anything no matter how vile were disgusting and in perpetuity if you dont sign the document you dont get in the book. But i have a lot of fun with the characters now this one has five auction names in the book i try to make them interesting and memorable the one im working on now they paid almost 20000 and the money went to buy books for every middle school and High School Student and Nassau County florida. Thats great but the gentleman came over and said do me a favor can you make are evil . Because it was named after his exwife. [laughter] then the wife says this is great just to make me evil. [laughter] so now i have to thread the needle. Host other short break at the top or the bottom of our number 21 hour to go in a threehour conversation with bestselling author David Baldacci if you are on the phone stated we will continue to take your calls. He will be right back. Company will not get my farm and destroy the mountain and ruin the land. They paid you to steal the peoples land. We dont exactly on the land. We just kind of take care of each other. Two things in life you die for, friends and family. Believing in something is a lot better than having on empty hearts. You can find your way off my property. Stop what he doing . The reason i came here, but i want to stay here now because of you. This land is provided for me all of my life. I think it will provide for us now. Host we are back with our number three this is indepth once a month feature on the tv where we talk about the authors life and works spending three full hours how they write in the body of work were lucky to have David Baldacci with us this month for three hours. We keep getting calls about the camel club what is that. Its very unique it is a group of older guys. Not the conspiracy director but oliver stone. And for the Us Government and there is this ensemble love older guys ask military ask military and a conspiracy theorist. I think because it is a unique premise and every characters background to make them real. I was is walking past the white house. And back then people thought it was after 9 11 but it was really after Oklahoma City bombing. And there was one lady who just recently passed away talking about Nuclear Proliferation and had a tent. Now fastforward ten years was that i will have my oliver stone be a protester. And then to have a secret back story thats when i started to write to the camel club. Its dedicated to the secret service. And then the character has relationships. The secret service is omnipresent. And that the secret service in Lafayette Park why do you call it that . They say because that means there will be hell to pay. Whether there is a threat or not they are there every day but the secret service has a job to do and he befriends them and help somewhat similar cases. Host that is your Stomping Ground and there is fictional places because the movie theaters on the wrong corner so there is a lot of readers in this area so how do you do that . Do you walk the streets to make sure you have everything right . Absolutely i try to choreograph. This horrific event happened. So i went to Lafayette Park. Is one im speaking into my phone and taking video have to make sure everything i see is where it is supposed to be so i can write about it later so it has to be choreographed like a movie film set. Everything has to hit its mark. I remember back then there was a guy dressed like a warrior a really nice guy. A caribbean accent highly educated but Walking Around so i am Walking Around and i say to myself i think here would be a really good place for the bomb to go off and as i say that this guy walking past me heres me and says youre crazy. So i go to thes places and then five minutes later youre pulling over in bethesda which would be impossible. But i try to hit the mark because i know that readers are out there. Host the first camel club book is the National Information center. I presume it exist and does it do what you say . Basically data driven admission to find and sometimes kill . Yes. Every country has Something Like that. And we need to protect ourselves against other enemies so they are very data driven with a whole assortment of assets to be deployed. You can send out a single assassin with 100,000 people. Some of the stuff around the world we try to topple dictators but that is a form policy and we always look for ways. If you look at regime change what are the policies . So how do you change your view . Thats why. You take them out. Host you educate us about how much data is compiled on every one of us in the government educating yourself about the patriot act, phone calls, healthcare and records all collated. We have 17 intelligence agencies in the United States including dia which is like the cia except bigger with a bigger global footprint. They are doing something all the time. They collect almost as much information as facebook if you can believe that but it is an information and driven society and right now we talk about that the next war will not be the battlefield it will be cyberwarfare. Thats where it sat. What the russians did in the 2016 election maybe 2 trillion worth of damage to this country thats a pretty good return on investment. I just have to be careful because technology and techniques are changing so fast but keep in mind im one guy sitting in my Office Writing a book. Millions of highly intelligent people who work 24 7 to do both to kill somebody get more information, they have all this Technology Behind them. So i try to hold my own but its a tough fight. Host next color from miami. Caller hello mr. David baldacci. Given the world of trump and you have a liberal and conservative point of view on focusing on his personality versus policy, what is your basic take in terms of government corruption, they all have an agenda, why are they picking on trump instead of the overreach of government and why individual responsibility, why do we tolerate if we are aware and willing to give more freedoms away, what is your take . I dont want you to get into labels but in terms of the liberal conservative spectrum, can you give me a feel . I have read most