Transcripts For CSPAN2 In Depth Colson Whitehead 20180205 :

program. this is our special your fiction on in depth. you'll see authors -- this month we are pleased to have colson whitehead as our guests. his most recent book is the underground railroad. what's the appropriate response when it's praised by oprah, president obama, was the appropriate response? >> guest: this book is taken off in a way that's unexpected and wonderful. mostly i thank my lucky stars and i sleep a little better, i'm in a better mood generally i try to enjoy it despite my best efforts. >> host: what is up regina better food? >> i've been writing for 20 some years. sometimes you read a book and people understand and sometimes you write it and nobody cares. and it disappears. so i've the pride and thinking i did a good job with the book. the bonus of other people liking it as well. >> host: your first book was intuition us. how do you sell a book like that? >> guest: exactly. with that book either when i send it to my age in either you dig the concept of the two groups or you don't. further along for the ride or you're not. when i was writing it was my second attentive novel. the first one was terrible went to a bunch of publishers, the agent taught me as it wasn't going anywhere. a year and half i said my friends am writing a book about elevator inspectors. they would make fun of me. eventually after year and half got it down to what sounded like an interesting book. my new agent. >> host: is there a connection between the intuition us in the underground railroad? >> there's a few topics i circle around. cities, new yorker and love writing about new york. i get a lot of energy from the city. pop culture, race, technology a book about new york, a racialized take on new york it's just they are, doesn't have much to say about technology but those are for five areas i tend to circle around. >> host: how should people read your book? social commentary,. >> guest: definitely sag harbor which is my fourth novel growing up in the 80s and takes off from my childhood. underground railroad is my least autobiographical book. i'm not in there and some sort of coded way which is probably why people like it. so greeted from the beginning to the end is a good way. some books are funny, some are a little more tragic. i hope spirits is worth your time. sometimes there's commentary on whatever weird thing going through that year. >> host: and sag harbor are you benji with a bad haircut? >> guest: benji is a kid growing up in new york in the 80s. as i did, unfortunately my life was a very interesting so i have to exaggerate. when i started the book i wanted to base characters on my friends and unfortunately whenever they appeared on the page they became less and less like my friends as the book took over. it started autobiographical and i'm in there but the demands of the story supersede any other urge. and try to make a compelling story which means exaggerating what actually happened. >> what is the process to get to elevator inspectors are zombies or railroad that actually exists? >> i wanted to mix it up and not do the same thing. if you know how to write a certain kind of book then why do it again. writing a book that is very plot heavy is a way to varied up and not to the same thing. one that has a first-person narrator is a way to keep it varied for me. so i'm on a perverse street. i went from sag harbor historian 80s to zone one, and a pop lip takes on be true so i am keeping it very different. i get my ideas from articles i spent a lot of time on my couch. sometimes the ideas stay with you when you get an open spot in your schedule you could consider sometimes i fall away. they come from a lot of different places. >> there's a common theme about a guy who didn't get the rules of life and had a certain unease around other people. >> that's a little biographical. but i don't want to get that too early. there's something about an outsider. whether -- an outsider makes a good observer. a good storyteller. you're in the action but also standing apart. so someone who observes but also removed is good for telling the story. nice to have a point of view character for the reader most of us are not elevator inspectors of my out side characters become a way for the reader to enter the story. >> host: zone london camacho 2011. but you wrote that is young guy like an eighth or ninth grade. >> guest: no. as a big horror fran writing horror fiction and science fiction i wrote to terribles dories in college but and start writing fiction to my mid- 20s. but it does go back to my childhood. parents who love horror movies we watch for movies together i remember seeing night of the living dead at an early age. it stayed with me. to refresh your memory it's about the eve of the zombie a pop .-ellipsis the main protagonist is a black man being pursued by will why people who want to daveua him and need him. growing up as a horror and science fiction fan five books and i was ready to try my hand. >> you said you watched for movies but i get the impression there is an obsession. >> sure. a real interest. my brother and i came of age with the vcr boom and we go to crazy eddie's and brent five for movies and every friday go through them and return them and start over again. it was science-fiction horror and had a lot of comics growing up i'd read comics and my brothers room. so fantasy, horror has always seemed to be a potent storytelling to her. zone one a few other ideas about what zombies mean for me my own interpretation and put my own stamp on the genre was fun and important. >> host: what are zombies mean to? >> i think different generations interpret different horror genres differently. vampires need something in england, they need something different to the twilight generation zombies mean something different to teenagers now. to me it's always been an expression of social anxiety and fear of other people. you go to bed and you wake up in the world this change. there are zombies out to get you and they stop pretending. now they're out to get you. of course it be through psychology that i interpret zombies that way. when i was finally ready to tackle it i had various ideas ready to put on the page. >> is social anxiety a common trait among novelists? >> i don't know think it helps when you worry about your work are you doing a good job maybe good skill for being a novelist helps you not coast. >> host: worrying about what others may think of your work? >> guest: i think a healthy amount of worry helps you make sure you're putting everything into that paragraph for that page, making sure is coming out right even if you have done eight or nine times. >> host: in the new yorker and 2012 you said to be good novelists to fully and have one's delusion to give into every cookie aspect of one's freakish myths is a handy survival strategy. >> guest: what i like about my different books as they are on and allow me to express different ideas about the world and myself. different theories. i think writing has become a way for me to interpret the world for myself and to figure out how i feel about things and how i feel about societal systems and politics. so that license is very important for me. not being tied to expectations following my own inclinations. just because it sounds like a bad or dumb idea can you make it working can result to the reader at the same time you're selling it to yourself? the delusion that you have something to say that your work is worthy of being read by others is useful. >> where did the thought of an intuition come from. were you on an elevator? did you see and expect her? >> i read the book that everyone brought the book that everyone hated. is about mary during coleman the tv star, here is a tv critic at the time writing about black imagery and pop culture. thought i'd write about it gary coleman -like child star. seem like a good idea to me. the novel is on the sitcom called on moving in because user is getting adopted by rich white people. so i moving it seem like a soft realism. everyone hated the book. think i became a writer them. like i was going to become a lawyer or something and would can write another book that i was gonna learn how to write by the end of it. i figure people like potts, i could try that so i studied suspense and is watching 2020 as i often do in those days in my 20s. in the 1990s and there was a piece of the hidden dangers of escalators. apparently a few don't repair them they can detach from the sides and you can lose a toe. so there is an escalator inspector i thought that was a random job. and growing up in your carry see there's a law necessarily enforced but they sign a certificate, i've been here things are fine. they come once a year, your work or school and suddenly you see that they been there so i thought when to be cool if an elevator inspector had to be, inspector and solve a criminal case. a postmodern detective story. went to the library to see what type of skills elevator inspector would bring to the case of it was non. so is like i made a different culture for elevator inspectors. a figure there conservatives and progressives in will look at the people who do it the perfect way. there is an elevator inspector school and philosophies so really i was teach myself how to write. and have a female protagonist before. did not have a book that had a plot or any linear momentum. then i took this weird whimsical idea of an elevator inspector solving the case. >> host: prior to starting centerview you looked at your books on the table and said, sorry for the clunkers you had to read. what do you consider to be a clunker? >> guest: i think they're all good but hopefully if you do something for long time to get better at it. certain books i'll think about and wonder, why doing so many adjectives, with their simpler way of saying that. maybe the book could lose up a chair there. but her flammability writer doing things in a more efficient way. hopefully