Of bluegreen corporation. Dance later, on the New York Times, the new yorker, washington post, boston globe, new york magazine, the atlantic gq, the author of love in the time of algorithms and his latest book, wolf boys 2 american teenagers and mexicos most Dangerous Drug Cartel was called undeniably gripping by the New York Times book review. Please help me welcome dan slater. So as a writer, you dream about a lot of things in your diluted little minds, you dream about publishing a book or another book and dream about having somebody read it, dream about getting a nice review, and having your book made into a movie but one thing you dont dream of because it is so sublime and totally unlikely is the possibility someone will name an ice cream after your book. Thank you for giving me the greatest gift i was not even arrogant enough to want. Wolfed down chocolate chip, i can say without bias, is the best scoop you ever had. [applause] thanks to the savannah book festival, mark murphy, one of the many masterminds of this amazing event, thanks to roy and richard, my hosts, thanks to youngsters who snatched me off the street last night and took me to another phenomenal meal, in savanna and thanks to the students at windsor force high school who hosted me yesterday morning for a nice talk, about reading and writing and publishing world and to make a life for yourself as an adult and a way of living that feels meaningful. A subject that is near and dear to my heart. It has been really amazing to be here, so amazing there have been moments, the Massive Division that seem to define the current political moments, constantly assaulting us and just exhausting to see the same thing again and again for anyone who thinks and feels as you do. Seemingly not that a lot of other people do. These divisions on ideological lines, wealth and opportunity lines, certainly race, to go writer and wider. It is a tough time. You turn on the news, the commanderinchief is saying russia is fake news. We dont know what to make of that. That russia doesnt exist . I was there a few years ago, i think i was but he doesnt mean russia doesnt exist, he means russia is not where you should be looking, russia is not the store, dont look over here, dont look over there, that is part of what this divide means right now. We are all determined to see things the way we want to see them and everything that conflicts with our vision is fake news and it really does feel like a Philip K Dick novel or george orwell. It is absolutely bizarre, the book i am here to talk about today, wolf boys 2 american teenagers and mexicos most Dangerous Drug Cartel, is not fake news. It is not a novel. Although it reads like one, says the blurbs, the book reads realistically but it is totally true. Everything happens. And talk about the subject of this book, why i pursued this topic for a book, why i felt it was important. In the early 2000s, when i was in college, a writer or storyteller, how to make the dream come through, jobs and internships that are related to the world of writing and books. I worked for a professor in college who is a novelist, spent summer working at a Literary Agency managing what some of you may have heard of, a slush pile, unsolicited manuscripts that arrive at a Literary Agency and i was at a big Agency Working for one of the agents and she alone would receive 50 to 100 submissions a day and it was my job for three months over the summer, the summer of 99, my junior and senior year, my job to go through that every day and people would spend old manuscripts, sometimes they would send the first chapter aquarium letter and you would have to read this, over several thousand book ideas she didnt pick up any new clients. It was quite a lesson and i went on and got an editorial internship, national geographic, everything from get coffee to light editing on articles and send back the products the company send us to review, all the products made it back, the statute of limitations is up but it was another good job and left me with some experience but still that same feeling about how do you make your way . I didnt feel there were meaningful experiences to write about, i needed to become more, needed to stack the resume and do something. I did it with a lot of liberal arts grad students in law school. And got into law school and had this moment where i said to myself to heck with all this intellectual stuff. I want to be a chef. I went to sun valley which if you dont know is a ski town in idaho, a beautiful town in the mountains and went there because i have some friends in College Opening of a Bar Restaurant and they needed a cook so i worked as a cook for them and other restaurants, i really enjoyed it, learning to make new things, you got to make the same thing even after you learned how to do it. It was extremely hard work and i thought after the year was up, intellectual stuff would not be so bad. With the law schools, i went back to new york city to law school and began to find myself a student in law school, i was a nerd in law school, a true nerd, legal nerd, and seemed to break down piece of writing is how to break down sentences and not the place where i expected it, it certainly was. I got back on to this kind of writing thing, how does one parlay legal information back to the original thing, and started working at one of the big law firms, started to get things published. A freelancer for the wall street journal, my beef was legal pop culture, using my office at the law firm to review any book, movie or Television Show that had to do with the legal world and this was fine and i plan on staying until they found out what i was using the office to do. The day did come when i was working on a big case with 20 other lawyers and one of the partners saw the byline in the wall street journal, not sure what to think about it each also wondering where my time was going, fortunately before i was