of your books and i want to get a feel on where you go down with this dispute between the president and the Justice Department or maybe that plays into your books but your own personal viewpoints i would be interested in. Sure. My model is the court is corrupt and i found that in my life it sole power im not talking any particular person but people come and go and institutions we create where we are at today with my personal philosophy no one is above the law. Nash is the way we are as a nation and the institution that we have whether the fbi, Justice Department or Supreme Court or executive branch no one person should ever bring those down. That Richard Nixon if not resigned would have been impeached because of the nixon tapes and he did something wrong bill clinton lied under oath he was impeached by the house was not convicted by the senate that he was impeached. The current president with donald trump for m me, investigations need to go forward because no person is above the law and that makes it different from other places from iran, china and north korea all the places we involve because we are the United States of america based on the rule of law. We dont have to be judged by the same criteria that the institutions we have should be allowed to do their job but if they do something wrong they should be held accountable as well. Facebook question is based on the fact your stories we one revolve around government conspiracy how do you explain popularity and other nations . Thats a great question. A couple years ago i had a new publishing contract that i would be published in arabic. Actually in iran. And i like the fact that was happening that books of might be published in a country that is very autocratic and theocracy. People are intrigued every country has power structures that do bad things but they are intrigued by the highstakes Everybody Knows america. I have been to many countries overseas they know more about our politics then american citizens do because in america the world revolves around what we do as a superpower. I get that that people are intrigued about everything about america. American movies american music, we travel the countries they are all very aware. It is great to be in a country as a citizen you are writing about. Host do ultimately see yourself as a patriot . The good guys always when. For me, i like having that closure so that if we do bad things there is some type of punishment. And as a lawyer i can tell you telling you how much you can spend on your lawyer if you have a good lawyer you are in good shape. Millionaires have committed murder before. And those that are impoverished. And so those that triumph over evil are very important and invalidates that message. Host talking about the president s they pop up as characters in the book you can ever identify the parties. I dont get into that. Thats not something i feel comfortable doing. Ive met for president s. You consider them friends . Yes i have known bush 41 for a long time and clinton as well and george w m barack obama. They all humbly read my books and enjoy them. Because then you put yourself into a box with a label. [laughter] host rockville maryland. Caller good afternoon. Mr. David baldacci, thank you for appearing on cspan. This is very interesting. You were the inspiration for my becoming and novelist. Do you remember marion barry the mayor . Yes i do right out of college i graduated and worked for the District Of Columbia government when i was 22 years old and worked there ten years. I worked in the night house the mayor of the capital of the free world the cocaine user and many vices. When i read your book i saw the movie a big fan of Clint Eastwood and then i thought i can do this i worked for the mayor of the capital of the free world. So i sat down in the nineties i call the capital city and wrote a manuscript and low in the hold we got on your publisher to publish it and they published one year and a half ago. And you, David Baldacci were my inspiration because i almost always read nonfiction im a big fan of robert caro and other writers. And jeffrey to been but i have never read a novel than a professor told me to you are my inspiration. Its a terrific movie and a terrific book everybody in the nineties got computers so it was very easy to write i wrote capital city and lo and behold we got in your publisher. Host thank you. Thats a great story. Congratulations. Host you spend a lot of time also calling in to radio stations and doing book events and signing. You dont need to do that anymore. Why do you . It is a symbiotic world with the book world most are publishers and writers and readers. I like to go out for a couple of reasons. To talk about the books and see the love of the written word and then they are out there. Existing and nonexisting. And then to become moral patrons but and then in turn we all support each other. And then to take out one piece and everything comes falling down. I know how hard they work to build my career. This is what i do to help them. Host writing is a solitary profession. Does getting out in public . I get to stand up and make people laugh and my wife says keep doing that you will not be much fun to be around. [laughter] host Providence Rhode island. Caller good afternoon and thank you for having David Baldacci on today. A thriller archive roundtable a number of years ago. Talking to him was interesting. He did some stories. Talking about absolute power on my flight and the flight attendants were asking me what i was reading because i couldnt put it down. Also told a cute story of going out to dinner and a woman coming across asking who he was. So it was the right profession but the wrong author. But i also wanted to mention that he talked about his literacy and able to fund it. I wanted to tell him that most libraries when you donate to them like the Providence Public Library you can take your money and have it designated to go to the Literacy Program which i do. And thank you for his work in doing that for people who are not able to read and also to get more people out there and more books to people who cant do this. And