Transcripts For CSPAN2 Eleanor And Hick 20161105

This month in depth brings a special preelection discussion on president ial history, white house history and first lady. Kate anderson brower. We are taking your emails and questions. At 9 eastern afterwards, bain capital Founding Partner Edward Connor weighs in on expanding the middleclass in his book the upside of any quality which how good intentions undermine the middleclass. Interviewed by greg mention, Harvard University economics professor. The difference in the tax rate in california, it is small in comparison to all the other things amplifying the risktaking. Go to booktv. Org for the complete weekend schedule. [inaudible conversations] can anyone hear me . Thank you for your participation. Thank you, all of you, i am alex schaffner, one of the booksellers at the store. I am glad to see you here. And we depend on your stores keep those events going. If you would like to know what else we are up to feel free to take an event calendar. You can join our weekly email list, which keeps getting reinvented is very suave. Tonight we welcome susan quinn enter new book eleanor and hick the love affair that shaped a first lady. Susan quinn for a long time has made boston and brookeline her home, she was educated in ohio. Appreciate reading her out here. Susan quinn began to write periodicals on a daily newspaper and for publications including the New York Times magazine, atlantic monthly, cambridges the real paper and fox magazine investigative reporting of the transport of dangerous cargo to boston and the Home Inspections were awardwinning. And the lives of mary curie and Aaron Harding as well as special Theater Project and human trials about the process. Eleanor and hick the love affair that shaped a first lady tells the story of Lorena Hickok and first Lady Eleanor Roosevelt who through perseverance at a time greatly and disadvantaged women and intimate relationships and possible romance made them icons of history for decades. Tonight we delve into the possibility of the fact of the 30year story guided by someone whos record is relentlessly captivating. It is not like giving up compliments, clearly they have this dragged from them by a book they could not put down. We are so lucky to have as our guide tonight, please join me in welcoming susan quinn. [applause] thank you all. I am pleased to be talking at brookeline book smith. I feel out of sorts, i walk into the book smith and staff recommendations and they charged up and when they outsold and outlasted chain bookstores down the street, itself. [applause] felt like a personal triumph. Tonight i talk about what went into the writing of eleanor and hick the love affair that shaped a first lady. Every book has its ups and downs but this one has more than most i would think. 2008 eight years ago, published a book called furious improvisation about the federal Theater Project during the Roosevelt Administration and i loved writing about that period and thought i would like to continue. My first idea was to write about Harry Hopkins who is the second most important person in the new deal and the roosevelt during the war. Enormously important figure. I wrote a lengthy lengthy proposal which i sent to the publisher, spend a year on it, nicely packaged and photographed, wellwritten. And both my agent and i thought it was a sure thing. I will take a moment to introduce you to two important characters in this story. One of them is my agent jill who is much more than an agent. Jill has been a friend. I will read what i think is here if i can find it in the acknowledgments. I dont need to read it but i will tell you. A friend, critic, support, very important to me and this writing process. We both thought it was a sure thing. I need to introduce my husband, dan, who is right there. Probably the reason you are all here. Pushed me he is my biggest cheerleader and critic and also a whole lot of friends here listed in the back of the book and many of them heard parts of this story. In march 2011 we couldnt sell it. They were right, it was too big too unfocused. When they talk about tennis players pushing it over the net that is what it looked like. At not actually engaged in winning. I got very depressed, i thought my writing life was over, i thought i would never find another subject and not sure how it would come together but i realize there was a story connected to hopkins more compact and compelling. Had to do with a woman named Lorena Hickok who had a relationship with Eleanor Roosevelt. I knew a little bit of the background, there was a book in 1980 about this, it turns out Lorena Hickok and eleanor exchanged 3000 letters. Most of them Lorena Hickok gave to the library when she died in 1968 and Lorena Hickok who was hick to everybody specified letters would be open 10 years after her death. By 10 00, doris favor first saw the letter she had written about president and president s wives. She even tried to get the library when they wouldnt she decided to write a book about the relationship playing down the passionate part of the story so when the book came out a lesbian publication lamented during those letters was a crime a can to turning over poems to medieval christians. So i realized right away that this was an opportunity to revisit a story in changed times. Here is where writing about what you can connect to came into it. All my books with one exception have been about strong remarkable women. The psychoanalyst who took issue with freuds ideas of sexuality. Mary curie, even a book focused on one strong woman who is head, howie flanagan. There was another reason i connected to this. Even though the love