laid off from that job i got a fulltime job in journalism. I landed at the wall street journal at the Legal Affairs report. The supreme court, i was writing about wall street and some of the trials and cases that started to surface around 2007, 8 and 9. And there was a ton to write about the industry i was now in was definitely on the decline as everybody knows. Newspapers and magazines were going the way law firms were about to go pretty soon and Rupert Murdoch but the wall street journal. After i joined it. A year later he had this weird idea to try to make it profitable and laid off a lot of people, laid off the first round of cuts, 30 writers, reporters and editors and i was among the first to go each thinking this is the end of the world, this is my dream job and now it has gotten to rebuild and what am i going to do, newspapers were not hiring, could freelance for the times, and they give you 150 an article and it was not a way to build a career. I started the freelance scene as much as i could and as i was collecting unemployment, trying to build a career, not sure where to go next. It was in 2009, the month of june, i remember the day, to the brooklyn apartment, picked up a copy in the New York Times. I already cut off by wsj subscription, screw them. In the times that day was a piece that blue my mind, one of those stories that you read and dont forget and it was in the National Section and the headline was something to the effect, American Teens as killers and it was an article about the boys on the border with mexico. The boys names were Gabriel Cardona, and went by part, 5 foot 3, they worked with other boys and they would all become operatives in the zetas. The article, their crimes and rates Robert Garcia, they set back into the us, to do murders on this side of the border. I dont have a copy but i want to read the first few lines of this piece because it got me started on this book and it is here is how the piece began, James Mckinley junior, the New York Times reporter at that point, he was on the southwest border and went to write the story. He told detectives he felt a thrill each time he killed, like being superman or james bond. As a videotaped confession, i dont deny him. He was one of a group of american teenagers from the streets of laredo who was lured into the drug wars across the rio grande in mexico. And in mexico, the young men live in an expensive house in texas available to kill and never called on. There was not known about the datas up north. When they were upbeat reporter on the border and lived in those in el paso or laredo. Tried to filter up to say the front page of the times was news about people like l chabot who some of you may know, the head of the Sinaloa Cartel and he gets captured and escaped and have captured and escapes and was recently extradited before the inauguration to new york after a decadelong career. I didnt know what the story meant, didnt know enough about the culture of the drug cartels to know how these boys fit in so i started reading everything i could find about the history of the latin American Drug trade, our relationship with mexico over the years and i wanted to go to mexico. I had been a legal reporter, mostly a desk reporter at the wall street journal so i had no contact in mexico, didnt know who to call but i wanted to see something. I went to sin lol on the other side of mexico from where the boys in laredo had worked in the gulf side. I went to the state of sinaloa which is not a tourist stays. It is rundown in these days but it is the drug heartland of mexico where the single cartel is. I went to the capital city and i didnt know anyone there but the one thing i could do, the casual thing i could do was see the cemetery on the outskirts of the capital city. This is a cemetery that is known unofficially as the cartel cemetery where a lot of men and young men and boys who worked for this in a lower cartel library. I went there and along the perimeter of the cemetery these very gaudy mausoleums that almost look like a condo in miami from decades ago which is miniature and families of these men had these erected and i wandered into the middle of the cemetery where all the plane head stones were and started noting the birth dates and death dates on a lot of these head stones and averaging them out and at that point i was surprised to see that the average age was about 17, 18 and it wasnt unusual to see head stones for people who died at 14 years old. Most of these people had been buried after 1990. I was there in 2010. It occurred to me they were anomalies, they were anomalous, and clearly part of a culture of youngsters on this side of the border and that side of the border who aspired to this lifestyle and i wondered if it was possible to build a book around them with the main curiosity being what was that lifelike, what are they thinking, what environment produces them, what is their home lifelike, what kinds of women date them, how are they paid, what do their families think . How have they done in school before this slide . Have they been straight a students were dead accepting 10,000 ahead, that story is a gradual, lots of questions so i started to communicate, send them letters, they are in the texas state prison system, gabriel is serving two life sentences. And the other is in for 70 years. I sent them letters and went to visit them, they responded to me, have the beginnings of the letters here, when i wrote to gabriel, i do not mind sharing my life story i dont pretend to be someone i am not. And in esquire, the piece in details and Anderson Cooper had been a segment, an hour long documentary and a pitch or story, to the kids out there, that is what they would say. And what they produced was solely about the sensational side of the life focusing on violence. And you come across as an honest guy, the project. He would be willing to answer any question, he was hoping to do something