thank you for that and for the countless hours to read his fantastic work. Thank you very much. We find libraries and programs. We felt we are good partners with them. At Brown University roundtable we had a good discussion. Host great falls montana go ahead. Caller hello. Thank you for taking my call mr. David baldacci. I am an aspiring writer, just starting out. But my question to you from a creative standpoint with the genesis of your stories and novels, is it easier to come up with an interesting character first into the story around the character or easier to come up with the plot and then work the characters into that plot . Thats a great question i have done it both ways. One was the guy who could fix that National Lottery and i came up with that first. But then who will inhabit the plot need villain and a heroin so i did plot and character. For the majority of my novels the characters come first and then the plots go forward. And then to relate to people on the emotional and human basis. The best books i have ever read i cannot remember the plot but i can remember the characters very well. You can read a great story if you great characters they dont care about the story because they dont care what happens to them. No matter what comes first make sure the characters are memorable and people can relate to them. If they have that they will finish the book. Host what about michelle . She knows the story. She will be watching. We were in florida and have a placed on their about a car moved to florida she went to the dealership to sign the papers he was a fan of mine said david this and david that. She didnt say anything and then said what do you do . She says everything else. And it is so true. Because without her, i give her stuff to read in a manuscript she is a voracious reader and reads more than i do. Shes a good critic. I need her to tell me what is right with the book i instinctively know that i need her to tell me what is wrong. Shell say this is a working. I dont like this character. This twisted not work for me. She is my first and best critic. It is a partnership. Host in terms of a life partner are you easier to live around when you are writing are just finished . If i am writing a very pleasant time between stories i get grumpy and grouchy. Is not a job or a hobby but a lifestyle. So if im not immersed in a story and im in between and havent thought what i want to work on i am moody and multi. And michelle knows if i have a story i will be cheerful. Caller i just want to thank you so much. I have several authors that i followed and read and they all seemed to be predictable. You are never predictable. I love your books and reading your books and when i travel, you are always on audio. Thank you so much. Guest i work very hard not to be predictable and i write a lot of different series and try to get out of my comfort zone. This is my first novel and i have no idea what im doing but it gives me an age. Once they figure out i think host on facebook we have questions about jane and the other i became a big fan. When are you releasing the book number for . Is it difficult for you to let [inaudible] guest it is a challenge. Again it is like what yo what yo keep reinventing yourself as a writer. It is like a complete total exercise of imagination creating something out of nothing so for four and a half years thinking about and not getting anywhere and then everything hit the end id written 150,000. I wanted them to buy it for the buck, not my name and because of the way that its written in the tone and the language they thought that i was from england. They have clifford the big red dog. But it was a way for me to challenge myself again. The book will be out next year. Host your earpiece is coming out again so on the next call we will fix it. Marjorie in West Virginia that you are on the air. Caller thank you so much for what you just told us about giving books away at feeding the hungry. I think that it is a marvelous thing to do. My grandson is 22 and wrote his first novel at 18. It is a political thriller. I wonder how do you go about finding publishers and how did you first find your publisher is . Guest i thought it would be a good thing to have a. Of i set up book for them. We talked about the sap wanted to be my agent after. So i went to new york and met with all of the agents that i have to this day he is one of my best friends. So the way you do that to get names from different sources and they will tell you whether they represent fiction, nonfiction and also for his time novelists. A lot of them dont, they will establish firsttime writers. You go online and they have addresses and to send a letter plus three or four other chapters to showcase the writing and you will hear back from them guaranteed. Host we talked about this over the course of your writing career. What are some other significant ways the business has changed in the second, what do you think of this popping up all over the country these days . Guest people came along and it seemed to change. One thing there were probably 16 major publishers but now there are about six because of the consolidation. Way back when it went to the machine and they made copies of the trunk of your car. Now you can go on amazon, barnes and noble, gets marketing and advertising and it is a professional product that has changed and now there are more self published authors making living than ever would have been the case even ten years ago. Peoples Attention Spans are short these days and there were no cell phones were ipad. People didnt have xbox and all that. Now you have to compete with all of that so that isnt something we had to worry about. Now we have to worry about how to make books more interactive and tha the other element of whe are competing against. Im hoping that we dont try to put the square book into into. I think that would be a problem. But the industry has to change and i think change is always good and getting people involved in the book industry not just writers but on the publishing side. Im going to tell you this upfront lots of communities around the country, so never take this