relationship had been floating around in the atmosphere at times had changed and this was a story that could be embraced even celebrated, two women who loved and empowered each other. It helped that i had a daughter who is queer i say gay, she says queer. She actually prefers it. Because of anna i have more accepting and tender feelings about the subject of love between women. There it was. I knew it from the moment it came to me. I remember where i was when i realized it. And these ambitious proposals help solidify your ideas and they help you sell the books. In april 2012, 20 publishers, it is not all positive. Editor at large at one house said it feels like a slice of the eleanor market. Not could garner significant attention beyond the lovely reviews. Killing me with kindness. A soninlaw writing a biography of eleanor couldnt do it. That is an honest requirement. Then there were positive ones. One said it was an amazing thing to read a strong proposal and no how much more exceptional the book itself will be. July 2012, a contract with penguin press. 21 2 years later the book was done and i was really pleased with it. I had a date to lunch with jill on december 8, 2014. I looked at my calendar, it says lunch, eastern standard, three exclamation points, i was expecting a triumphant lunch. But it didnt turn out the way i expected. I thought it was done. According to jill i wasnt. Every time i see quotation marks i feel your pushing me away from the story. What is i was calling her you are er. It is cold to inhibit. It is not as good as the proposal. I was really devastated and there happens to be a snowstorm, i walked home in the snow and the snow was coming down at the same time. I thought she was wrong, felt unappreciated. I felt annoyed, angry, all those things but any time i got home i was beginning to see what she meant. The er thing particularly i realize why was i using er . Because i had referenced for this woman too much reverence. I couldnt talk about a relationship of two people had to be eleanor. And everyone called her mrs. R. Nobody called her eleanor. So what . I had to take charge of this, she had to be eleanor. Things began to come together. There were months of rewriting. I was determined to finish it before we went on vacation in spain and spring of 2014 but wasnt finished. My most important reader was suggesting ways to make it better. The editor who bought the book left. This always happens to me. It is not good. It often means books turned over to a young editor invariably described as brilliant but usually is not huge while we were in spain i was convinced the book was in trouble. I made a desperate call to my agent and she put me in touch with penguins editor in chief, she called me at midnight spanish time was still in the office and i was in tears on the phone, what is happening . She was quite taken aback, had no idea, no reason to be concerned, we are planning to publish it in september 2016 and take advantage of hit and run for president , had complete confidence in my book and hillarys nomination. That is what happens. A new young editor. Her parents are here tonight. She actually was brilliant. And more rewriting. And sometimes you explain something more fear addressing an uncomfortable truth about one of my two heroines facing up to things that were cringemaking and she did the best job anyone has ever done on a book of mind. That is my happy ending. I will read a short passage from the book. A little bit of background before i do this. Just briefly in 1932, Lorena Hickok was assigned to cover Eleanor Roosevelt during fdrs first run for the presidency and cover the campaign a little bit afterwards. My relationship began to shift. Eleanor started trusting her more and more and she started falling in love with eleanor. By the time fdr was inaugurated the very clear hick knew so much about the roosevelts and fell in love with eleanor that she wasnt going to be able to continue as an ac reporter, she was one of the few women at the top of the latter, it was a male world and she climbed her way to the top and succeeded. Very poignant but she was under pressure from her bosses, she knew more about the roosevelt secret and the roosevelts had a lot of secrets and more and more she felt loyal to do it on the night before the inauguration, she was with eleanor and fdr was in the next room with his son polishing up a speech in which he says the only thing we have to fear is fear itself, passing it on to eleanor who read it aloud to hick. Hick realized at that moment all she had to do is go out to a phone, drop in a nickel and give a few phrases that would be the scoop of her life but didnt do it. She stayed with eleanor and slept in the hotel room at night it became clear she couldnt do that job anymore so she went to work for the wpa and report on conditions in the field and wrote terrific report and a long letter to eleanor about what was going on and made its way to fdr and he often told stories and people would wonder where he got the details. In 1933 they went on a vacation together in eleanors buick to do payback, a lovely time. They were counting on doing the same in the summer of 1934 in california planning to meet up there and go on this private tour together. That is all you need to know except hick by this time learned and had a car it was blue. And got totaled, very serious hick wasnt injured. Now she has another car, cheaper which figures in the story you will now here. Chapter 9 getting away with it. Hick and eleanor exchanging letters, imagining quiet seclusion and beautiful places but when hick walked into the lobby of the hotel in sacramento where they would meet a swarm