Reporter, one of the biggest. How does it feel . How does what feel . What you have done has never been done before. You are an outsider. U. K. Men and they call it the summer of trump. I hear that. [applause] and this is the top guy. He said its never been done. How does it feel . I said ill be honest, to me it doesnt feel anything because unless we win i have wasted my time. And he said, now you havent. What you have done is incredible by the way that was a while ago. I think is afraid to write the story but he said what you have done is incredible and i said i understand what you are saying but im telling you unless i win , meaning unless we win in the primaries, and we cant have these politicians and they longer. We just cant do it. We cant do it. We cant do it. All talk, no action, no ability. They have got one ability. They have an ability to get reelected. Thats their only ability. Thats what they have to do. They have to get reelected so i said, and i told him if i dont win i consider to be a massive failure. That means winning the election because otherwise hey we have all had a lot of fun but nothings going happen. I watched hillary last night were going to get this and we are going to get that. Poor woman she has to give give everything away because this maniac standing on her right is giving everything away so he is following. Thats whats happening. [applause] this socialist communist, okay . Nobody wants to say it. [applause] in all fairness to hershey standing here listening to this guy. Hes going to attack you people at 90 . Hes going to take everything. I call him a socialist communist because thats what he is. [applause] then you see her stand up and now its her turn and she goes, im going to do that too. Shes not doing so well and in a headtohead poll, i beat her by five or six points. I love it. I love it. [applause] that we have to be careful, so heres the story. You look around and you can remember this night because as a very important person told me, this is not just crowds. This is a movement going on. When you were leading by 20 to 25 points in all the states, when you are leading in South Carolina by 20, when you are leading in all of these people nevada and leading with the hispanics, leading with the hispanics. [applause] because they know i create jobs and they are here legally and they do want people taking their houses and running all over the place. They want what they have and they want it to get better and they want jobs. When we are leading by 20 points, 25, one of the polls had us that 40 above everyone else. Those are massive numbers. And as this person said this is a movement. This is no longer playing games. This is a movement. They all said oh hes never going to run and hes had a wonderful life and they said he will never run. Form a is where you sign your life away and i signed form a. He will never gives financial because he is not as wealthy as people thought that i have 100 pages of financials. They said they will put him in way late. By the way some of these guys im running against they put them in late with one page. And they need an extension. Its a true story. They say he will never put in his financials and i was so happy to put them in. In fact if i didnt run i might have put them in because i like to tell people i did a good job. I did a good job. If. [applause] so i put in my financials and all of these guys, the pundits, called him the talking heads. They dont know what the hell theyre doing many of them so they are devastated because they said he will never file and he will never do this and never do that. I put in my financials and it turns out my company is much bigger, better, stronger much bigger than anyone ever thought. We even come down here. We have the biggest winery on the east coast. We have the great land on the potomac river. They dont know that. You people not because you are from virginia but no matter where i go i have property coming out of my ears. Its true and i have very little debt. Great cash flow and im not saying that to brag. Im saying that because thats the kind of thinking we need in the country. [applause] thats the kind of thinking. [chanting] [applause] if you think of some of the countries we talk about, if you think, lets say instead of losing in terms of china, lets say instead of losing 352400 billion dollars a year in trade deficit, lets say we broke even do you know what that means . Does anyone have any idea what that means . Lets say instead of losing with japan 75 billion a year, lets say we broke even. Lets say they agreed to take more of our products so we can equalize. Not that its a oneway street. And its easy. We have the cards because we can say we dont want your cars anymore. They would know what to do. We are going to do a job i give you my word. I dont care about my company. Its peanuts. I have wonderful children. My kids are wonderful. My wife is wonderful. [applause] but my three other kids that i just mentioned, it doesnt mean anything to them anymore. I want to do such a great job. I want to make you people so proud of this country again. So proud. [applause] look around at all the people here. Look around at the people next to you because this is a special night. We are going to make America Great again. Thank you, thank you. [applause] [applause] with congress out of session we felt we take this opportunity and bring you booktv and primetime during the week. Tonight