you get better and better and then a plateau and start sucking. play absalom to get a better phase getting better at my job and learning from each book. >> host: does on moving in still exist? >> guest: the manuscript is there. for a while thought maybe i will stripmining but it's really terrible and the energy it would take to bring up to my now very high standards would be well spent doing something else. so my children have like a gambling debt they can sell money 30 years from now to make some quick cash. >> host: so -- was a female protagonist. was the reason to write through a woman's point of view? >> guest: women exist and if you tell different stories you should pick different points of view. i had the string a male protagonist before this book. so it seemed wise to mix it up. if you know how to do something, why do it. with watson i could into my hipster new york voice my first novel. i was i chose a third person narrator so i cannot rely on my first-person narrator tricks. the female protagonists i had not done before. by doing it i could hopefully become a better writer. then with core i had a few female their raters in a row. there's a famous narrative been by harry jacobs as she writes about how when the slave girl becomes a slave woman she's into a much terrible form of slavery. now you have to frontier masters desires. you're supposed to pump out more babies. so that predicament of the female slave sound seems worthy of learning more. so just to keep the challenges going. >> host: what was your favorite lunch right? >> guest: this book was hard to write because i was broke, this book was harder because i was broke and depressed. then when you're finished you can look back and think this is terrible but there it was a special time in my life. so with the noble -- the noble hustle was the most fun to write. so humor book taking off from the trip i took to the world series of poker. i tried to cram as many jokes as i could in there. as a journalistic framework that is trying to cram as many weird jokes and bits of myself into it. was fun. it started from a journalistic assignment. they call me up to see if i wanted to write about the world series of poker. i said no i don't want to go to vegas atop. so what if we could see them page you the entrance fee anything or to the world series. i said okay i'd go that. but i didn't know how to play it so i started cramming. drop my daughter off at school and the other parents would say what he up to? like i'm going to atlantic city to train poker term the that i go there and gamble that i got to the world series. for the first time i had to get out of my comfort zone which is basically a 5-foot area around my couch. i need to learn how to play poker so i went in verse my family and the city of new york. when i was writing and utilize what a joke you make yourself laugh. then sometimes you feel stupid laughing at your own jokes for a while. with writing in the serial way like dickens did you get immediate response of people liked it. it was a special writing experience in terms of the material and how it came to be. i look upon that six-month rate fondly. >> host: you said i got to wear sunglasses inside it was good because i'm half dead anyway. >> for years i was told i have a good poker face. i realize that because i was half dead inside. my natural lack of aspect was for once an asset in a social situation. tammy unpacked. half dead? >> you do read about having the mask on and the fact that you are some my depressed when you're writing in your different person when you're done with the book, is that important or pain or depression important? >> i think it partially is. lynn partially it's good to have a healthy joking relationship in life. whether it's art or anything else. so not taking myself too seriously is important. i think in terms of sharing how i feel about other people, demystifying it is important. most writers i know are crawling along the pavement trying to write some pages and hand them in so we can keep doing what we like to do. a lot of times rating is unpleasant. like when he figure out any sentence or character but for me not taking too seriously and i think the character of the oppressive shed and is fun to play. sparsely true. it's also the default setting in my public relations. >> what was the easiest book to write? >> they were all hard. i'm a go at the shorter one. the book i'm working on now is pretty short, short is an easy but it does not prolong the agony of a 400 page or. >> when you when the pulitzer praise by oprah praise by president obama does that put a lot of pressure on the next book? >> there's pressure imposed on myself because i don't want to coast. unfortunately when i get good news and i'm in the middle of something i can feel the good. the menace like all is terrible. it's always hard when the pressure is self-imposed but it's always been there but should i read a book, there's always somewhere pressure on you. whether things are going well or they're not. . . >> good afternoon and welcome to book tv on c-span2. this is our monthly index program and this entire year we are doing a special action in addition with best-selling action authors. and this month, our author is best-selling author, pulitzer prize winner colson whitehead. here's a list of his books, we've referred to several of them through the first half hour iwant to give you a list , "the intuitionist" is his first book in 1998, johnhenry days, 2001, the colossus of new york, 2003 . apex heights in 2006, "sag harbor" 2009. zone one about the zombies, 2011. the noble hustle which we talked about a little bit, a nonfiction book in 2014 and of cou >> and of course is most recent the underground railroad. we want your participation this afternoon. here is how you can participate. >>host: what is the first line you wrote in "the underground railroad" are the first row will get the first word? >> it was the opening line. i always do an outline before i start working to do the beginning and the end the last couple of books i have known the last line of the book before i start writing. i did not have that with this book without personal and i think came really quickly when i was organizing the book and o inived the horrible editing process to get into the book. >>host: what is the vetting process? >> if i think it is genius and then they think it is stupid but in this case the first linean it was durable and sturdy and spoke in that one sentence and it stayed with me. >>host: from "the underground railroad" the negro became a human being only then is he the white man's equal t-1 so in the early part of the 19th century and going to medical school and the book takes a route through american history with the main storyline that was my cut off for technology was certain slang and then there were some side stories in the book with the supporting cast. so in that section dr. stevens who meets correlator was a young medical student in the 19 century learning about biology. on cadavers and then you dig them up so there is a healthy trade of grave robbing. people would compete to find fresh cadaversd or games -- gangs so he considers himself liberal and to talk about prejudice in boston and uses that despite racial prejudice or the dispersions cast upon black folks in america and ironically used for dissection and they become equal suddenly elevated only in death to the level of equality. one of those many uplifting moments inin the book. >> did you know you would write about that when you started the book? >> i mentioned that south carolina but the white supremacist state but then i knew i wanted to have the opening of the overture of us slaves wife -- life so her grandmother empowered her from africa, the passage, different plantations and i figured the typical slaves story that it seemed they could open up the world so even though they were auditioning for the short biographical chapters and after certain sections i would think after north carolina need a husband-and-wife team who is more interesting? what can the upbringing bring to the book? what can ethel bring to the book? even though i have a strong structuree obviously with that process those are very useful in terms of giving voice to how itth was evolving. >>host: can you read this as historical fiction? t-1. >> i thank you know this didn't actually happen i moving from late 19th century i had the idea to make "the underground railroad" into something real. that was something i had as an idea on my couch f years ago so there was this element. so now i can do a lot of things in the book and the books power comes from that structure.ru but no. it is not because they take many liberties. i would not stick to the fax but the larger american truth. it is not bound by chronology. it did happen but but trying to move those different historical episodes around. >> did that randall plantation actually exist? did you visit these places in your research? >> where cora was raised is my own creation. i did the research and made my own plantation one of three slaves on the smallre family farm or domestic slave in a townhouse in baltimore that that serves the artistic needs. but in terms of visiting plantations, thirds of the way through i figured with decent field research so we went to new orleans and visit plantation t17. i was only black person. [laughter] we were going north and the two are guide -- tour guide said this is the river road down to the port city and it is very complicated. running a plantation sitting on your porch to keep track of the accounts and the workers sipping mint juleps and not to be historically rigorous travelogue. we went to to plantations one was l a museum it is great. you should go in for a fiction writer the atmosphere on my skin and and getting names. they would describe how slaves were sold, then we get on the bus go to the nextbo plantation you have probably seen on tv. veryon stereotypical. if you want a themed wedding