of reporters and photographers clamoring for a story about eleanor. Thanks in part to hick, everyone was the darling of the press, founding energy and ability to turn up here, there and everywhere time alone together is hard to come by but hick had a plan. The next day she picked eleanor up at the sacramento airport and shepherded her quickly through the crush of reporters in the hotel lobby explaining the first lady needed to freshen up before the interview. As a former reporter, she understood the situation. They agreed for the moment. Unbeknownst to reporters, hick arranged for a state trooper to drive her newly acquired small convertible to the rear entrance of the hotel and wait for the two of them to emerge. They took the front elevator up and another to the rear entrance. Through the bags in the rumble seat, it started off with the trooper at the wheel. The secret service eleanor usually treated as the enemy helps out by changing hicks vp plates for california ones. It was no use. They hadnt even gotten out of the city before they discovered they were being followed. The state trooper stepped on the gas pedal, another trooper swung around and put on his flashing red light, hick was worried. And inexpensive replacement hadnt been broken in yet and the trooper was taking up to higher and higher speed. It was eleanor who finally called a halt to it. It is no use lets stop. She thanked the trooper and sent him on his way. We have to find another way out of this business. The reporters who crowded around the two women had one main question, where were they going . Eleanor refused to answer. This is my vacation and i expect to be treated as any other tourist would be treated but she pulled her knitting from her backseat and announced she would sit there all day before telling them where she was going. Finally they all agreed to retreat to a nearby roadside restaurant where reporters got a story. Mrs. Franklin roosevelt according to one account was trying to lose herself and get away from being the president s wife. Actually going to see ellie, hicks former lover, happily for eight years in minnesota, had fulfilled her dream and found a man to marry and left hick which was heartbreaking for him. They remained friends. Something like a marriage, a lifelong Partnership Might have been possible with someone like ellie but hicks relationship with eleanor could never be that even if eleanor dared to leave fdr and live openly with a woman she was not able willing to devote herself to just one other person. She was always going to be tied not only to a husband but to bonds of duty and friendship with many others. This was a painful realization that had grown on hick in the years since she had met and fallen in love with her. Made the time alone together especially precious. Eleanor had insisted they would do a lot of resting and reading on vacation. She also mentioned in passing her idea of taking a camping trip in the mountains. Now hick discovered there was an elaborate plan to explore yosemite on horseback, riding up to a Lakeside Camp 11,000 feet above sea level. And and nor was there in any shape, she smoked too much and gained weight during her month on the road. Long busy days. I get hungry. Eleanor believed she was doing heck of favor with you somebody plan. She worried about smoking and eating. And suggested she take up knitting and lose weight because of her diabetes. Eleanor was following an tradition of uncle Theodore Roosevelt who once threw her into the water to teach her to swim. Uncle theodore advocated strenuous life in which one does not shrink from danger or hardship or bitter toil. A vigorous ride up the mountain would do hick good. As long as they could be together without prying eyes, hick was content. Even when her little mare decided to take a swim she was embarrassed and amused. What in infuriated her where the tourists are recognized eleanor one day when the two came across chipmunks. They had just started to feed the animals when they noticed people had surrounded them and point their cameras at their rear end. Hick exploded employing some choice profanity. The two women left in a hurry with eleanor trying to shush her. The rest of the vacation followed the same pattern. In San Francisco a delicious evening after her favorite restaurant followed by a cable car ride to the top of russian hill where she lived with ellie. There was a fine talk in the moonlight but a piece of that moment was followed by the shock of their return to a hotel lobby crowded with reporters and flashing cameras. Over and over again their private moments were interrupted. On their final night together at a Hotel Restaurant with a spectacular view of the snowcapped mountains, they emerged to find another crowded lobby packed with curious townspeople including the mayor. Eleanor silently handed hick the keys. She knew by now hick was likely to behave badly under such circumstances. Hick went up to their room leaving eleanor to deal with the crowd. Eleanor arrived half an hour later slamming the door behind her. Franklin was right, she declared. He said i would never get away with it and i cant. From now on i will travel the way i am supposed to travel, as the president s wife and do what is expected of me. When they got back to portland where eleanor was scheduled to meet fdrs ship returning from hawaii, the sitting room was filled with flowers sent by the first lady. More than they had ever seen in one place. The flowers represented the future, the intimate life she and eleanor hoped for was impossible. All you need, she declared, looking around the extravagant display, is a corpse. As she prepared to resume her