we are focusing on books and authors who are bestsellers. Here is her lineup for the evening. In just a minute we are going to show you erik larson. His book has been a bestseller for several months about the sinking of the lusitania. After that rinker buck travels the oregon trail. Chelsea clintons new book its your world get informed, get inspired and get going that we will show you that as well followed by David Mccullough talking about his most recent bestseller the wright rovers and then we are going to wrap up the evening with and liz cheney talking about exceptional, but why the world needs a more powerful america coming up on booktv in primetime inheres sub or with his book bookselling book about the sinking of the lusitania. Welcome everyone to the 31st annual Chicago Tribune printers row with us. Before we get started ill give a quick thank you to our sponsors. As i mentioned earlier todays program is being aired live on cspan2s tv. At the end of the presentation we are going to take some questions from the audience so when the time is right please line up right here by the microphone to lead our home viewing audience hear your questions. You can keep the spirit of lit fest going all year round with a subscription to the printers row journal. Thats the tribunes premium books section book series and membership program. Also download the app on the lit fest as well as access to our digital bookstore. Lastly the lit fest encourages everyone of course to post photographs, messages on twitter instagram and facebook using the hashtag pr al f15. Before we begin turn off your cell phones and flashes on your camera. With that but me and reduce our interviewer rick kogan of the Chicago Tribune. [applause] thats enough of that. Does anybody in here not know who erik larson is . That sounds like an interesting name, and maybe i will go see this character. He was ill without argument and you can argue David Mccullough if you want to the finest narrative nonfiction writer alive. [applause] he is also a terrific human being and you unfortunately have to listen to larson and kogan. Its the first time we have had a conversation that did not involve cocktails. That is true. We may not be as wildly blunt as we normally are but we hope to be found. Right now the lusitania he described as a floating village made of steel. Im not going to concentrate much but my editor jerry kern is a huge fan of the book india specific questions. I will talk more about the process. You are now in what you call the dark country of no ideas. Thats a term that i didnt come up with but my good friend came up with to describe it period when im looking for my next book idea because unlike other writers a lot of other writers, most other writers when i finish a book i have no other ideas on my plate so i start from scratch. Its a long process and it took me a year before i started the next project during which i am snappy and busy. You sort of read breed not indiscriminately but something well attract her attention and you go from there. I wish i had a willingness to spill the process. I do think that i hope try to jog things loose in my mind prefer example i will actually walk through the stacks of my Favorite Library in seattle and just pull books at random and read them to see what the book is. To wait to expose myself to new things, new books that i would have never come across. This is never yielded anything, ever. [laughter] but its a way to truly a way to make me feel part of this. I dont like sitting around. I have a lot of desks as you know and i can spend a lot of time orchestrating and photographing battles between me men zealous and the japanese bullet train and all that stuff. It doesnt end up paying the college tuition. Of which there were three. One may be going to law school but we are not sure yet. Theres an old married couple appear. You said old . Sorry. I just interviewed a guy who wrote a book called Spring Chicken about fighting off aging so im very aware of my frailty. Chicago has been very very good to you, has it not . Yes absolutely. Could you give us and remember double in the white city the thing that made you start doing the research. How many of the people like that book . [applause] first i will tell you that on the eve of publication of that look i was convinced that my career was over. I am absolutely being honest there because to narrative threads that never really touch. I thought the reviewers at the New York Times was going to bear me and happily they didnt but the way this came about was it goes back to 1994. The hardcover came out in 2003 but in 1994 i read a book, a great novel by caleb carr called the how many of you read the book . At about a fictional serial killer in old new york and when i read the book i came away thinking wow i really got a good sense of whats old 1890s new york must have been like. Then i thought why dont i try to do a Nonfiction Book about a historic murder to try to evoke the same kind of thing. This is a long story by the way way so anyone wants to get up and go to the bathroom or get coffee or something. Im sure you are going to be bored to tears by this. You may be. Okay im going to look into a book about a murder. I went back to my Favorite Library and i took out a book called the encyclopedia of murder and i started reading it at a and i dont know where i came across a serial killer where it was h for homes but i came across it i