you can have a slavery themed wedding. they have hotel rooms to break free from the hotel chain you can stayit here. but writing a book about slavery coming across the ironies about race and the way we deal with that is nothing compared to the actual stories themselves so it was a weird adventure for research. >>host: is a tour guide did she ignore youou are spending too much time talking to you? >> neither i was under the microscopic one --dash microscopepe or ignored she gave the same speech two times a day. and then how we think about slavery or day today conditions from slaves complete vast array of dehumanizing apparatus we don't examine the assumptions so with the louisiana plantation life to think of it in that way. to give a complete understanding. >> this fiction is new to us here as well and with a month-longt read and then to read "the underground railroad". and then to submit questions we had one from our colleague who just finished your book. she wants to know about the five ads for the escaped slaves are the other ones actual ads from newspapers? >> guest: they are. they digitized those ads from the archives they invited me to go down there hopefully i express gratitude to their archives. so when the slave runs away what do you do? you place a classified ad in thee newspaper. as a fiction writer but then to compete with the runaway slave act they capture so much so the format is usually $50 for my slave bessie who has run away for no reason at all she had a downcast expression and a burn on her arm last seen in the vicinity of the farm. how did she get that burden? so many levels of denial and copyright law being what they are so that was an observation but to be a farmer or slave master to be writing as a classified ad to be of holding the slave system or the enterprise or the link in the chain to keep it going or you are a blacksmith also to make those iron rims taking cotton to the market and those popping up in the new slave economy towns. so while researching i was thinking how fast this was as an enterprise to broaden the ideaof of how vast and insidiou. >>host: everybody is working for the united states. >> yes. the slaves of course and the antagonist in the book is as much a slave to the system as in bondage. everyone is popping up and is caught in that insidious grip. >>host: is there a prophetic aspect? >> and with the protagonist core. meant to make them live. a terrible person in the terrible p philosophy but when cora you see her as a human being. and then to recognize some self perception how he sees the world that is what makes artwork recognition. >>host: you have taught several universities. what are two things you want the students to learn? >> guest: we have three months a so they can write three stories. if you only write stories from new jersey because that is real from. but three months sympathetic to try these different stories. so why'd you avoid it? and then to have thatyb trepidation. and then to try something different. and sometimes with engineers or bankers. and then she read once they get out of school. and why you are attracted to their work make some compelling and then to find a out what kind of writer you actually are with those inspiring voices. >>host: was it hard to write has a white southerner? >> but as a a human being i know people and to draw upon your own knowledge and to speculate. with a small collection of insight you have about humanity that is like sag harbor you always find yourself a place where you are different and hopefully what you know if they are not like you to make them recognizable on the page. >> another colleague has been reading your books and had questions from several books who was james fulton? >> the first -- the person i think about if people have questions so when the book came out i was invited to a college and somebodye asked me james fulton. that is based on some code? i said no. that is the name i saw first when i looked out the window. [laughter] so the inventor of the intuition is cool and to step into an elevator and hopefully the elevator inspector and without aggressive force with those elevator inspectors and he is a man who comes up with their philosophy. growing up in the 80s with the wars between the multiculturalist with that conservative and progressive war or those multiculturalist and then with that sacred text whether my book sounds good or bad. if it sounds cool at that point sounds totally stupid. s [laughter] i am just creating my own way. [laughter] >>host: i literally have no idea what you just said. [laughter] >> guest: is sag harbor a real place? it is. the hamptons community for the last couple of decades and the town is nestled in the southampton it is an old railing town -- whaling town mentioned in moby dick it is that part of long island sound starting in the 30s and 40s african-american doctors and teachers and lawyers would go out there to get some summer places as a place to go to bring your kids and then they tell their cousin in new jersey and they a start coming outpending my summers there through college. so that is based on my adventures in the town. >>host: was there anything worse than bigger kid play keepth away? >> guest: that main character is 15 and with that identity formation to figure out where he is part of the community or deviates from the community and he is figuring out and with that identity battle with that psychological warfare so as a teenager. >>host: what is it mean to be bougie? do you give up your pretensions and if you have made it also to embrace the fact you are a little bit posh. >>host: back to sag harbor getting rid of the house was unforgivable. do you still have your psych house? >> guest: my mom is still living out there sovi she owns it. it is not mine but people have been going out there for generations t grandparents and their peers they have little plots of land with their houses in the grandkids spend theirth summers and i wouldn't call it gentrified but a lot of families go out there and then people take over and then they go to the black part of town so what has changed from when i i was again and so to talk about that place before it becomes the hamptons proper and it is posh. >>host: was your dad alive? . >> guest: i'm not sure how much he would have liked it. my mom liked it. it came doubt everybody out there seemed to have embraced it.in there is a character in the book and a set i hear you mean your book. [laughter] and then what about the audiobook? so that kept m coming up all my friends were in the book. >>host: if your mom read it what was the reaction to the line and it is fiction but we were made for tv family when they said action we hit our marks and set our lives --em-dash our lives like professionals. >> and then to deal with pop culture. so when it came out and said we are finally on television. from a brownstone in brooklyn i heights. but that is the first time we saw ourselves pop culture is very important to the main character so that becomes a way of talking about the lie behind that fiction. but now to underscore the separation of how things are in the world. and with road warrior or hip-hop and that had nothing to do withh my family to be watching folks. >> sure from the 60s and 70s with jet magazine with a listing of any black person was so rare that the black press. >>host: we have talked foror an hour colton whitehead so now we will get america involved from c charles in albuquerque. thank you for your patience you are on with our 3010. >> caller: i think it is wonderful i have enjoyed listening to the show but him opening up letting us have a birdseye view into his creative process i had pleasure to be friends with the national book award of poetry she always talks to me about harvest time you have to get up and you are stuck in how is this character developing a have a life of its own and also colton was talking about that linear structure and also the beauty in difficulties of the historical novel to take some creative license so that does help with story development but to be true so my question there is so much that was t amazing and interesting so to have this idea or the plots or the structure there are times you would get bogged down with where he wanted to take something. so to talk about persevering. so to have this daunting task ahead of you. >>host: let's see what he has toto say. >> guest: thanks for listening. it's work some days you are into with the process and everything comes together some days you struggle to do one paragraph and that is a victory. a novel isno a marathon so that one paragraph is a lot but if i do eight pages a week i feel like that is a good cumulation that is 400 per year or to see a movie. read a book. or tuesday through friday. but if i could get eight pages but of course that is work and then you are making progress. >> do you have a sense of attachment? >> not mad but there is a show sceneme but with sag harbor i was a little more removed and sag harbor is very personal. but then writing about slavery with the new book with institutional racism or more horrific aspects of america i do get angry when a research it is an act of creation it isn't an essay that you put things together. >>host: you have a bit player in "the underground railroad" homer. >> guest: a little black boy , assistant to the slave catcher and with that book many years ago i waited until i was ready to write it and i think ten years ago i would have over explained but he could do whatever he wants. he is a slave and has been set free and can hang out and work with him. >> so the weird corners of that relationship at the end of the civil war the master knew nothing else except of the plantation and we can't really conceive of that psychology but those same actors could be raised by the house slave who would swear i love bessie. she raised me but her family and her children would have that denial of the slave master. so hopefully in a different episode they