meaningful. And long lists of questions and bart and i had a relationship and an enthusiastic about the project and stopped responding each the relationship between gabriel and i continued. His letters have other people, surfacing meteor reports in the prison system come out of the texas prison system, the federal system, when the country, one of them was in north carolina, another in florida and louisiana. Started to come to laredo, texas. And anyone would see me. The homicide detective, there was a gigantic Law Enforcement complex with a lot of people, people in dea, all levels of Law Enforcement, the local district attorney, there were a lot of people who knew about the cartel, Law Enforcement and lawyers, spent a lot of time to family members and young boys. They were reporting for this story, and the more i saw i could structure this like the kind of books i always admired, nonfiction novels that create pedigree. In american literature. On friday night lights for texas, and it is called midnight in the garden of good and evil which i was sold is known here over the book. And the television, movie producer, the wire, the Baltimore Sun and it is about drug dealers. Other books like behind the beautiful forever is, and catherine boone, it was about slum dwellers in india, won the National Book award, really amazing book, and a book that really inspired me similarly to those books i could get inside, the way a novelist would do. The chapters alternate between bad guys and good guys which and when are they going to meet and that is where it came together. It was published in september by simon and schuster, and the director attached to make movies again, his first film was called training day. Made a lot of movies since then. And the screenwriter is working on adaptations of Sheldon Turner started working on it in september, it was up in the air, 2010 movie with george clooney, and adaptation from a novel which other things happened with the book by the text prison system, and there was a high school in laredo that is signing up for curriculum, and the response to the book has been very solid. People in laredo felt it did the town justice. I was nervous about a couple things, i was nervous about people perceiving the book, giving the town a black eye on fairly, a book that 12 on the darkest side of that city. And poorest cities in america, one of the least ethnically diverse cities in america, 90 hispanic and yet, it is the biggest overland support in the western hemisphere. 60,000 trucks north in laredo in a week. 75 of fortune 5 companies with some aspect of laredo logistical systems whether it be warehouses for storing the goods mexico and distributed through the us. And most of the people there remain impoverished. There is the border and the border creates many black markets. And it is also weapons that have to get smuggled into mexico, and through vehicle theft and smuggling the wolf boys met the cartel for the first time. And stealing in laredo and across new mexico. And the leader of the code tell the cartel. A few weeks later. That is the book, and i am happy to answer any questions that anybody has about anything including the Online Dating industry. What was the reaction of the boys to your book . A difficult question because of the book ban. I was able to get a copy into gabriel, going to get televised. I lied. It is fake news. Look over there at russia. He has read the book. And lots of ups and downs, there was another down when he read the book. It is not just the version of your life story, everyones opinion of you, your girlfriend and everyone spilling their bucks, it had to be quite an experience, at first he was unhappy, not able to articulate what he was unhappy about, we went back and forth, impressed him and it seemed those were the things that bothered him. He felt i had made Robert Garcia out to be a hero and he didnt like that because he sees garcia as his wife sung lifelong nemesis. And he was at peace with the book. I really dont know if bart has got the book or not. To everyone before the book was published and the boys in the federal system, and they really liked it. May i call you laterrooney . You read the book. What level of concern did you have for personal safety mostly after the book came out . I read the book so understand how you did the research. Was there any concern for personal safety, disclosed stuff. My wife wasnt here i can speak freely on that question. I was nervous about this from day one which communicating with them was scary to learn about their lives. Scary to think about who they knew on the outside edge over the years i worked on it going back and forth to laredo, formalized by this process, people down there view it as part of life, it is more industrial and business, in other cities. It eased my mind and i was very scared when the book came out, even if your book is fiction or fantasy, i was scared about who would read this. And Miguel Trevino is, was the boss who recruited these apprehended in the summer of before i started working on the book. And imprisoned in federal prison in virginia, a big moneylaundering ring around the horse racing sport, the quarter horses. They would launder money through quarter horses. There was a big trial about that. He sent us a letter asking us in a fairly polite way because he is who he is. It is sort of daunting. He was asking why we send him a book that portrays his brother that way and i didnt have a good answer. Nothing has happened. I only heard good things, the book was published in mexico, in spanish obviously. The book was published in australia, new zealand, i have been hearing from a lot of people, the uk, published in japan, so it is out there, and so far so good. The texas prison system has very aggressive book banning program urgently. 