was reading about these other guys and i was you have this for hotel and acid of the acid bath. I didnt want to do crime. I wanted to do something with more manner something along the lines of gossard park or Something Like that. I kept looking and i found a murder to start working on. It wasnt necessarily interesting it did however have that bizarre hurricane connection. I told it was a long story. Had a bizarre hurricane question i fell in love for the hurricane and that became the core of my book which remains my wifes favorite. So i did that book. Again when i was done i started thinking maybe i should still look for a murder. The thought of holmes went through my mind but still i did not want to do a slasher book however i was back in the dark country with no ideas than i did recall in reading about him it was in reference to the chicago fair of 1893 which i had never heard of and i never knew existed. So i thought theres nothing on my plate. So i went back to the library and took out a bunch of books and it turned out they had a large collection even in seattle which really told me something. This is interesting. But what happened was i started reading, the first thing i read was tedious academic things. I swear it was like sums kind of marxist feminist deconstruction of the whatever pavilion and it was really mind killing. I was already in that zone so i was ready to read anything. It was when i came to the footnotes, a lot of historians in particular tend to put the best stuff in footnotes. Truly because if you are going to get tenured you cant write about the things in the footnotes. The first footnote i came across was the trigger of this book and that was where i read juicy fruit gum was introduced to consumers for the first time at the worlds fair in 1893. Now why is that significant . Im a big juicy fruit gum tour and some of you out there you know juicy fruit gum is a private session because its a strange gum. If youre sitting next to somebody on the bus who said chewing juicy fruit gum you think they just drop the juicy fruit gum thing was black wow is fascinating. Then more a red footnotes i thought this was an amazing event. Thats what brought me back to holmes. I thought im going to do this fair but i need Something Else. Homes would provide the dark juxtaposition to the city, the white city this darkness and light. The last time you were at hunters rule it fest you told me it was for the light city and you really were insecure about that book. Those of you who have read it which i assume are most of you, i find that as a writer i dont find anything insecure about that book. We have been surprised at the level of success of the look . I was very surprised. I got an inkling that Something Interesting was happening. Given the logic of publishing the introduced the book in new york. The logic of publishing. Im going to mention one thing that happened with the introduction of this book. Two people showed up during the questionandanswer period two young women in their early 30s. They were well groomed and they seemed great and they were. They said they would direct the sentence of the serial killer. They were both corporate lawyers. That was the part that scared the hell out of me. [laughter] one of them said you know i want to say we are so happy about this book because its the first time anyone had done aarp black sheep relative justice. Swear to god she said as a matter of fact we are having a Family Reunion. [laughter] in the Hudson Valley this saturday. I want to come. [laughter] i was having lunch with charlie manson. Qunai sam the garden of the beast is somehow born out of, was perhaps born out of some Year Research for devil in the white city dealing with a woman who worked at the tribune. Zero connection. Totally sweet chinaris. What happened was probably had to do with the political situation when i started thinking about it and i was getting kind of creepy. The Bush Administration was putting political agents and two departments firing u. S. Attorneys for their political beliefs and that kind of stuff and it got me thinking what happens . Wheres the Tipping Point in a political culture and one thought led to another and i said what would it have been like to live in berlin during hitlers rise . That was the question that just popped into my head. Actually its more convoluted than that. I happened to go to a bookstore in my dark country of no ideas phase and try to be productive and i just wanted to look store to look at the works of history to see what was coming into the pipe. I came across this book that i never read 1600 pages, no pictures, small print. 