have that very odd dynamic. >>host: pennsylvania good afternoon. >> caller: thank you so much. have you considered writing for stage or for media or cinema? >> guest: yes, i went to undergrad for american fiction for 1945 i took classic american studies department and with that dialogue with those structures. and then to write a screenplay.a but then to get dressed in shower this text. i will write a novel. so then i go back to fiction. but i grew upew on tv that is important to me i have a lot of ideas coming from science-fiction i was a tv critic for a while but i don't have the chops to leave those two genres. >> what about "the underground railroad"? >> guest: with black people to be adapted but this book has been embraced we sent it to hollywood various people looked at it we got a call from a young filmmaker who had some great ideas he did midnight it had not come out yet. we saw the early version of it. so i wondered if i felt good working with him. so sometimes you find inspiration. he said slave movie? i was thinking there would be blood and the master but then he oscar in the contract so he was pitching and then amazon studios will do a miniseries. >>host: are you in new jersey? >> caller: 6 miles north of princeton. see were kind enough to autograph my copy last year at the schomburg center. kevin young was your classmate was he ahead of you? >> guest: yes. a nonfiction writer also. >>host: i'm sorry we are going to let you go. it is hard to hear you. >> guest: we started to write together as young riders in college he always knew what he was doing and you have this first book of poetry published and his other book just came out a few months ago of the american way so we always traded work always very supportive. >> carol stream illinois. >> caller: how do they come up with "the underground railroad"? how did they know they were homes? >> guest: social networks. in the 1840s the locomotive is transforming america so the slaves would run away the master would wake up the next day and say to himself there is no trace it as if he disappeared on the underground railroad and that was the term to help the slave escape to the north. it could be a seller hiding somebody maybe overnight or somebody in your wagon a few miles and then hand off to somebody else. people risking themselves and their lives with those eastern seaboard routes that could end up in the dni, massachusetts, new york obviously not a literal trade but when the book came out some people who were gone for decades thought it was a real train of course that is very impractical but in new york it is 7 miles we can barely keep thatnd going. >>host: was their significance that some were decorated beautifully some were very utilitarian? >> the new york station some are rough like carved out of rock some are accommodating so the different characters of train stations. >> eastern pennsylvania referringnn to your couch more than once is that where you write and what is your typical day of writing? >> guest: i get up and take my sonwrg, to school and i come back : in the first nap of the the couch i start working and write a page may be another nap. write a page and havea a snack and again one or two pages a day is a very good day. i'm the kind of person if i have a doctors appointment the whole day is shot. but three or five days a week eight pages a week is typical between 830 and 3:00 p.m. my other hobby is cooking so then i figure out what to make for the family when you cook for a couple hours it is completion writing a novel takes a couple years so i like that sense of accomplishment that satisfaction to share with people and not wait 24 months. >>host: go back to the crying part.[l [laughter] joking about the creating process some people go to a café to work. i would rather be able to make a ham sandwich and take a nap you can't take a nap in the café. there are so many people out there. [laughter] >>host: with your notoriety now can you still be anonymous? >> guest: from some smaller communities doing more tv in television i have been recognized like somebody looks at me we had a just recognize meme but or they would say i'm teaching your book or i read your book like a taxicab is hitting me or something or somebody who has taken the time to read the book. >>host: 2002 you were invited to the laura bush symposium and the washington post book editor at the time asked you the question how you felt about an african-american section in the s bookstore and you didn't really give an answer. >> guest: yes like borders had a long-standing policy of having the african-american section and how could it be not literature but ideally when i was inn high school i would go to the black section and browse to find a person that you neveru hear about frederick douglass? who is this guy? or a place to find works about culture it was a good idea in the 70s but why do you have toni morrison there? i think now it is that when i think my books are both sections it is a weird segregation that it had a purpose but not so much anymore. >>host: next call is from north carolina you are on booktv. >> caller: thank you. i would just like to tell this gentleman i was raised in a suburb of philadelphia. we were never never talked justthe blacks and i apologize this is what you haveve experienced. thank you for your work it is wonderful i appreciate all you gone through. >> guest: thank you. i am glad that you grew up in a progressive and lovely place a lot of the country isn't as lovely and without human character. >>host: you grew up middle-class new york city did you go through a lot? >> guest: prejudice based on the color of your skin versus your zip code so yes, a young black man stopped by police, handcuffed, interrogated to be on the wrong block at the wrong time in manhattan and then to be pulled over what are the black guys doing in y ac neighborhood and this nice car? you never know what that episode becomes illegal or what happens in ferguson to have conversations and then we stop and we talk for two years then we stop so whether there is a national conversation about it or with my assistance ever since i broke 5-foot. >>host: were you given the talk? >> guest: sure. the first person was richard pryor. he had a bit in the early 70s about being stopped by the police. the white couple shoot you in a second. when you show license and registrationth his bit as i am reaching into my glove compartment. so the first one to give me the talk was richard pryor then later at the house i was made aware i amm a target and i could be shot at any moment basically. >>host: from hert, facebook pag. >> did you always write short but such brilliantly descriptive sentences? i quoted you yesterday on my facebook page as an example of your skill tennessee proceeded in a series of likes the blaze of the next two towns on the sintered road. did you hone it down to the core? >> guest: thanks. that is very nice of you to say. i'm getting better there is a narrator in the revisionist that is more encyclopedic and the narrator of this book so if you pick the right narrator for the job sometimes it is great. i am in a concise mood right now but the book that i am working on now and i feel that is from trying different kinds of voices to set the style if you exhaust one and move on to the next and hopefully you get better at it. >>host: you mentioned the new book will you tell us anything about it? >> guest: it is too early it takes place in florida in the 60s. maybe do a funnier book than a darker book "the underground railroad" has the smallest joke page count of anything bv to jokes but this is also the darker vein and maybe i should mix it up and then due to dark books in a row maybe the next one is lighter. >>host: the next call from iowa. >> caller: can i call you colton? >> guest: that is great. >> caller: that i know this is pre-recorded but it said it was live. i am 73i have had books in my head for years. since i have been in my 20s and people have told me you know how it is you get betty -- busy even though i'm told i should be writing but i wrote little stories and i always told my mom i would write about her. her father had a big impact on her. you called me mother but my dad had a nickname for her. and older ladies took me to church and they said that's horrible why do you call her mother? every time ir did she would say you are pulling away from me. you are closer too me with the nickname. then i thought maybe i was adopted. [laughter] >>host: so he has some books in his head and he is 73 years old. >> guest: if you write a short story you like it right another. i teach undergraduates and grad school and the workshops of all ages all ages are writing their first novel this autobiographical story they have been carrying around and they finally have time to go to it this is my eighth book and i still struggle with when i have time having a family, having a job, where do you find those hours? that is a struggle whether your eighth book or your first. nobody can write that for you. only you know who that is and who she was the sooner you start the sooner it willth be done. >>host: the biggest mistake first time riders make? >> a lot of hothead friends give me the long -- they revise the same pages over and over. get to the end and then fix it. just keep going go forward in the end it will tell you what is wrong with the beginning. >> caller: that afternoon. i have two questions. first, when you are writing, who is your target audience? in the second question is is there any subject that is off-limitsu you would not write about? >> guest: so far my audience ideallyen a 16-year-old black kid who would think i can write i am a weirdo he is a weirdo like reading invisible man at an early age. but then the book came out there was no 16-year-old kid in the audience white or black and then i stopped expecting my audience. i am always gaining and losing people. and less hardes to describe and then i followed up with a book