Transcripts For CSPAN2 Book TV 20240712

His book has received many honors including the Pulitzer Prize. He and his wife are longtime residents of austin, texas. Together they won the Pulitzer Prize of 1990. He has repeatedly in hong kong, beijing and tokyo. And with that i would like to welcome lawrence wright. I should say i am a longtime fan of larry in his work. And also a fan of this book. Let me just her up by saying it is a strange and obviously to begin with this remote feature. In keeping with this book how else do you begin talking to a book about pandemics. Its really weird. People asked me about it and i say it is really strange. Its not anything i have ever participated in. I did feel like we were going to face a big pandemic one day. The fact that its today is a total coincidence. Early this year when did you begin to talk to the publisher and say ive done a Little Research about the situation that we are headed for when did you realize you were to be publishing in the middle of a pandemic. The chinese made their announcement on new years eve if you remember. I remember sars stars and how it have began in china and they had hit it the information for some time. It is a miracle a Public Health that they were able to stop the contagion within 100 days. Here is another one this could be a problem. As it got close to february i began to get nervous. When i can be able to contain this. I got into europe. It was definitely get a come to america the viruses just dont respect national boundaries. I knew it would wind up here soon. Over the last month or two as you had been watching politics and stores a sellout of toilet paper. Have you been nodding with familiarity. With what you wrote about sometimes when i pick up the paper im reading the next chapter in my book. I would like the coincidences to stop. The book is pretty dark. I dont want to go f after hours as i took it. It is really spooky sometimes the things that were lucky guesses but for the most part the reason that things in real life are playing out. As i did very much in the novel is ive talked to experts and they tell me what would happen and not only did i talk to them john hopkins and elsewhere. What would happen if the same question that i ask you. Its not just my novel. Its in all of those studies. All of the details that i gleaned from that are so resonant with what im talking with now. As you say the novel is indeed pretty dark there are plenty of american politicians who say the light is at the end of the tunnel. By memorial day we will be mostly through this. In your book you have actually it comes and then there is this. Of calm how you feel about the road ahead . Threemac my flu the one i invented was built on the 1918 flu. I actually made a calendar on my computer and it happened to be the year 2020. I decided to take the events that took place in the year 1918 and it was a template underneath all of the events in the novel where things had actually happened a hundred years ago. The question i head for these experts what would happen if it didnt happen now. Would we be any better prepared than our ancestors. The 1918 flu really manifested itself. It wasnt as savage as it became. Part of the reason it was so dangerous it took them among the camps. It was very dangerous over the summer it mutated. But when it came back in the fall october was the deadliest month in american history. Im not forecasting that that would happen it was a contagion that was an influenza. It is still the great killer. This is a coronavirus it is different and also to look at the influence of thinking. Or it could just simply linger here until it affected enough people that it stopped. We dont really know. It could recur every year. Every day there is something new that we are earning learning. In 1918 and during the spanish flu and in your book the problems are in some ways magnified with politicians mishandling them. The parade and september. In your book many examples of politicians not paying attention to science in a way out. As you look at the worlds handling. Of this coronavirus. Is pretty disheartening. The absence of leadership is really dire among the states there is a Great Variety of leadership some are doing terribly and some are doing very well. They each head different situations. Then you have the federal response. It has been extremely weak. And i think dangerous in the sense that many lives have been lost that might not had been have the government taking control early on. And then at the International Level there is also a great deal of confusion. The absence of leadership in every level is very striking. One of the things im jealous of is your versatility. You do fiction. You can do books and magazine articles and tv and film and place this actually started as a novel can you talk a little bit about that. Ridley scott the filmmaker he have read the mccarthy novel the row it was about a father and a son wandering through the ruins of civilization. And he does have the question what happened. What caused civilization to crumble. I was interested in that idea and i thought may be a nuclear war. I have done some stories about diseases when i was a young reporter. In the center for center for Disease Control was there. I get very got very intrigued by Public Health. I remember being so entranced by the ingenuity and courage that i met there was so many interesting people it occurred to me that was an opportunity to visit that world as a novelist and screenwriter. Its hard to find heroes today. We are not living in a particularly heroic era. And you couldve addressed this issue. Nonfiction. Why did you decide to make this a novel. As a reporter normally what we do as we go out and ask what happened. In this case what could happen. Using the same techniques and going out and talking to experts. It is the same process it allowed me to imagine a world one very similar to the one that we are in. I did feel some sense of an alarm. They had spent their entire career and can about what would happen. If 1918 came back. Hadnt yet. I thought a novel would be a great way to express the sense of foreboding that i found they asked about i actually wondered whether that was a reference in some way with the threat to the cuban missile crisis. The title has more residence than i and i