15,000 books including shakespeare, philip roth, pretty much every book about race, uses the nword, band, so there is a book called the art of justice that won the National Book award in 2005, six different grounds on which they say they banned books and one of them is anything that contains a criminal scheme. It wasnt surprising to me that they banned the book because without my relationship with the boys, i would send the books and time i sent a book called wiseguy which is the basis of the movie goodfellas and didnt make it in. I knew about this program. It would have been more surprising if they didnt and it. They had to read 130 pages and before they found a reason to ban it. The way they set up the program they can really ban it. I was wondering, i may have missed it but did you try to reach out to the drug lord, laredo, is that his name . Did you do that . That would have been amazing and i did ask about that. He had not been extradited yet. He was allegedly locked up in mexico somewhere so that is pretty hard to get to. Some of his associates have been extradited, one testified in a trial in austin shortly before the book came out but i never got to talk to him. I billed him as a character in the book but had so many perspectives on him because i was talking to so many people who had a lot of experience. As a boss and a coworker, seen him work and do things he did. I felt i could write him without talking to him but would have been wonderful. In any of your interviews did you see any regret from these criminals . Yes. This whole book raises the question of what is a sociopath . We think we have an idea what that means but then you go to a place like this where so many kids are going in this direction which it may not become what Gabriel Cardona that is what is scary so i was often thinking throughout the project who are they . Do they have remorse . A question i dont think i asked directly to gabriel until the end. A letter he sent to me where he said my crimes are atrocious and that shocked me. It didnt seem like him. He had been very stoic about his whole life before that but i do think he is torn between the image, what was so important to his reputation and wanting to be a better person. When you are looking at life in prison from the age of 19 on, what does it mean to become a better person . That is something he will always struggle with. You mentioned something about a Training Camp. Do they accept everybody . Enrollment figures . You take that. It is not application. You know someone who knows someone, all that business is done to relationships and my uncle, my cousin, my friend, that person is impressed by your rap sheet, how nuts you are, what you are willing to do, there is a Training Camp next month, meet someone here, be put in a car and drive, the camps are anywhere from four to 12 weeks long usually. You learn to do that. That is the chapter, the hardest chapter to write, the hardest subject to learn about. It is hard as you can imagine. You talk about making an impact. An amazing question that asks for a lot of introspection which i do. We talked earlier, i spoke earlier about going the high school and talking to students about the writing life and how you found a career for your self and field meaningful. Having a sense of purpose. That is the other side of that. It is about youngsters, very hard to have a sense of purpose. And other darker things. The moment we are in right now is about the widening gap, i feel like this is more meaningful. And my friends who write fiction struggle, and you are more apt to wonder why am i doing this, just making up a story. It is so true, people can like or not like this book but cannot deny the book. Any light at the end of the tunnel . Or is it a situation that is going to continue if not get worse . Something is going to happen soon because of what our president s goals are, what the situation is, talk about other policies like legalizing drugs, sentencing laws. Those things could be important but im reluctant to talk about fixes in terms of silo policy changes. Making changes give people in laredo, and towns like it. And their was opportunity. And the place for them and bringing marginalized communities, trying to ensure fathers dont leave their families at the same rate they do in a place like that which is having more opportunities. I hope we can go in that direction. I hope we can figure that out. Ending nafta will possibly bring opportunity to a place like laredo and a lot believe that. They have the most credibility in terms of an opinion because they are affected more than anybody by it. Something is going to happen. A lot of jobs left. A lot of jobs left. Besides the subject matter what is the biggest difference you have seen between wolf boys 2 american teenagers and mexicos most Dangerous Drug Cartel and your other book . The differences, how you feel about publishing or the reception of them. What have you noticed . Two totally different publishing marketplaces was my first is called love in the time of algorithms, came with a different name. It is a book about the Online Dating business and how the industry involved and affecting modern romance, three different style of book, what i call more of a magazine book, it is not wrapped around the character or driven by character or driven by plot and story and suspense to the same extent. The experience of writing it was a lot different was obviously the experience of reporting it was different. In the first one with the Silicon Valley and harvard nerds and people who are closer to my experience and in wolf boys 2 american teenagers and mexicos most Dangerous Drug Cartel, it was something i wanted to do, which was immerse myself, lose myself in a community that was far, far away and laredo is an American City but might as well be on another planet. My experiences couldnt have been more different. Penguin published the first book, Simon Schuster published wolf boys 2 american teenagers and mexicos most Dangerous Drug Cartel. There was more