1700 pages no print. Ive never read it, took it home and loved it. Thats when the two things came together. This concern about the political situation and realizing that the author of rise and fall of the third reich had actually been there in berlin and had socialized with all these characters all these awful people before it became known, before anybody knew how this was all going to turn out and that was what made me start digging what would that have been like to live in berlin when you didnt know the ending . How would it have felt and what would you have seen if i had been in a cafe. What i have been thrilled . Would i be bored . Would i metaphorically text by friend and say whats up with that mustache a la well . Al o al. Thank god i came across his daughter. You write a short introduction to dead wake andy tuck its about one thing that produced the tragedy. They have long been obscure it in the myths of history. Ed and very curious your definition of the myth of history and why certain things very like that . Part of it must be bad research along the way, not yours but others. I do know what you mean. First of all it wasnt like nobody knew the story. I think most people know the lusitania was a boat and it sunk. Thats not a story. Do you know what i mean . Thats exactly correct. I think thats what we all picked up from high school. Okay loose with two in lusitania sank in the next day we are in the war. We didnt get into the water for another two years. When i first read this and did my own research i was like that cant be true. I was doubting because of my High School Thing but more relevant, well not more relevant but questions like in the case of this serial killer in the worlds fair or in the case of isaacs storm the storm that struck galveston people in texas new but outside texas nobody knew about that storm. I didnt know about the storm until i stumbled across it literally in a newspaper back in that era and again with the killer and the worlds fairs coming across that too. Nobody else in chicago knew about the worlds fair of 1893. But especially things like this where there has been, have been millions of looks written about it you certainly can and you researched the oldfashioned way most of the time and you like doing that but the initial liar or the initial falsehood is a way of gaining life throughout other books. How do you get around that . It made me think it was a mental obstacle doing a book about the lusitania. It crossed my mind to do it because i really like maritime history. Ive always been fascinated when i was a kid fascinated when the flying dutchman and the whole deal and frankly i probably would have done a book about the titanic if James Cameron and celine dion hadnt done it. But there is this obstacle. I knew there had been a lot of stuff done but something kept nodding at me. Finally i parachuted into an archive to take a look at what kinds of materials they had and i realized i might be able to bring something to this because the materials were just a glimpse of something available and they knew there was much more available in europe. It occurred to me that there was so much fine textured material that i had not accounted for any of my previous books. This telegraph and love letter from president wilson and the whole deal that i thought i think i can actually do something new here and terms of the historiography of the lusitania and that is to put on my offered hitchcock had into a book of nonfiction suspense. That was my whole goal was to telling in this case. Its almost impossible to do heavy Research Projects without finding new things. Thats really how it came about. I was surprised at the reception because mike beer was people would be sort of burned out on lusitania. Been there, done that. Do you feel with all these bestsellers in your background, do you feel any pressure with each book . After the success of devil . Yes. [laughter] is that pressure alleviated by a glass of red wine or is there something more to it than that . The only way to alleviate the pressure, wine helps as does bourbon but the only way, there is pressure. You feel it and anybody who says that they dont that is in that situation is probably still drunk but for me what you have to do is you just have to put it aside and say you no forget it. Im going to do a story that i wouldnt want to do because im managers to bend the story and you have to proceed with the idea that if im interested in this somebody else is going to be interested. Thats my feeling. So far i havent been wrong. It could happen with the next book but i dont know. It helps to have a sounding board when im coming up with ideas like my daughters. Let me tell you they dont mince words. They dont mince words. You said your wifes favorite hook is thunderstruck, isaacs storm as opposed to saying whats your favorite daughter do you have a Favorite Book of yours and why . I dont have a favorite look because i cant have a favorite look. Its like daughters. I dont have a favorite daughter i have a favorite wife. You met your wife on a blind date, did you not . Anybody else have a blind date with a successful marriage in this auditorium . I dont believe any of you. We have been married for 30 years actually however the first date was terrible. Where did you go . Tell me you didnt go to a library. In San Francisco we went out for a drink and then dinner but there was no chemistry, nothing. And so a couple of weeks past and i thought i was such an arrogant can i use the word out sole . I called her up again because i have a theory that every woman deserves a second chance. [laughter] i knew you would be horrified by that. To this day im horrified via. The second date clicked. Given your profession there is no underestimating the value of having a family that you appreciate and i get the sense understands you and what you do. I have two families. The secret family is not the one i want to talk about. The family is incredible. For stability, for just maintaining a positive footing and also because you cant get lost in your own as you all know you cant get lost in your own little world when you have got first toddlers and teenagers and kids who need to learn how to drive and all this stuff. It