gave it credit for. The reference to october is october is when it all goes to hell. There are things that we dont see that happened in october. But we know did you find yourself getting more germ conscious and a washing your hands more often. Honestly no. Im not a german folk im a good citizen in that spot. It is a world in my imagination not one that was outside my house. I dont want to go through the plot it begins in indonesia with an early crucial scene. There is a chance to contain it. There is now a discussion. Precisely to prevent it. Your book certainly eliminates that. Do you have any thoughts about maybe this isnt the ideal year. After 911 when i was working on the looming tower i lived in saudi arabia. My job was mentoring young reporter at this newspaper. One of my first tasks was to supervise the coverage. I could not go to mecca myself. Every year there was epidemics. This is a disaster in the making. That always lingers in my mind. Any other big pilgrimage. Or in india there are many other instances where you have pilgrims gather. He comes from many parts of the world. Its a pretty dangerous situation. Weve spent a fair part of our career hiding with International Security threats. My own conception of International Security threats has change changed and become broader to include things like drug trafficking. Climate change. And pandemics. From the writing about the threats from al qaeda. First of all the effects in the attempt by some terrorist groups there are groups like al qaeda the japanese cult they were definitely seeking weapons of mass destruction. There are white supremacist groups that are doing the same right now. They have a common ground. All of the things you cited. Im a change, from Hurricane Harvey suffered far more damage than an ordinary terrorist could do. The vast destructions of society in the death of a lot of people. Terrorism aspires to that. Nature sometimes responds that way to her own behavior. They are all very similar forms of experience. We have to adjust to the fact that i think pandemics would be coming our way increasingly. The pace has picked up since the turn of the century. Weve had sars, mers. West nile. Just one thing after another. All of these novel viruses. And anyone of them could be a real killer. In some ways we are fortunate there would be a bigger challenge in our future i fear. The hero of the book is someone who goes around trying to put out these global disease fires and they are indeed as you know a lot of such people around the world. A lot of them had been wrestling with other things. If you do indeed see them as heroes in real life. I admire these people so much. There is a bigs sloth of experts that we can talk about. The kind of ingenuity that is required to try to understand a virus like this when we are facing right now that so complicated and tricky. Im drawn to the epidemiologist they face Something Like a brandnew virus that kills people in the most awful ways. Its far more terrifying than going to a war. And you have no idea if you are infected until youre sick. Healthcare workers are always at the first people to get sick. My admiration is unbounded for those people. We have a question from john he is learning tons. He notes in the beginning of the book the indonesians are trying to cover it up. And cover up what happened. And notes the similarity with what site china was initially doing. Can you talk a little bit more about the kind of Global Cooperation that is required to address this kind of challenge. Thats a good question. It just literally flies across the borders. And you need to have an international response. There are some countries that have in the past withheld cooperation from international authorities. China was particularly guilty of that. Indonesia has have a problem with that also. Thats why i chose it as locale for the origin of this. There was an odd reaction in indonesia during one of the outbreaks they felt that scientists were exploiting the virus that belonged to indonesia. It was like a national resource. They should gain part of the patent money and stuff like that. I would led to an interesting argument but that kind of infighting while scientists are trying to figure out how to stop a killer virus is very damaging i for one would need much more in favor of taking some authority with the World Health Organization. It has no authority at all. When they say it you cant come in. They have no way of going and without the permission. I did think they were a little bit to two complementary of china. The idea of this funding them desponding them is just completely crazy. The World Health Organization is not a perfect organization. When they complain about it. We have our own eyes on the ground. They have them in dozens of countries around the world. The cut required them to withdraw them. We lost the eyes on the ground that we head in china. And one of the things that you explore is the degree to which a Public Health challenge magnifies Foreign Relations challenges. And between russia and the u. S. People seize upon the pandemic partly as an excuse partly because they see the world through a prism of paranoia. And i wonder if you have concerns about that happening this time there are china and u. S. Relations and its more strained now. I wonder if you worry about how this may affect International Relations today. The accusations and the blame thats going around every great disease carries with it a lot of stigma, blame and shame. The business of making accusations that they cooked it up in the lab. They are all saying it was a bio weapon made by the u. S. These are very dangerous charges because they incite hatred and once hatred gets rolling it develops its own momentum. Yes im very worried about it. I would like to see the needless conflicts diminished in the face of a real challenge to humanity. Jerry, says how should we handle china. They do have some culpability. But dont we need their help to get out of this. I totally agree both of the statements i think what we should do is find the cdc so we have our own surveillance teams back there. We might learn something from them but at least we would have people on the ground that would tell us whats going on and we did it in this instance. There are some people in this country who whenever