about zombies. [laughter] siamese to getting new readers and disappointingti them with the next books i don't think about my audience anymore. i don't know much about football so it is unlikely ever to have a football novel but as a matter of distaste i never thought i would write a book but it fell in my lap you go through life different things become more or less interesting i couldd not have predicted a lot of my book books. >>host: a call from georgia. good afternoon. >> caller: i was going to ask i haven't read your books but what about the african slave trade? i have been reading about how the arab traders have come down and there were 30 or 40000 villagers of course there are buyers in the new world.we i would like your comment on that. >> i have a section on the african slave trade but before i get to america and american slavery. is money there involved they tend to explore their worst impulses. that may be slavery or the iphones. or to be on the stripping votes. then money makes people do terrible things. >>host: longbranch new jersey please go ahead. >> caller: my book club read your book and our interpretations were all over the place can you explain about the main character? >> guest: sure. the book is very open much morere ambiguous than my other books. and with the elevator inspector could mean technology in the city i didn't think about it but you can't have the modern city with the safety elevator it could only go up five stories atesso that enables modernity ad a modern city. that is one meeting of the elevator. i was writing the book in the phrase occurred to me then elevation sometimes that is transcendence or achieving a higher consciousness.s so that metaphor is very open and once i'm done with the book it is yours. to interpret or indoor and whatever reading you have. >>host: if you are done with the book it is yours. our conversation with colton whitehead continues. now we will continue our conversation in just a minute now we will show you colton whitehead acceptance speech at the national book awards in latean november 2016 right after the election will also show you some of his favorite books and influences some of the books he is reading a now. >> the last four months is the book is come out has been so incredible like the make-a-wish foundation am i dying? everybody is being nice to me. it is also confusing. the models for acceptance speeches is the oscars first one was 77 like star wars. and i never thought i would become a writer to also be at one of these things. over 18 years and then who does that of 18 years. [laughter] and then robert caro. [laughter] well done. my daughter is at home watching i think you are 12 years old. i really started living the day you were born thank you for your ongoing gift b-17. [applause] into my wife i'm excited to find out but it is so much fun to have all these ideas to see how they develop my book is dedicated to my wife he 17. [applause] it is okay to write good books when you are happy it is better to write better books when you are happy. so thank you. [applause] so thehe behavior from oprah winfrey magazine and her fame got the word out so people read the flap copy held no then oprah says rita and people do then they go crazy. [laughter] this time last year i was finishing a book and it was 19 pages to go don't mess it up. now the book is out and i never thought i would be standing here. and then as this whole whole wasteland we wouldn't have but who knows what happened the year from now? when they said what about the election? i say not really. and to make me feelat better. and be kind to everybody. and fight the power. [applause] ♪ ♪ [music] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ >>host: in your speech you referred to the terror of trump land that was just a couple weeks after the election. >> i grew up in new york so it is a weird tabloid buffoon creature. i watched the apprentice. it was so repellent in terms of campaign season zeno phobic speeches that it was startling limited to have a white the premises to the white house again. >>host: you consider him? >> if you say those racist things and govern in a way that benefits white instead of people of color consistently over time that seems to be a white supremacist or if they were marching in charlottesville raising them not to flag or the supremacist flag. >>host: one of the books that inspired you ask. >> guest: it captures the story of people who moved to the north in the early part of the 20thtu century my family grew up in new jersey and new york my dad's family came from out of town when his father got into a fight so the great granddad was on the porch with a shotgun you hear this from different families my mother's family is from virginia so to newark and thought it was new york and got off the train and headed into new jersey they thought they were at penn station. [laughter] so so many people were escaping jim crow that is how i became a new yorker. >>host: i read your mother's family were free blacks? >> one side descended from a biracial woman who came over half white irish and half black jimenez indentured servants to work on james madison's farm and hard eight kids and they were free. my father's line comes from barbados as a sugar plantation that the american south in georgia and florida. i taught that eight years ago it is a marvelous book but i mentioned it was a revelation -- a revelation for la as a teenager. it was an excerpt and upriver to the american short stories and there is so much absurdities that i felt a real kinshipns. >>host: what did you get from allen ginsberg? that american voice of tragic and sarcastic and loving and cruel and on twitter he read tweets lines from howell or watching the news on twitter and then the three lines from howell pop up. a series of impressionistic essays at hopefully to reach that voice from ginsberg or waltan whitman. >>host: from "the underground railroad" the divine thread connecting all human endeavors if you can keep it is yours. >> guest: you can't really take capitalism for slavery. they had a value placed on their lives in the more they worked the more they made money for the people who owned them. so to say that was part of capitalism so imperialism or capitalism and manifest destiny, so all of these major forces. >>host: the next call for bookt booktv. >> caller. >>host: i'm sorry just a reminder, turn down your volume when you are on the air otherwise there is a delay and it is confusing. spartanburg south carolina. >>st guest. >> caller: hello mr. whitehead. i think it has been answered but who was one of your favorite authors and what type of inspiration did youou get? and when did you know writing would be a lifetime duty? versus a real job? >> guest. >>host: we will get an answer in just a minute but who inspired you and which of his books have you read? b14. >> caller: one of the most inspirational riders i am reading his book now. "the underground railroad" i am presently reading it now. i am enjoying every bit of it. this has been a treat for me to see you on tv today. thank you. >>host: what do you do in south carolina? >> caller: i work for the hospital here. i am a nurse. >> guest: thanks for reading i hope the end of the book is not disappointing. [laughter] human on -- glad you are enjoying the first half. if you get something from carver realistic short stories and early influences and marvel comics and before that i rented to write horror. and basically what i wanted to do and then samuel beckett just then as a science fiction writer so i see fantasy as a tool. in the novelist toolkit. >>host: what does magical realism mean? >> guest: that to be presented in the same register as a bigger practitioner and then listening to his grandmother telling stories when she was growing up with that fantastic detailed in the sheriff sprouted wings and flew away. so you never knew what was real orai not. or to be in a recognizable world but when i was working on this book of the underground railroad with more science fiction was very different in terms of time with a much more broader vision that i went back to solitude instead of having the fantasy cranked up what if it was dialed down? how would that serve the story? so when correa encounters these moments with a matter-of-factma tone. >>host: what did you study at harvard? >> guest: english major. so with african-american studies classes. going back in 2001 and said isn't that recent? they said now it is 21st century. and now they are old. i thought it was funny. >>host: any connection to harvard? >> guest: i usually go to harvard names like what kind of name is that? sorry to the family but it seems like whatever it takes is incredibly lofty. i will do it for the harvard dorm name. >>host: as you teach regularly what is your take on the first amendment discussions held on collegeng campuses? >> guest: people get upset llat college students but they are supposed to be annoying. let them be annoying for four years than us. so to a lot of people they first learn about other cultures and races getting out of their bubbles of the small town that they grew up in and that close community so you are learning things for the first time that makes you engaged but again better them for four years then out here with us. [laughter] have mentioned depression and to be sad but your sense of humor comes through in this interview. >> guest: it is a part of life. i mentioned richard pryor and i george carlin they make fun of the world present the world in its absurdity but with my book call office happened pretty quick what we see those extremes so i write books that are funny to accommodate that personality and i think that is everybody. >> is that in your outline putting the book together that i would do this first person to be outrageous or sad? is it that specific? >> guest: yes. i know it would be satirical that means you are joking with the treatment of slavery would be so brutal it would not be my