for granted because once you start taking it for granted im not going to go this year because theyve got to do this or that and all of a sudden the book festival. Theres like a 874 and we have a couple but nobody watches them. It is listed on page seven. We have to be better at promoting results in handing awards to people and being better promoters because the industries do a better job than we do. Host oyster bay new york. Welcome. Caller thank you for taking my question. When you develop a new charact character, is it in your mind that it might be a series and how do you make sure they are not narrowly defined so they can broaden out in a future book . Guest the first series that i started but i didnt know was going to be a series i thought it was going to be a standalone. The partner up in this book and solve the mystery. At the end of the book i realized they might have been talking about their personal relationship, background, the back story, they teamed u up any had solved the mystery so i wrote another book and another. I knew it was going to be a series from the getgo. I needed to show the potential back stories that i could explode in future books. So from the get go but i didnt tell everything about them and about some secrecy and things you didnt know about their lives so i could further explore them and ive done that with all of my novels. You didnt know anything about them in a zero day or memory man. I continue to sort of explore the connector. So they focused and intense or ill set up but knowing that im not going to be done when the first one is done. Im going to keep going. Host secret Service Agent obviously an important part of that. You talked about how the military opens up the doors to learn about it and also federal agencies. How about the president , the onepresident s, theones youve bh the help guide the writing about making your presence authentic . Guest ive gone to the white house many times when bush 41 and bush 43 were in office. I met bill clinton several times in uif all the potential that hs as a president and what he does, but the routine is and how they come in and go out. Ive been to the white house correspondents dinner. Thats what the public part of the job. But ive had conversations with them also about things that theyve done when they were president and things that the public wouldnt necessarily know about. And things they have to think about. They were acknowledged in the book but just hanging out with them, talking with them and seeing how their life is these were things like used in books and explored to make the fiction even better. Host three hours. If you have a question you can probably get in if you are lucky before the end of the program or send a message and we will try to mix again. It in. Next is donna from chambersburg pennsylvania. Caller hello. I just wanted to say thank you so much for your interesting book. My sister from richmond gave me my first book and it was signed by you and she said i think you will enjoy this because you enjoy reading. I read it and i was amazed. I love your books. Caller with all of my books i try to hit the ground running. I feel like the writer is in control and not the reader. If you are the reader and control it isnt going to be a good read for you. But if you are on your tiptoes and you dont know whats going to happen next, you thought you had it figured out and carefully categorized into what is going to happen, if i can knock you out of all those categories and put you on the edge of your seat and have no idea what is going to come next is a great story. Host you are generally not some attempt to rich people. Guest [laughter] i will be sympathetic if they treat other people with respect. And im not saying that i havent met all the people that dont do that. Ive met a lot of wonderful people. They just dont tend to end up in my books. For a number of reasons. With great wealth comes great responsibility and i go back to the quote about absolute power corrupts absolutely and a lot of money can corrupt people and feel like wealth wasnt something we were ever close to and my life hasnt changed in that regard. I look at everybody as a person but i have seen it. Host how did you prevent your kids who grew up in a privileged lifestyle from having a Second Generation problem . Guest we made sure that our kids are never going to live in a bubble. No, we are not doing that. We will send them to school where lots of kids across the socioeconomic platform and their parents were friends of ours. We went to schooling events and neighborhoods where everybody came from lots of different places. We taught our kids everyone deserves respect and compassion and thats the way you need to conduct their lives. None of the stuff that you have is actually yours and belong to you at all. In your life that they didnt get cars to. They have jobs, they support themselves, they have their own independent lives and weve raised them with the focus in mind this is our lives. You get to be part of it and then have your life and we will be there to support you and love you but mom and dad are not writing checks. Host starkville california coming bar on the air. Caller thank you for taking my call. Can you hear me . Are you familiar with the british writer and give you read his books . Guest absolutely. Its probably the first of his that ive read. He also lives in cornwall as well but hes an Intelligence Officer during the cold war and i have a First Edition sign my wife bought me many years ago and i wont even categorize him, he is a great storyteller and writes amazing books that put you right into the heart of the situation for the tal, talk abog immersed in the world particularly in the cold war. The stakes couldnt be any higher. He is one of the best. Host cindy in clermont florida. Caller my Favorite Book is the forgotten. How did you get the scene and why did you write the books . Guest its based in the panhandle of florida because the redneck riviera. We had just gotten a place down there. I sold the area and this whole idea came to me he had to go down and investigate. There is with having onshore and