you are asking them whats on their mind im saying bill gates for example for years hes talking about his nightmare about a big pandemic. Is that something that if i had run into you at a Cocktail Party a couple of years ago would you bench in my ear about pandemics or was that just one of many things that you are sort of thinking about. I do worry about other things. What do you think is the biggest threat. Pandemics would be high on my list whether its one or two. I always have a feeling that we were vulnerable and budget cuts and things like that have only made us far more so. The Great International health expert. We always had these wakeup calls and then we wake up and go over back to sleep. I wonder i wonder i guess if thats can happen again and what would you like to see to build up surveillance capacity said that the next pandemic as your book suggests may be the thing people are worried about most is another avian flu. What should we be doing. If we actually wake up. I feel like as a society we are at a crossroads. It is a severe experience and when weve had challenges in the past like the Great Depression we reshaped our social fabric in order to save our country. We rose to the task. We conquered a formidable interim interview. We rose to the task. Once again i remember so strongly the feeling you have to be the america that our parents gave us. But what we did was invade iraq. We would look at arab spring. We take it out of the context of america. I was so hopeful. They were dying to have democracy and reform and yet its only become more tyrannical. This is where we are. We have the opportunity. Everybody can see. Theres nothing like a pandemic or a war to expose a society that youre living in. Its very clear what kind of society we live in and what can kind of people we live in. We give them a great deal of attention to developing vaccines. But we are going to be facing a lot of new viruses there are trillions of viruses, we only know of about six or seven that are dangerous to humanity but many of those are brandnew. Working to be seen more and more of them in the future. We could also look back and say we are in some ways kind of grateful that it gave us the opportunity to rebuild our health system. And make our society more secure and compassionate. That would be a great turn of events. I deeply share that hope just as we responded in the Great Depression. Ultimately with the g. I. Bill of rights. In measures that it did really attempt to build the Stronger Society that we may do the same this time as well. I remember what elements of that restructuring you would like to see this time around lets start with the federal government needs to be more accountable. In the partisanship is released it and the way of us making any kind of progress. If there is one thing overwriting my disappointment. They are still in a culture war. I think we have to step beyond that. This is a country in distress. If we can get this tamed down. If everybody is thinking of the Common National interest. The cultural clash susan asked have he responded to those people. Their Constitutional Rights are being infringed on when they are required to wear a mask. Maybe in a broader sense you do see opinion polls that to be a democrat in america today. Is to perceive that the coronavirus is threatening. Is deadly. In parts of the country at least to be a republican is to feel that the threat is exaggerated our responses to a bit of rna is actually that happens through this prison of our political ideology. And it always struck me that after 2009 swine flu that initially democrats and republicans were equally concerned as it makes sense because it began to take on political pull polaroid. Theyre more likely to get vaccinated. I just kind of despair when even unfortunately the profound example of that just happened today when the Vice President walked into mayo clinic without a mask where everyone is required to have one. What does that demonstrate. Its a signal. Its also a way of deprecating the seriousness of the enterprise that those doctors are engaged in. I think its offensive and damaging to our national sense of unity. I think thats the kind of thing that we have to put a stop to. Scott asks does your book deal with the vaccine and what more can we do to create a vaccine . One of the great things about this book as i got to interview all of these experts that were now working on the vaccines to try to eliminate covid19. I studied the history of the vaccination from the very beginning and a problem. I have my hero. They have to kind of solve the problem. I created this terrible problem for him but i have no had no idea how to solve it. I called my experts and i said heres the problem. We got this in this. And this. They loved it. Essentially these are puzzle workers. I give them the parameters and im talking to the greatest minds in the world on vaccines. It was thrilling. They dont had time for me now. To actually making those vaccines. I couldve never solved the problems that i created for myself with vaccines without the help of these guys. It goes back a little bit the world should remember the name of james when Edward Jenner who is a country dr. In Great Britain they stumbled on the idea of a smallpox and how it might be eliminated by inoculating people with cowpox. This is a theory at the time 400,000 people per year were dying in europe and a third of those who survived were blinded. Unbelievable does state devastation. We have to look at what he did in that light. He got his gardener son this 8yearold boy james and he took some pus from cowpox infection and he injected it into this boy. And six weeks later he injected him with smallpox and then he did it again. The boy did not get sick. This is an allowed in modern society but if it werent for that child smallpox might have rampaged on for decades more there are many episodes like that in the history of medicine that i find totally captivating i read somewhere that Edward Jenner and napoleon lived contemporaneously in their lives as many lives as napoleon. Theyre well known. And there are stretches of statues of him all over the world. There is one bust of Edward Jenner in england somewhere become a general. The general napoleon it couldve done a little better on the disease front. On the way