same distance so i would have fewer jokes i'm not fully aware about the first couple pages this narrator how i will tell the story. >>host: gloria from california. >> caller: i have two questions. is colton a family name? and second the way that is slave people communicated in oneun of course was through song while was there any other way? >> guest: so the first part? colton is a family name. my fatherr was named archibald so they named me arch and colton is my middle name and his father or grandfather worked in a hotel in virginia and a small town and to iron himself out onek the weekends then he kept and then bought his daughter out of slavery so that individual who got out of slavery to pay off his owners fee had communication with those folks if you were caught your put to death it was very clandestine time. in my book she comes from georgia but not to operate that far south for the carolinas or virginia and to escape to o the south to the caribbean and to mexico if you were enslaved that far south but so many ways people communicated but again if you were caught and jailed or beaten to death. >>host: good afternoon. >> caller: thank you both for this i love tv can you just come from an agent or the msa program? how do you settle on an agent? >> guest: good luck with your writing. half of my friends did and the other have to not. my apprenticeship was working at a newspaper that is how i learned to sit down for five hours if i didn't i would not get paid with those collaborative editors. my first agents i got working at newspapers with nonfiction riders. and some of those i knew. when i had to find my agent that i am with now 20 years come i got a recommendation by somebody who passed on my first book is that i'm writing a crazy book about elevators and she recommended nicole so from her list she had a sensibility that seemed to overlap with mine. if you find an author that you like depending on who the agent is and send it to them. i had a two-page paragraph ended two-page description was not offputting. that is how i found my agent. but you find out who was representing books like yours. >>host: this is a phenomenon talking about it for two years and working on o it are you getting tired? or o bored? >> guest: it is been an incredible four years i never could have dreamed of of people have picked that up and endorse that. and it is once-in-a-lifetime thing. so i am enjoying it and appreciating it. . . . . . . lifestream. >> guest: my wife went to work and she said can you watch alisa she came home and plugged in the ipad to the tv suite a bigger thing and they said my name and started dancing and had a dance party and broke out the rose and i met up with friends in my editor and my agent and we celebrated. >> host: what was your friend's reaction to winning a macarthur genius? >> guest: well, you know, it was i had written two books and all of a sudden the check arrived in the mail. i think people do ask is there a burden or expectation but to leave you alone and you have to handling it at the end of five years. the way i took it was that i had written two books, oddball promises, haven't gotten that from now will, keep doing that will give you money to support you you can keep doing that. i took it as just encouragement and i wasn't anxious about it but this pressure to live up to it was the saying that i'm doing exactly what i should be doing keep doing it. >> host: lets you from john in flushing, ohio. john, you're on with author and novelist colson whitehead. >> caller: thank you very much. also, the praise that you receive from the rolling stone in "the washington post" and the miami herald you deserve it. you are stepping in high cotton. i would like you to give a short overview of sag harbor because you and i come from north new jersey and on the curator of the underground railroad here in my town. go right ahead and tell us what you can. >> host: john, was there a station in flushing, ohio? >> caller: there certainly was. this is the northwest ohio territory, illinois, indiana, michigan and it was right over the ohio river so what colson said was up-to-date. >> guest: thank you, john. sag harbor talks a bit about it before but it's important book for me because for a moment i started with these intellectual questions i was trying to explore and that was the premise of the novel so john henry and john henry days and what if i updated this industrial age of john henry went to the information age and what stories i generate from that. and it seemed that i've been avoiding writing drying the material that seemed for books and, four novels and, that it was time to so that book was important to me as a writer just to access different parts of my personality in my world that out there. and it started with the character as opposed to intellectual question, a character in a study. benji, 1985, sag harbor's town in long island and since then i think i've had a bigger emphasis were put more work in my characters starting with sag harbor and for a and then the underground railroad combination of two periods of my work and there's a strong character grounding it and i've been learning from sag harbor and the other books too but i think the last eight years and they start in this absurd abstract premise what if i made the underground railroad something real so there was this totally strange abstract premise and the character work and they come together in this book. it was important as a writer and as a person and i see its influence in his work. >> host: angelo, newark, delaware or new arc, delaware. >> caller: hello. how are you doing this evening? i'm here in the state of delaware and i'm amazed at how this gentleman writing this book. i just now received got his book the underground railroad and i just got finished reading my soul is [inaudible] by harold grimes and i'm going to tell you it's amazing. you are definitely the in your pen because you doing you got a sense of humor and you're doing it and by me being an author i'm learning something review. how do you get that last name of yours is that a, how can i say it, is that a slave last name or was it given to you because my father is from barbados and he's from roanoke, virginia but his father was from barbados and my family had a hard so how might me how you keep that sense of humor? >> guest: if you think the name whitehead it's not from my barbados side. that name is clark and so clark family comes to new york, ellis island in the 1920s and talking with the book i talk about some parts of my family history in virginia and not knowing others in the summer someone sent me a genealogy that they did for me piecing together clues from things i had talked about and so whitehead i'm not sure of the origin but this person trace it back to florida and then before that georgia in the mid- 19th century so poor that i'm not sure. i know there are a lot of white people named whitehead and with the slave masters and, i'm not sure. in terms of artistic work, your writing, you can only get better by doing it so you write a story that's not as successful as we only want to be better than he ever relates and then third story is not as good but you are not so i keep a sense of humor about my work and that's my point of view about the world and then i just keep going to get better. >> host: maria, el paso, texas. hello, maria. hello. >> host: we are listening. >> caller: thank you. i have a question how much should i accept a nice fiction book is factual -- is there a writers bias in their or can i rely on the facts from a nonfiction book? >> host: do you have a specific book, maria, you are referring to? >> caller: just in general? i like history and autobiography and i accept fiction as just a novel that they may have some historical facts in their but it may not be truthful but i'll give you a simple example. let's say bill o'reilly book. his book on the pacific war the son of something the sun rises or something -- how factual is bill o'reilly book? >> host: thank you can mail. >> guest: strangely, i don't read a lot of bill o'reilly but i grew up in the 80s and that means that in the age of high postmodernism and so there's no objective truth and your perspective in her vocal bias in her social conditioning affects how you tell the story. if you write a history of slavery now a feminist indication as possible and if you write a history of hundred years ago all these things enter in an intercultural point of view and someone telling the story of writing a memoir it could be subjective account of how you saw the and your mom and your cousin may disagree. so in terms of how much do you believe, you hope they are getting right but the difference between fiction and nonfiction is that action can make it up but nonfiction has to get right. in terms of the railroad i have been asked by those who read a lot of nonfiction say aren't you getting trouble by mixing the real and fake in this age of big news and don't you have a responsibility to your reader and the answer is no. i don't have a responsibility to the reader. i assume that when the book says the underground railroad: a novel that it's a piece of fiction and should be taken as the gospel of how it actually happened. i know that you lose people die every year they step in tornadoes and think it will take them to the wizard of oz and is an error and you shouldn't take fiction seriously. i for one refuse to go to costa rica because i know that's where the film drastic park and i'm deathly afraid of dinosaurs. i don't want to get eaten. but for most people i think don't have a problem and can differentiate fiction and. >> host: you really won't go to costa rica are you being for real about that do i don't think. [laughter] costa rica is nice. very humid. >> host: i just wanted to check on that. is there a significant in john henry's that the protagonist just as a j for first name? >> guest: i think i had the team cagey about the first name and i was