official role eleanor told the berkeley daily good that she should have a right to privacy on vacation. She added a piece of ironic advice about the gangster John Dillinger who was currently on the lamb i had charge of the dillinger case she told a reporter, i would call off the police and send reporters after him. They would find him. [laughter] [applause] i specially love that because she so rarely made a joke. Now a little talk and discussion and questions. Did eleanor have a previous history of samesex relationships . No but she was surrounded by lesbian couples who were Close Friends including someone with whom she developed a cottage and cottage industry. She was the third and a lot of relationships with women who loved women. It is interesting so many women involved in Democratic Politics were accidents starting with severed women afterward, or in the Life Commitments with other women. It is all around her and the thing that saved her life more than anything is she was sent to a school and the woman who ran it was lesbian and had a partner and there was an atmosphere there were girls living girls was possible. There was a play about that, very interesting. There are things around. She was so constricted and married at 18 and married in her class, there was a narrow thing for her. This would free her. I have one question. I have not read your book so i cant comment on it. No ordinary time. It did strike me if you think of their relationship being similar to my fair lady the ironic thing is Eleanor Roosevelt was the one developing Lorena Hickok the one that influenced her and helped to mold her but hickok was Henry Higgins and eleanor was more wealthy than Eliza Doolittle so it was a molding. An interesting analogy. Repeat it . Making a comparison to my fair lady of all things and Henry Higgins and his protege and the role, he is suggesting hick was Henry Higgins in this relationship. I wouldnt go that far but she helped eleanor through a difficult time in her life, eleanor did not want to be first lady and hick knew a lot about the press, encouraged to have all women press conferences, got the idea of the my day column and eleanor was giving her a diary account of each day with the idea hick would write the biography and they realize before long this would be a column and it became six days a week for the rest of eleanors life my day and that introduced her to the wider world and 8 her by the end of her life the first lady of the world. You need to fix that . Is it all right . Definitely, hick helped with her writing. She is not a very good writer. She never became a great writer as eleanor. A lot of platitudes in her writing but hick helped her a lot to become less preachy and talk about her personal life much more than she had in the beginning. So much reading and archives i wonder if there is a favorite discovery or moment you would like to tell us about. The joke at the end of the reading was something i discovered online combing through papers. The question was discovery. I wont be able to talk about a specific one. I talk about how many travels i made to the fbi library, 22 times. Each time i stayed probably a week and i read all of the 3000 plus letters. It is a totality of understanding the depth and breadth of the relationship and maybe you remember it. Werent some of the letters cut out . They didnt all survive . Hick through some into the fire. She told anna at one point your mother was too explicit at times. She did throw some out. Doris father accused hick of wanting posthumous fame from revealing these letters but hickok felt these letters were a treasure. I am glad she didnt throw them all out. When you did this research on these two women, what was the relationship between fdr and eleanor . What was the relationship between fdr and eleanor . Very complicated relationship. As you know she discovered an affair with her secretary, pretty wounded in 1918, lucy mercer and after that the relationship was a partnership but that was gone. Thought about creating a separate life which is a reason it was so hard to leave new york and become a first lady. Fdr had a number of flirtations, they may have been sexual relationships with women and you like to have women around him who adored him, laugh at his jokes, and share his cocktail hour, and eleanor was not that person. You always have somebody else, missy was the primary one. An interesting book about missy, he really accepted hick and all of eleanors relationships because it got him off the hook. They live separate parallel lives. He liked some of eleanors gave friends a lot and helped them to build together and called it their love nest. You have to make some leaps about how much of a new. In the greater united states, how did let people know . They loved eleanor and pretty much loved hick because of the all women press conferences which were her idea a lot of women got jobs. They protected hick. Sometimes she was described as a news hock or mannish there would be those descriptions of her and there was a subtext. That is as far as it went in the wider world. The roosevelts had children and eleanor was obviously a mother. I wonder if you delved into how that related to her relationship with hick. How the children related to that. Keep forgetting, eleanor was a mother, had five children related to a relationship with hick. The irony is hick had no children, no pedigree, but she became eleanors maine confidant and the children were a heart ache, the oldest daughter, the one she was closest to, sort of managed the best but among the five children there were 17 divorces over their lifetime and this was starting to happen when they were in the