back tyson. By the time he got back to france was fewer than 10,000. That was the toll that disease took on the great army. Threemac we have a question from mara about your thoughts on the virus into the effects and the effects on the middle east and also the international conflict. Made there be a surge for scapegoats at least to conflict across borders. The middle east is shaped by weak countries and autocrats. There doesnt seem to be a middle ground and the weak countries this will cause more social chaos and cast invites terrorism even right now isis is trying to develop a medical arm so that they can be seen as a more responsible party than the governments which is not hard to do in some countries. And then in the autocratic states they have more against their government. Its a stressor in every country but especially in the middle east. One of the things that amused me about the novel was the degree to which you use them real names and people. Richard clark who is prominent counterterrorism officials. And plays a role. And then you manage to knock off taylor swift and several other people i wonder what your calculations were about using real things like that. First of all i can couldnt make up a better character than dick clark. He was fine with that. The business is in my ss need certain celebrities in my book. Sometimes as markers we look at how serious this is according to who dies. We live in a culture in which celebrities are those kind of markers. There had only been a hand full handful of really notable household names in the novel which foresees a far more dangerous disease. You would have a harvesting of very notable people. Since the flu is like the 1918 flu. It strikes people and middle age. The robust people whose own immune systems are what killed him. I hope taylor swift doesnt come after you in the next album. She can hold a grudge ive gotta there are some more questions. John, asks about social media is something that doesnt exactly come up than i can remember it is certainly very much a part of how they play out today. Or do they combat a virus. This is disinformation propaganda. It is a subject i deal with in the novel. We see this happening right now especially from russia. The war on science and the undermining of american resolve. It actually has an effect. It seems dismayed to me that as a country we are so pliant and easily moved by such absurd propaganda. And its very meaningful there is an analog and a computer virus. That is another thing that we are dealing with. Constant assault. It is damaging. Our elections for instance are at risk. The kind of meddling that weve been facing that plays a role in the book as well. I see it as the kind of virtual analog of the virus that we deal with in real life. In sieber is indeed i worry about pandemics but i also worry about when you say in your book. Has a major cyber attack and one of the striking things about both Cyber Attacks and bioterrorism is the attribution is not always easy that can make them useful for either terrorist or nationstates but it also makes it very difficult for a country to defend against and create disincentives. How do you respond to Cyber Attacks when youre not really sure where they come from. I think this is a wrecking society in many ways. The undermining of authority. It has also done something. Its harmed the internet i think the internet is one of the greatest creations that humanity ever came up with. Its just amazing its beautiful. From an aesthetic point of view. I dislike the way that it had been made into an agency of allies and propaganda. Near an author and also a journalist. Especially local journalism is especially in crisis. A lot of local papers are going under. I wonder if some of those kinds of organizations whether you think this also undermines not exactly the social fabric but the Civil Society of the country. When i talk about civilization collapsing. It thins out like ice. It looks like its solid. When you apply pressure to it cracks. The weakness of our press now. Is a big factor in the thinning of the civilization. We do have truth. We dont have the authority. Its probably less noticeable in the National Level that it is in the local level local newspapers are really suffering. The ability to hold people or institutions or the government accountable to clients with every lost reporter. There is less and less accountability. And therefore Civil Society diminishes. We cant take too much of that before we really suffer a major loss of sitting in our Civil Society. Antonio asks about your writing process. And how it differs. First of all, i write in many forms as you pointed out earlier. Im trying to tell a story. It might be as a movie or play or a novel or nonfiction book. In some ways the process is similar. I use note cards. Im kind of a fanatic on that. Note cards help me sort out the facts. Keep in mind because honestly not a very good memory. I like to write down things. Then i filed them. And when i file them in a way i am organizing. When im writing a movie or a play or a novel i will write out seen ideas and just throw in a pile. If its a play i will lay it out into acts if its a movie i would put it in three acts. I try to close the door and be totally silent. And just envision how the flow of the story goes in that way theres similar nonfiction books are more complex but once again i rely on the note cards to be a repository of information and then the classification of the information is really in a subliminal way an outline. Once i found what im interested in and what im gonna write about. I pretty much have the book in mind. You use these note cards notecards for fiction as well. A lot of the scientific tidbits that are scattered throughout that. I will often go for a run. I will take note cards with me. They see me stopping on the trail. Writing notes to myself. I know it is really primitive and not at all virtual in any modern way but it really just helps me have the information readily at hand i think the problem is and nobody does it but i suggest with this. Its funny and loaded. A lot of labor in front. But once youve done that it is a lot easier to write and i think you get momentum that you would have otherwise i dont know if this is really true. But i operate on the principle that it is true. The