excitement for wolf boys 2 american teenagers and mexicos most Dangerous Drug Cartel, it was put out in september, a more competitive in the Publishing Business and a lot more people are reading this book, which did not garner a new audience. Yes . As you got to know these people, can you envision that their life could have turned out a different way by what they do, there intelligence or their capabilities, would that have had a different impact . Something i thought about all the time when i was working on it. For gabriel, yes. He has a fascinating story. Until ninth grade, he was the kind of kid you want regardless of where you live. The junior high football team, he had a lot of friends, sticking up for smaller kids, on and on, popular, handsome, he had jobs in the summer, he would make 1000 bucks over the summer and give a bunch of money to his mom. He could very well have gone a different way had he not been born in the world he was born in. I cant say that about some of the other boys, they felt to be more like actual criminals. Again, how can you say that . Laredo being what it is, not just laredo but the neighborhood these boys had come from. And several other boys and younger men came from a neighborhood. A little ghetto, right on the grass, you can almost throw a stone across mexico and 35, the freeway, the bridges came from mexico and i 35 and you can walk out of his house and see i 35, the neighborhood was founded in the 1750s and as long as there has been International Order there has been a black market over the years, coffee, tobacco, freon, the epa regulated freon, anything. The first time he went to school and it is all ground and they all have a hand in some aspect of it. It is all around. Being an author, journalist and lawyer, what is your perspective on the use of the term fake news . I sort of like it a little bit. We were talking about this at dinner, one of the effects of this new environment is it has brought women closer together. United in a common cause, not to sound condescending but that has been a great thing and i think the news industry needed a wakeup call, needed an adversary. Sometimes being laid off from the wall street journal, at the time, seemed the worst possible thing that could happen. In retrospect it was one of the best possible thing that could happen. I think it will ultimately wind up with the news industry that is more invigorated and more effective. Not to try to avoid politics any time you can but you wake up to a tweet from the guy talking about what did he say . Failing, fake, dishonest, i wonder what, say, cnn, would have said, if obama had said that about fox news . I cnn would have stepped up, not necessarily defended fox news but rejected that whole idea that the information business is not the enemy of the American People regardless of what your politics are. I hope the fox newses of the world do the same thing. That will be the ultimate test for them. I read your new book, you are thinking of working on, are you too tied up with is when . I have two new projects going. Both of them are still in the somewhat earlier stages but they are both narrative nonfiction projects set in the criminal underworld. One is about us soldiers returning to the states and one is about hasidic jews and the underbelly of that world. Just a minute. Will you get to play a role in choosing who the movie stars will be and fun stuff like that i am listed as a consultant. They have the right to use me or not use me a all. The one thing i said before and i will say again is we need to find fresh faces to play these roles. As much as i respect john, he cant be the thug of the week yet again. A project like goodfellas which was a movie and the book that had a big impact on me, one reason the movie was so iconic no one knew who ray leota was and he came in and absolutely killed it. This project needs its ray leota. That is the one thing i would plead with. Okay . [applause] lets give him a big hand. [applause] djs exiting the venue, our wonderful volunteers enthusiastically accept your donations to the savannah book festival because of your generosity, you are able to keep saturday free. Thank you for coming. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] you are watching live coverage of booktv coverage of the savanna book festival. You have been listening to dan slater talk about his book wolf boys 2 american teenagers and mexicos most Dangerous Drug Cartel. Now it is your turn to ask questions. 202 is the area code, 7481800 in east and central toronto, 7488201 in the mountain and pacific time zones. Dan slater, remind us why you named the book wolf boys 2 american teenagers and mexicos most Dangerous Drug Cartel. Guest the book is called wolf boys 2 american teenagers and mexicos most Dangerous Drug Cartel for a couple different reasons. The Mexican Drug Cartel these boys joined, they would refer to their foot soldiers, their assassins as wolves. There was one other reason, i was working on the book, i just happened randomly to pull the novel lord of the flies off my shelf, a novel i hadnt read since ninth grade or something but i picked it up and started be reading it in became totally absorbed in the book and i started to see the story i was working on through that lord of the flies lens. Boys left alone on an island without any governance and turn against each other. That was a major theme in wolf boys 2 american teenagers and mexicos most Dangerous Drug Cartel. So i thought boys, the idea of being raised by wolves is relevant, very little oversight, that is how the title came about. Host is a unique story you have told . Guest i think it is very unique. The world of Mexican Drug Cartels and Drug Trafficking in general is almost always told through the big glamorous drug cartel head. Anytime guzman this saves from prison and gets captured again and escapes again and is extradited and he is interviewed and all