white house. Anna was one of the first secrets knew, was having an affair with a journalist, which came out of marrying that person. Another son had married had a newborn and left within months. The mother and the baby stayed at the white house. Everyone stayed at the white house including hick who had room for almost the entire 14 years of the roosevelt presidency. On children could you Say Something about franklins mother . Could you Say Something about franklins mother . One of my observations is eleanor spend her life being involved in triangles. Even in her family origin she was she adored her father who was absent. After the mother died she even wrote i wasnt sure if i was to be the mother and he was the father or little brother, so she was confused about that and had the wish to be. When she married franklin she was part of a triangle because franklins first allegiance, a very powerful figure and that is one of the things the complicated the children because she would tell them i am your real mother. Very undermining of eleanor and eleanor wanted to set limits and whenever she did, sarah would undermine them one way or another. Eleanor had a lot of rage toward her mother and that came out a lot in letters to hick. Hick was a safe person which was one of the most important things she could talk about. Could you talk more about your writing the book where it got difficult . Your own sort of emotional journey through this . The writing of the book and my emotional journey, i am not sure i have an answer to that. When i decided she was eleanor, to pool letters all the time, i could paraphrase things that were very important. To move the narrative forward, that was the drive and what i needed and i shouldnt be afraid of it. It was about not being afraid of eleanor, this person. One of the things that happens when you are writing a book about Eleanor Roosevelt is half the world met Eleanor Roosevelt. People all the time, my mother met how many people know someone who met Eleanor Roosevelt or met her themselves . There would be these things, i met her, my mother met her, she was the greatest woman, the most wonderful woman. It is hard to write a book about a paragon. It is impossible in fact. Eleanor with magnificent. She had her flaws. Some of them wound up hurting hick in some ways. So i had to had love of both and had to get rid of all that talk which was getting in the way. After fdr died, eleanor and hick lived together then. After what happened was by the time fdr died the relationship was no longer passionate. The passionate part lasted six years or five or six years, hick, through tremendous discipline managed to accept the fact she wasnt going to be number one, which was her dream and wasnt going to go off with eleanor and had this private relationship she was at that point sort of in love with a young radical name joe lash and another person a whole lot of people, hick is one among many, that was painful for her but there was a point she realized if she was going to have any relationship with eleanor she had to accept that. So she toned down, struggled with a need. Got it under control so she wasnt having outbursts all the time. Remains correspondents. She lived in a cottage for a long time but wasnt able to support that, eleanor heard she was not paying her rent and table to eat and eleanor said her one of her cars and hyde park, she lived with eleanor for a little while and got her own place. Towards the end of her life she managed a small victory, began writing childrens books and she wrote one about helen keller that became a huge hit and by the time i talked to her granddaughter who that book about helen keller still brings in 85,000 a year. It is an amazing thing. So she did that but she really it wasnt a happy ending for hick. After eleanor died she lived on another 51 2 years. She requested at the end of her life that she be cremated and her ashes fertilized a tree somewhere but actually the ashes stood on a shelf in the funeral home for 30 years and were finally dumped in the unclaimed remains part of the cemetery. Quite recently, in 2000 a number of women including a married gay couple found out about this and decided to raise money for a plot so there was an installation of a plaque in the cemetery remembering hick. A journalist activist friend of tr. Thank goodness for that because i end my book with a postscript about that. Two short questions. The granddaughter who wrote the helen keller book hicks grandmother . Hick wrote the book but when hick died, she gave eleanors granddaughter the royalties. Franklin is absent from this story. Can you say anything about that . Franklin is absent from this story. It is one of the things i remarked on right from the beginning, the profiles of eleanor, the news about eleanor, and franklin. They are absent from each others stories. His relationship with hick . He liked her. He would use her stories and people would be impressed. He said you better watch out for this early on, watch for that hickok woman, she is really smart, she was. He liked her and in some ways as i said before that relationship got him off the hook. A two part question. At the time, was either lady worried . Is there any chance, are you expecting any blowback or denial of the nature of the relationship between these two women as the book comes out . Be change yes. Any blowback or denial about this, talking about the lesbian relationship where they afraid of being outed . I have very little evidence how they felt about that and whether they worried about it. Hick at one point said there was a famous book called the well of loneliness, 11 between women, wouldnt walk around in public