momentum with which you write carries over with the way that it is able to go there. Thats what im after when im doing that. I like these good ideas for columns and articles. I dont have a pen or note card. How do you retain those thoughts with great determination to make sure i remember and so i got home and then a scrawl it out. You are in some kind of a book lined room. Is that where the writing actually happens. This is my office. My editor calls it i love working in here. And my life has not changed as much as many peoples because i write at home. I dont go out that much. Quarantine is not so different than ordinary life for me. We are almost out of time but you said something that surprised me about having your hero in this hero and then you have a way to get him to solve the problem. I dont want to quite say what it is. For fear of giving things away. When you begin the novel. Do you not have the plotting pretty clearly worked out all the way through i have a general idea of where its going and the steps along the way. And then im hoping that i can figure out the science that goes along with it the problem i was referencing have to do with vaccinations. It is difficult to comprehend subjects. I have to make it vivid and exciting for the reader it gives me the opportunity to fill in some of the history of vaccinations and what has been tried. My character is trying to figure out how in the circumstance that he is and which is very strange what is the scientists scientist in the past done. The 19th century paris. How did they deal with the disease of their era when they didnt have modern science and so on. What do they do that. It was a great opportunity to rehearse the history of the science inside the mind of a character was trying to solve a very difficult problem. One last thing and then we can turn it back over to john. It is a great page turner is very informative about the kind of challenges that the world faces right now. I wonder about the message that you want people to take away when they put it down. Its an emotional story about a family you are also making a point and transmitting a message what is that message. When they finish it and put it down what you want them to be thinking russian mark. I guess the messages that we are in danger. Will take our society and civilization enough serious enough to preserve it. We are fortunate. To be able to go out in the world and see other societies i dont know how it is for you. When i get on that plane. I can lead. So many of the people that i talk to our trapped. They will never had in the the future that they might have if they have the freedom and education that i had been given. Its just so precious. I see it all at risk. If there is despair and the book it does reflect some of the anxiety that i feel and i didnt feel like making it a rosy ending because we are living in an increasingly dysfunctional society. I hope that the book will serve a purpose i hope the disease will stay in the same purpose. Thank you. We both studied at the American University in cairo. Nick, i want to say nick has written a wonderful book with his wife with problems of america all embodied in the people that you grew up within this little town in oregon. Its amazing how you can create a mirror on American Society just out of that one small society. It is a really wonderful read it. It was very much from the heart. We have different platforms with a larger story. Its on the old school bus. Congratulations. And thank you and congratulations to you. We will invite john to finish it off. There has been such an interesting conversation. Thank you to christine and everyone in book people. And thank you everyone watching. Is a great question. The book people at. Com. I think thank you everyone. Have a good night and so long. Topping the list is a late historian howard finn. Followed by wire all of the black kids sitting together in the cafeteria. The psychology of racism. They must be anti racists in work towards building a more Equitable Society and how to be an antiracist. And then in an Indigenous People history in the united states. They examine the history of america through the lens of native americans and their experience. In wrapping up our look at some of the bestselling nonfiction books according to new york city strand bookstore is the autobiography of black panther member. Most of these authors have appeared on book tv and you can watch them online on book tv. Org. During a Virtual Author Program Lindsay Stravinsky discussed the formation of the president ial cabinet. Here is a portion of the talk. Washington doesnt get enough credit for being politically savvy and having Global Leadership skills. And be actively involved in the president ial process. As i mentioned with the leadership. He was dealing with some really big personalities. They were loud and arrogant. They have their have their own ambitions. Including charles who famously wanted to bake bring in his pack of hounds. I as a dog lover personally think is great. And perhaps not conducive. Dealing with a really colorful boisterous environment he certainly had fewer people anyone who has seen him knows that they really knew that they did not like each other. And really didnt get along. And so that management was crucial. The other reason the management was so important. Everything from how to correspond with the secretaries or how to interact with congressman how to respond to the average person on the street. Someone who is capable of managing these details in managing the people was crucial when youre talking about building out a governing structure that is in the constitution and isnt past and legislation. The management to become central. To watch the rest of this Program Visit our website and search Lindsay Stravinsky for the title of her book. At the cabinet. But tv is television for serious readers all weekend every weekend. Join us again next saturday beginning at 8 00 a. M. Eastern for the best and nonfiction books. Thank you for being on the communicators this week. Congressman, what have you learned when it comes to technology in the last couple of months . And whats the role of congress in advancing that . Guest i think with come to file appreciate information call absolutely important that we maintain our technological e