trying to take this bigger full floor and find different avatars of john henry this throughout the decades and as paul said in a blue stinker in march or dirty the main character and he's another avatar in his john henry and i will leave it at that. >> host: i want to go back to something you said to her last caller that you do not feel a responsibility to the reader. >> guest: to tell a good story, yes, but i don't feel responsibly to educate them about history. i think what has been nice about the experiments did not happen in 1850 but happen in the 1930s and 40s and beyond. forced sterilizations of people, immigrants, people of color and it did happen in 1850 but later in people haven't heard about those episodes in our history or if they have it happen under slavery in the mood to do more research and that's great. i have a responsibility hopefully not too poor people too much and have my books be worth their while. i have a responsibility to family and friends that has been and good friend and besides that if you think of advertising the copy sounds compelling, pick it up. if you don't think it sounds compelling, don't pick it up. what next fall for colson whitehead. betty, in tennessee. hello, betty. hello. >> host: we are listening, ma'am. >> caller: i just called him to give him a message. i'm not able to see well enough to read anymore but he was talking about the way the black people and the things they use to get out and they used quilting and they would quote patterns insert quilts and hang them on the clothesline and that was used in the deep. i'm a white lady and i'm an elderly lady and i'm not well educated but i've read a lot of history and i have a lot of love in me, too. i love people. i've always read a lot of books, black and white, and god gave me a lot of love in my heart. this guy is really interesting to watch. but i haven't read his books but that is something he needs to know is i have a paper here somewhere that shows the different patterns if i could find it again where they would hang the quotes on the clothesline and in 50 miles or a hundred miles they'd be another signal and they would use that. >> guest: betty -- >> host: before we let you go, tell us a little bit about yourself and if you were raised in tennessee and what tennessee was like over the years. >> caller: i was raised in tennessee but lived in georgia for about four years in different parts and that is when i realized that part of tennessee i was raised in the mountains we didn't have that purchase but part of georgia and i met some will hate black people and i've never forgotten them and i couldn't believe, i couldn't believe, things i seem. i just couldn't believe it. let sit on the front porch i'd say and rocked the baby and oh no we can't do that. they would say. that was like 56, 60 years ago and it was a painful thing but now the quilts and i just thought he said that he would know about the singing but the quilting was used in the deep. certain quilts if i remember one thing, ma'am to thank you for turning in. you said you're not reading as much now but the audiobook is very well done. >> host: did you do the audio? >> guest: i did not. i can read things that i read and i do them as lectures and reading but i read the audiobooks for my short books but it's exhausting and the people the characters and the drama goes into a dramatic reading of a novel i can't do. spy on my power. professional actors to it and i know that people who like the version and then you talk about tennessee and georgia and it's interesting since the book about your conversation in different parts of the south and i remember when the book came out people with it's weird taking this book down to the south where slavery happened and we had slaves in new york, as well. it's not isolated to the south. north carolina gets a bad rap in my book. it's white supremacist date and it's an exaggeration of what happened under jim crow with the lynching time what sort itself one in georgia. >> guest: but north carolina gets it the worst. i'm going there this week to durham into waynesboro and i've been there five times the books come out and we have embraced libraries people come out to these events and its marketing. if you grew up on property and family for generations and you are a white person how do you reckon with the fact that your great, great great grandfather raped, tortured, brutalized people and that's what pay for the plan for the house you're still in. you know, as a black person i was returning the story i was i had to reckon with in many ways i should be here and it's luck that my great-grandparents were killed at this or that junction or this or that plantation during the middle passage and so no matter where you come from i think it's an interesting reaction when they came out in france and they were not used for working against [inaudible] packet has been interesting to see people different cultures different countries react to parts of the book. >> host: you enjoy the college lecture circuit. >> guest: i do. would you have anxiety mark no, i talk about the book and if it's something new for the first time then i want to have turnout and i'm going to start reading for my new book later this spring and how people respond. >> host: is the finished? >> guest: i'm two thirds of the way through but i think certain books it is pretty helpful to test it. are people laughing at the jok jokes? are they falling silent and terrible parts? also, if you get a good reaction then it's not such a crazy idea and it's working and you're trying to understand what you're doing. >> host: without delving too far into your character you didn't sign up for the college lecture circuit would you be essentially in this tethered to the scout? could you easily do that? >> guest: i work at home so i do spend a lot of time there and going to foreign travel for publication in different countries and going to north carolina and tucson is a way of not being such a hermit but also being i love new york and i see a lot of places i would not normally go and it's a good and positive part of the work. >> host: president obama praised the underground railroad and did you get a chance to meet him while he was in office? >> guest: i did. it was very strange. i got the e-mail from one of his assistants and i was like someone is bringing me again and then i googled the guys name and he actually was a white house worker in so i went and a bunch of novelist and he just said he had been in the white house for almost eight years and it was the week before leave and he said he always wanted to chat with writers and have lunch with them and he had only had a couple days left. our time is running out and so being lefty writers who were all [inaudible] and we were dazed by the news of the trumpet coming in and after 20 minutes we were like light not, and we did lighten up and then we talked about writing and he's got great books and he got animated talking about being a broke writer writing his first book and he was in indonesian island and but he was broke and riding in a hut and there were lizards that would croak loudly and he got animated just thinking about how the thrill of creative actions which we all can relate to. >> host: where were you writing your first book? >> guest: i was in brooklyn. >> host: moving in or -- >> guest: i wrote some really good books in brooklyn and i'm fond of the early days. as we broke in writing the article and then i would write another article that would buy me another couple days and then i would live in various rooms with slanted floors so i was up looking at ads in [inaudible] they were terrible apartments that you do when their 81 jenny, honolulu, good afternoon to you. hello. it's nice to be here on air with you. colton, i would like to know if you're familiar with the writing of an italian [inaudible]. he wrote in the 60s and his most famous word was the cosmic comic and he's not really a novel but each chapter is like a little short story unto itself but when i hear you laugh i thought maybe you'd like the humor of the cosmic comic and he also wrote i don't know how to translate it in english the climbing baron or the baron in the trees and it's about [inaudible]. >> host: why is this appealing to you? >> caller: it's magical realism. he came a little earlier than garcia and it's the language is beautiful and so intriguing to's imagination. is that a familiar author? one thank you, ma'am. >> guest: he is great and [inaudible] are both great books. again, i felt a real affinity with him when i encountered his work in college. from being someone who like fantasy and was a so-called highbrow writer he's using the tools of storytellers that i adored growing up and whether that fantasy dial is on a calvino s or arthur c clarke 11 and if you pick the right the dog in that lovely, whimsical, voice is inspirational and if you're watching the book for short and, one according to what you sent us colson whitehead is currently reading a comic book mr. miracle. >> guest: yeah, i had my last big comic tag when i was writing sag harbor. sometimes when you write a book you research and you go to plantations and was sag harbor which is about 1985 and pop culture we re-created my money men mix tapes from the 1980s with new wave mix tapes and i'm not up on all the stuff coming up nowadays but mr. miracle was getting great reviews and so i downloaded it and it's about a small corner of the dc comics world and the spider, king, is having a very sort of 20th century postmodern take character of the 70s and the. >> host: david, tulsa, booktv with chris whitehead. >> caller: hello, thank you for taking my call. to preface my comment one of the most interesting summers ever spent as a teacher was in 2003 as a teaching [inaudible] for c-span and as mr. whitehead probably knows it's very difficult to encourage students to read and could he send a message to my students on the benefits of reading books as