offshore. But it was another way for me to show he had other family nurse. His mother obviously when she was young helped raise him. His dad was in the army and didnt have a lot of time so this was a way for me to show him another way. Here he was helping an old woman who was a second mother to him because something bad happened to him. Caller [inaudible] the first books i did manage to get them interested. Guest there are two ways to get it you can either be born with it so the scripts are easy to remember or you can get it through a traumatic brain inju injury. You can re circuit around the damaged areas but when that happens sometimes weird things happen and you can open up parts of the brain you hadnt been utilizing. But it can also cause suntory pathways to cross and thats where you get another which is where he associates a particular sensation with a color. Figuring out how this functions and trying to push the envelope is great stuff for storytelling. Host you are on the last stretch, ten minutes left to go. You made a reference to your next book and its also a new character. Guest 35yearsold, fbi special agent works in the hinterlands probably the only federal agent for 300 miles. I wanted to do it that way. It felt right into the first line is a nursery rhyme. I call it a choosing ryan because it is whoever you start the word with and you go with two different people, the last word is going to follow that is the way that it works out. It was a disastrous effect. Shes grown up without her twin and this is the first time i had ever had a series where the lead protagonist the first time id done it this way but it popped into my head and ive been working on about 70,000 words. Host how do you get the authenticity in a voice . Guest strong independent women which is the ones i write about. I dont write about the damsels in distress because ive never met one in my entire life. My mother was a force of nature, my sister was a strong and implemented my wife is a force of nature and weve raised a strong independent voter. I have a healthy respect for the other gender because i acknowledged decades ago that men are the weaker sex. It lead protagonist but forgot where she was and where she was coming from. I like the fact i could write from those perspectives and i think that its because again im a great listener and observer. I like watching people. Ive watched a lot of women over the years. Host wayne and michigan. Caller we knew you before you wrote your first book but just wanted to say david wrestled in high school on our team and i just wanted to talk you we have a lot of folks from the team that has accomplished a lot of things and we are proud and talked a lot about your accomplishments and where they were so i just wanted to call in and send my regards. Guest it is great to hear from you. I just talked to my old wrestling coach a couple of days ago. Ive seen some of the wrestling team over the years and he was on the team. That is a blast from the past. Guest those are the two that i didnt high school. I played tennis and i play with my son now im just too old to keep up with him. Hes 22 and can hit the ball faster so i think you tolerate that. We have a washington, d. C. Person next. Caller i was going to ask you it doesnt sound like you get stuck a lot because you said youd take a long time. For the last four or five months ive been writing what i thought should be a memoir and i get to personal places and i cant put it on paper and im having a hard time. Would it be better if i made it less personal and didnt write it as a memoir . Guest writers need to be flexible. If you really want to write a memoir and personal perspective, Writers Block is a misnomer. Its just a part of the writing process tha but they were thinkg about what you want to do. You work on it every day or do Something Else and let your subconscious work on it and keep moving forward. But if you cant get past this because you dont want to delve into how personal it is for you to be flexible enough. The personal accounts that might have been a little traumatic for you and then move on and continue the story. Host joanne in bridgeport, connecticut just a couple of minutes left. Caller hello, thank you. I just want to let you know i love your books that i am more partial to the series because finding new facets to the characters i was wondering when you come up with the premise for the plot for one of your series, does it ever happen that you feel that its better suited to a different one of your series . Guest that has happened to me. I thought okay this is going to be a john poehler or will roby and realize i can tweak it a little bit so that has definitely happened to me. Fact have so many happening if i tweak the story a little bit i might grow up in a different direction. Host i think that is the only one of the characters we havent talked about. Who is he . Guest americas most lethal something other than jessica who might be more lethal than he is. He is the sort of guy that is a regime change he goes around the world and you would think how can i create a series about a guy that job is to murder people and i chose to make him relatable in some ways. Doing what he does with professionalism and tenacity because often times than showing the inside of him. You think it isnt going to affect you. You pull the trigger and it affects you and its with you all the time and it affects kind of life you can lead and yes he can be very much of a loner. Most people dont go around pulling the trigger and killing people but he has to do that. Host the last caller is virginia from pennsylvania. Caller a loved camel club series. Guest co. If you talk about oliver stone when he goes off its done for him. He came back and listen to more books. Host for the final question you are 57yearsold with a lot of writing life ahead of you what would you like your legacy to be as an American Writer . Guest . Personally ive written dramatic family stories if you look at the word formula you will never see the picture. Thank you for spending three hours with the tv audience. Guest than guest thank you. I enjoyed it