with that under my arms. That is as close as i get to knowing about this. As to now debated quite a bit whether to call it a love story and what was the other thing . An intimate relationship. We were strong on love stories and it is a love story. Eleanor was a very inhibited person. Dont know how much she enjoyed sex with franklin, how dont know how much she enjoyed it with hick. There was hugging, kissing, maybe there was more, hick was more experienced, maybe she let her into a little more. In those early years, very blissful and there longing for each other was deep and genuine. It was a love story and nowadays it is almost a tame story. Doesnt seem like a big story. Kept in proportion, tell it like it is and not sensationalize it or deny it. Be change Winston Churchill during the war, had a relationship with churchill . Eleanor or hick . Eleanor. Winston churchill visited the white house during the war, had a relationship with churchill, she did she did not like churchill at all. A very funny incident, hick and eleanor often celebrated christmas together, hick couldnt stand to be in competition so they would have a private celebration. They were supposed to have it on christmas eve. Hick came to the white house to celebrate and the whole celebration has been ruined because Winston Churchill showed up. Hick was thought it was hilarious. She disliked the way the two of them talked about war, two little boys playing at war. She hated all that. She hated his imperialist view of the world and they argued about the spanish civil war which he said at one point, the spanish civil war, both of us would have had our heads handed to us by the republicans. They fought about things and didnt like each other much. That your opinion of eleanor change as you are researching the book . Definitely. Did your opinion of eleanor change when you are writing the book . Very much. I went through different phases with it. Get past the hero, part of her, see her as a real person with all her warts. Towards the end, after franklin died in the last period of her life, i came to admire her profoundly as hick did to the sidelines. One more. I find it interesting how eleanor carved out a public role for the first lady almost on a day by day basis. And yet historically looking back on it, she was in this incredibly private relationship. Fdr, upwards of three affairs, love matches or not. Seems funny to me because the adoration of the presidency, the time in the white house is so huge. The impact on the country so big, moral standards holding politicians still especially the marital ones. Do you have any thoughts on it . Dont know where to begin. Lucy is responsible for the subtitle. The question is what is the question . About the amount of attention paid to fdr and his affairs and the fact this has been in the shadows. Is that your point . No more. The change how it would translate to the modern day. And pop it piece the one published yet, what would happen if eleanor ran for office, this beloved person . If she ran for office, her hair, her clothes, all of that idealism, people would be saying is she really idealistic or just ambitious . Outrageously ambitious instead of hillary . I am not sure where i was going with that except to say nowadays it would be very different. Eleanor didnt want to run. She said i would never run for office. I had have to be chloroform and first. A woman of accomplishment like eleanor run for office and have to deal with all the i feel terribly biased with the unfair tax hillary has to deal with. The other thing is the unfaithfulness, both of the men screwing around, that would be out in the open. There less admirable qualities ended did the up hurting hick, some of her flaws or qualities . She could be oblivious. The question was what were the qualities that hurt hick in the end . For instance, she never gave hick enough credit, her memoirs and so on. About outing the relationship. Her importance got buried. Eleanor wrote a lot of books, she turned out one memoir after another. A lot is untrue. Polished up for hick is pretty invisible there. She could be hurtful in that way. Hick was probably the only person eleanor loved, she had a number of people she loved who loved her only, not in some other relationship. Eleanor tended to go to relationships, this doctor later who were married to someone else and she was the third person. At the end of life she lived with this couple, they bought a house together in one form or another. Hick was the only one who loved her only and had an exclusive relationship and eleanor wasnt capable of that. She wasnt capable of true intimacy of that kind. She had no love in her childhood. It is understandable. One more. I will try to repeat it. As you read that except i found it interesting reporters, like paparazzi, were all running after her and looking for her. I was thinking of other first ladies in my lifetime, the only one who might have been followed around like that was jackie kennedy. Why were they so interested . Did she have that kind of charisma . I think she did. She created this phenomenon. People got a big kick out of eleanor because she was inexhaustible. She was a story. A very different kind of woman. I didnt repeat the question did i . [applause] thank you all. Thanks for coming. Anyone have anything . Come on up here. [inaudible conversations] yes thank you, thank you. It will be a big hit. Anything larger. When i tune in on the weekends authors sharing their new releases. Nonfiction authors on booktv, the best television for serious readers. On cspan they can have a larger conversation. Booktv weekends, they bring you arthur after author after author