these crazy stories, shows up in the New York Times for 5 or 6 days straight and it makes the public feel that is the story. We are talking about take news earlier, in a way it is fake news, not that it doesnt exist or is not true, but it is not the real story. The real cartel wars are being fought by young boys being turned against each other, who slaughter one another and this was an opportunity to tell it from there i level. Host were the boys used . Heavy . Guest definition of heavy. Yes and no depending on the boy, gabriel relied on a sedative, in certain areas of the states, the date rape drug called rohypnol, it is a big party drug, heavily regulated tranquilizer in the state but is easily gettable just across the border so a lot of youngsters will hop over to the border, they can get a prescription and a bottle of 100 pills for 50 bucks, he was relying on that to mute his ultimately it helps him with homicides that he did. Host lets take calls from our viewers, lets begin with wade in south carolina. You are on booktv. It helps if i push the button, sorry about that. You are on booktv. Thank you, cspan for having this great coverage of the savanna book festival and enjoyed listening and watching dan, look forward to getting a copy of your book. The media be using a term immigrants quite often these days. We are all immigrants, native americans, we are all immigrants, why do they keep grouping everyone in that category and talk about illegal immigration, they dont use the word illegal, they are justifying it in a way by using the word immigrant. That is an amazing observation. Im selfinterest. I think wolf boys 2 american teenagers and mexicos most Dangerous Drug Cartel is a very good antidote to the problem you mentioned which Robert Garcia, the lead Law Enforcement agent who pursued these young boys when they were sent across texas to do their crimes here, he was born in mexico, he came over with his family when he was 9. He was the child of migrant farmers, he worked on farms in the states as a kid, got a College Scholarship he decided to pass up, went to the military instead and settled with his wife in laredo, and a cop again. It is a story about a mexican born Law Enforcement agent, Mexican American sort of protecting his adopted country from National Born americans. It goes both ways. Host how porous is the border. Guest it is easy to get drugs across the border. Nafta has made it easier however long it has been. The presentation is 60,000 trucks that go north through that town per week and just impossible to check everything. Free trade which makes things like sunglasses at walmart, 45 a day, leading to a lot of things going through. Caller two part question i will ask real quick. Number one, and you mentioned a lot about the problem with men leaving the families but to talk about what the families had to say about and also how religion works, most hispanics are very religious and brought up in hopefully religious family, how that equates to how these kids turn away from that religion and go to a life of crime like this and number 2, is laredo a more liberal or conservative administration controlled area . Be change i think laredo and the county it is in is called webb county, a lot of concerned pockets partly because there is a gigantic Law Enforcement complex, any municipal, state and federal Law Enforcement agency having a huge presence there and those communities tend to skew conservatives, short answer is you have both influences their politically. I spend a lot of time with the family, a lot of time with gabriels mother and brother, and she obviously not obviously but did support what her son became and yet he was bringing home a lot of money and i think when your son is able to hand you as much money in a day as you may make in six months or year you are not turning that money down even though you may express disdain for the lifestyle, things he may or may not be doing. It sends mixed messages to a kid who is 16, 17, 18, 19, what sort of Family Support he has. Host how much is a lot of money . Guest the boys were making a minimum of 10,000 a person they killed. For you or i, we couldnt be persuaded to kill somebody i hope for any amount of money but in that community 10,000 is a ton of money. Some are making even more, a good smuggler can make 30,000 a week. Host karen, in summers, connecticut, go ahead. Caller i was wondering, why do you think these stories are so important to tell . Why do you think the stories are so important for generations especially . I think the stories are important particularly now because we need books to be able to translate the experience of one set of people to another set of people. When i go around and talk about the book, that is part of what i am doing, recording back on the community that has basically been forgotten i am the one who went there. I am the one who spent time there and i think it is important that people know how the other half lives. To use a famous phrase. Host evelyn in california, you are on with other dan slater. Caller thanks for taking my call. I your book is very important and strikes at the heart of a subculture. I have a fulltime job, go to work every day, something i dont interact with very much. Something else i heard little bits about and wonder if you have any thoughts on writing a book on this topic, Human Trafficking. I heard families in mexico want a better life for their daughter so they will pay a cartel to put their daughter on a truck to bring her to the United States for a better life but there is this Human Trafficking subculture. Do you have any thoughts on touching on that topic as well . Guest it is so horrible. Yesterday i met a radio reporter in savannah, atlanta has become the hub of traffic in the world, it is a huge problem, one of the worst problems selling children into the sex trade. Boys to american teen mayors in mexicos most Dangerous Drug Cartel