just keeps you really balanced. You have used your kids to your advantage when you were here. He didnt have her out crying on the street trying to sell copies but you had her singing. I did. I dont know anybody was here for that but this goes back again to printers row. 2003 i think it was and theres a song in devil in the city that was written for the fair. Its the one that does no code. So i had my daughter to that. It was so cute. She was so cute. I tried to get her to come back for this. Shes 21 and living in new york. Shes like dad, its not happening. [laughter] Something Else happened that the printers row thing. We will be taking questions in about five minutes. You got asked what i think is a chicago question. We were talking about the nature of taking questions at events like this and many people get up and say i have a question and they will ask it and it will be answered and the second part of that question is, but. In fact the first inkling i got was doing a talk in chicago and a number of chicago pd homicide cops had turned up. I didnt do anything. They came to your the talk and there were a bunch of these guys was a packed house but during the questionandanswer period a guy gets up and those of you that recall the story chicago one the right to do the worlds fair over new york and washington. This guy gets up in classic guy, kind of gnarly and he says you know i just have one question. If chicago gets the fair in new york and washington dont who put on they [laughter] the kickers the guy turns out to be the alderman for hide park. [laughter] but there we go. Be careful with your questions. This is a fabulous book and i myself cannot pick my favorite erik larson book. Devil in the white city is way up there at any given moment when i reread it as i inevitably do every couple of years. It rises to the top but every couple of years he has a new book that tops that. I hope this is a good example. These sorts of things punctuate the book so effectively. Delay terrace swim from the ship quote i had no feeling of fee but i went overboard unquote. He felt this comfortable as if he had simply entered a swimming pool, so composed that when he came across a floating book he picked it up and examined it. I dont want to know where that kind of detail comes from and i dont need to know. Im in awe of that writing and work comes from. You are in the presence of a master and a decent guy and a cool guy and i think are probably a pretty good father too. Dont be too much and not because you read it feet and it should be feared. Do you know why it says steve . I crossed through. Once again the quotation ladies and free of fast cspan audience members i had no feeling of fear [laughter] fear when i went overboard. Erik larson lineup and ask questions. You have to step up to the microphone. You shout your question. Everybody here that question . Did he go to the Family Reunion . No. Those are the kinds of questions they like. I was on the book tour for that book in the next stop was chicago so i couldnt go. Yes sir. Id like general books but i love your books and you have a different style almost like a novel and i feel like your books have a theme to them. Do you intentionally write to get a message across is supposed to getting history across . No. No. [laughter] it would be great if we could take 50 questions in 15 minutes and every answer is no. Its interesting though, i never set out to bring any message that i want to get across but in their invariably theres something that emerges in the course of the research that is not necessarily intended but does come out as if you wanted to be a message. And the isaacs storm it became a story of each hubris guided by the new everything that is needed to know and nature proved him wrong. I came close to starting with the idea of the message the garden of the beast that i had no intention of making any kind of comic getting up on any soap locks in preaching. It once i found my character had that story you got to go with what youve got and i love nuance. I love nuanced yours. In the garden of the beast had been criticized by people for including martha in the book. Ive been criticized people for not being more judgmental and the book about the ambassador and his daughter. Not taking a more judgmental stand but you have got to tell it the way the story was. So thats how the book plays out in this is what these people experienced in that time. It wasnt the intent and its not part of the picture. Thank you. Thank you. Back in the day when he is to appear at smaller venues like century and forest park i saw you when you were doing another event for devil in the white city and you mentioned that the types of stories for you have to stories that you bring together and i believe you call that parallel narrative, a dual narrative. You said it was very difficult to do and that particular book was a last dual narrative and obviously wasnt so my question is what attracts you to the dual narrative and is this your last dual narrative . [laughter] rus stalk her . [laughter] are you a stalk her . It was clearly a dual narrative and i never wanted to do another one because its like writing two books instead of one book. I did in fact say publicly that i was not going to it ever do another dual narrative and the next book was. It was completely by accident, believe me. I told my wife at one point im just going to get attacked for being derivative of