spent two years interviewing stanley dunham s friends and family, including president obama. she discussed what she learned about the woman that raise the the 44th path with national journal s major garrett. the title is a singular woman. what is more important, the fact that president obama s mother is singular, or she s the mother of the president of the united states. what fascinated you most about the woman? guest: i got interested in her during the campaign. i was doing a series of pieces about then senator obama. i heard about her. i was interested in the singularity. yes, of course, i wouldn t have come upon her had she not been the mother of the candidate that i was writing pieces about. to some extent, the justification for the book is that. but the thing that we don t expect is that a person in our national political life had a mother with such an extraordinarily unusual life. so i think for me it s the singularity. did you approach this as a student of pres
and then they can t get stuck in one point of view. .. something wonderful about things coming back. so thank you very much for having me here. and thank you for those really wonderful words of praise. i must say though my favorite praise that i received for the book came this morning when i was reading through my e-mails and someone sent me a little note from some blogger who says, are there cliff notes for the the emperor of all maladis . it s been my lifelong ambition to a have a book which there are cliff notes. if anyone is inspired to write cliff notes i would be delighted. i thought i would begin today, rather than talking about the content of the book, i thought i would begin today talking about process because that s more interesting. it s something you don t get from just reading the book itself, sort of a behind-the-scenes look what motivated some parts of the book and how they got written. the first i have to offer a note of apology, which this book, when it was
and so then this is about page 60, i said, have no idea who this child is and i m on page 60 and i can t find the first patient or first few of the patients with leukemia the only thing i knew about this child was that he was the years old, and that he had lived in boston, and his initials were rs, because that was all that was in the paper. and so i began i was in boston. i sent out e-mail0s on list serves which said issue if you happen to know a child called rs with leukemia in the 1940s, please right to me. and months peace passed by, and no response whatsoever. and i kept saying, i m on page 60. this book is going to get written. then i got rejected, and i thought i went on a vacation to my parents house in india, and someone said to me, the chemist only one biographyer, and someone said to me, well, he lives three blocks away from my parents house in india. so he said to talk to him. so i said, final. so i went and talked to him, and we re having a conversati
this is about an hour and a half. i have a very personal relationship to this bookstore. i was a student very close by here, an undergraduate from a foreign country. when i could get my spirits up, i would like to this bookstore and spend time here. there s something wonderful about things coming back. so thank you very much for having me here. and thank you for those really wonderful words of praise. i must say though, my favorite praise that it received for the book came this morning when i was reading through my e-mails. someone sent me a note from some blogger who says arthur cliff notes for the the emperor of all maladies ? [laughter] it s been my lifelong ambition to have a book to which there are cliffsnotes. [laughter] so if anyone is inspired to write cliffsnotes, please let you know. i would be delighted. i thought i would begin today rather than talking about the content of the book, i thought i would begin about talking about process because that s more inter
for me because it reminded me about what was essential and what was nonessential. and the essential piece of it was that much like a book, medicine is about storytelling. the dissent begins with the most shamanic at, if you take away all its paraphernalia, it begins with someone saying tell me your story. what happened? that is the first thing that happens when you meet it up your is that you begin to unpack the story. and if they make a claim in the book, doctors then tell a story back to you. and it s an ancient interchange, one of the most ancient interchange is we have is human beings. that itself, that process in itself begins the unpacking or unburdening long before you receive the first dose of whatever medicine you will or will not receive. it is the unburdening of the story that is the first. and if you forget that, it seems to be something very important will stop happening. and what s i come to that realization inspired by this comment, it began to become very clea