opposed to some other activiti activities. >> guest: sure. i'm only a writer because i love reading a lot when i was a kid and it wasn't like this are supposed to read with comic books and science fiction and i wanted to write stories of zombies and werewolves and maybe want to write serious fiction. and so it doesn't matter if twilight or hunger games and if you like it, read it, don't for thworry about what others are saying and if you like hunger games, there are other dystopian books takes on society that you might also like from different writers. ... my daughter novels for younger readers, tweens, are really big now. she is 13 and now she is moving into ya stuff. >> host: next call is merit-do myrtle in elizabeth, new jersey. you're on booktv. >> guest: every week on sunday. and sometimes during the week; mr. whitehead, i want to know if you're doing any book reviews and the elizabeth area? >> guest: i'm not sure where that is. but my web site has -- i am doing touring in the spring, and perhaps i am coming to a town near you. >> host: she is in elizabeth, new jersey. >> guest: elizabeth, new jersey imthought new york. >> host: right. >> guest: i was there for a book festival a year and a half ago. i'm going to newark, rutgers, newark, on tuesday, actually, which is not too far. so i'm able to see you there if you do come, wave. >> host: you're speaking at rutgers. >> guest: yes. >> host: do you do book signings? >> guest: i do. i was like -- if you -- >> what. >> host: what's most common comment people make to you and the most offensive comment somebody has made to you. >> guest: offensive, i try to process at that time out. i think, that was totally messed up. it's funny because definitely in new york there's a different acquaintance or lack of acquaintance with african-american black culture and questions about the underrailroad and how it worked, which makes sense. then questions like, could a white person have written this book? that's a question about cultural authenticity. you would never ask a, could a black person write this book? now there's a big question about cultural authenticity and being framed in a way with nothing to do with my book. sort of like you're an exotic black person. >> host: these are questions you get in europe? interviewers. >> host: you get a apologized a lot to in the south, here in the u.s.? >> host: a couple of caller head apologized. >> guest: people are moved to apologize for some southern culture, what they're great, great, great, great grandparents did or did not do. but that's like a small percentage. it doesn't bug me. most common question is about why a female narrator, and i answered. being inspired by harriet jacobs, mixing up. exploring the dilemma of female slaves. basically take the time even to question is kind of dumb, i'm real happy you came out and i'm happy sort of answering and engage. >> host: because of the underground railroad and because of your books, have you become an african-american writer? >> guest: well issue think if you to -- if you're african-american, get any sort of slim recognition, people do want you to talk about "black lives matter." we have a booking, need somebody to talk about on the 4:00 spot. are you available? and it's like, why don't you have somebody from "black lives matter" talk about "black lives matter" and not some dumb novelist. my book does spin off into a lot of different topics, about white supremacy, what is happening in america now, the racism and racism in 1850 because beings have or have not changed. contemporary political culture and goes into a natural conversation about the book. i'd rather be home working. it's not my job to fulfill your -- be the fourth seat on your talk show. i really am a writer, and rather be home writing. >> host: greg, missouri, good afternoon. >> caller: good afternoon, and thank you for the fascinating interview. two quick questions. as mr. whitehead -- are you familiar with the slave writings of william falkner, especially in the long short store "the bear" and scream of consciousness technique, and second question was, watt do you think about he post modern novelist and that school? >> host: what do you think of them, greg? >> caller: well, i think -- i thought they're fascinating. robert cooper, post modernist now about the julius neville rosenburg, williams gast from st. louis who just passed away at an age 88 or something, and fascinating novels like "the tunnel" and -- but interesting school of writing. >> host: thank you, sir. >> guest: sure. mean, i read -- in terms of faulkner issue read "light in august." i'm blanking. in college. he has not stayed with me. i don't think about him often as an influence, and i don't have much use for him, guess in terms of my work. i haven't read him in 30 years them postmodernist, robert kurver i remember reading "the baby-sitter" was very important for me. he is one of the first writers i read them in -- a class and he went out and bought their books that summer to continue studying up on them. i haven't read gaddis, it's like 800 pages and jr, i prefer jr, those really distinctly american novels, kaleidoscopic interpretation of american culture inch terms 0 public burning, richard nixon there is as a character, and the kind of way of taking real life characters and putting enemiure book and having your own spin. it was okay to do that. i got some from kuver, from reading their works in my late teens. >> host: from a profile of you in "the guardian" in 2017, writehead's parents ran an executive recruit cutement firm and were less than delighted when he announced a desire to become a write sneer -- writer. >> guest: sure my father was first generation college, grew up poor. and hope for his children that wouldn't be broke and i've been broke many times since i got out of college. because of my career choice, but hoping for a long time i would get a straight job, and then the intuitionist came out they real a'sed i was in it for a long haul and have been pet pretty zicked since then. >> host: is that's your father in sag harbor? can we read this is your father, quote: kept changing the channel out of habit. cnn and the nightly news were the only things he watched. to him the faces on the screen, anchors, newsmakers this day's news victim and heroes were a parade of shifting masks, props of an idea like the souvenirs or friends and neighbors brought back across the atlantic. he didn't need a teleprompter, he knew his commentary by heart, the problem with black people is they waste time praying to god when they should be out looking for a job, a televangelist said. nobody ever gave u gave me anything, didn't give me anything, some people need to get off their asses, et cetera, it's. >> guest: a very conservative tame in terms of pulling yourself up from your bootstraps. he grew up car and started his own company that's him definitely in the last part. i think sadly the first part of that, yelling at the tv news, sounds like me. i've become him. [laughter] all i do is yell at cnn, mmsnbw. >> host: thought about changing the channel? >> guest: exactly. i was -- when i work i have to have six months free, but i became such a news junkie in the last spring that just to avoid the news i started working on a new book, and i helped. front 10:00 to 3:00 i was off the tv news nipple. >> host: have you remained sober? >> guest: exactly. definitely the slow days, i'm back, or something crazy is happening, is this actually happening in america? i'm stuck back in. i'm glad i finished this book before our latest charming round of news. i know a lot of people who are writing who just now drooling idiots. it's like -- >> host: which round of news. >> guest: keeping on track of the -- did trump really say that? is this happening? really going to open up a national park to drilling for uranium? all these crazy things cycle knew people would were just thinking, like, good liberal tradition, is my work worthy now? because i was writing a comedy and now living in such a dark time, i think, and so i'm glad i finished my book before i got affected by in the news cycle. >> host: kirstin, new york city. >> caller: thank you for taking my call. so, i. >> host: we're listening. >> caller: two questions. one it was dot mr. whitehead think about the use of the n-word today and if there's a difference in his mind win stereotyping and racism, between any races or ethnic backgrounds. >> host: what is your answer to those two questions, kirsten? >> caller: well, i live in washington heights harlem for the past 30 years as a white woman, and certainly hear the n-word a lot, so -- but god forbid if i let it slip. it would be a big wrong. so my personal opinion is that all of vocabulary should be available to all people, and the second one is, i think stereotyping is a gateway towards racism or could be a mind set but there is a difference. so if i hear somebody saying, oh, black people have a great sense of rhythm, is that racism or stereotyping or a dangerous stereotyping? >> host: where did you grow up? >> caller: originally i'm from germany, and i immigrated 32 years ago to new york city, washington heights. >> host: thank you, ma'am. >> guest: very good. i can't break down the deep differences between stereotyping and racism. racism depends on negative stereotypes of people of different skin. misogyny on stereotypes about gender. xenophobia about stereotypes you have about people from other cultures and the distinction between the two i'm not smart enough to make. in terms of the n-word, as somebody who has dealt with white-black culture for many years, to have to at this point in history say who can use the n-word and who can't is exhausting. it's just really tiring. if you're a white person and want to say the n-word, why do you want to say it? why is this an issue for you? why are you asking, why do you spend time wondering why cant use the n-word? obvious lin word is used in different ways. in the way the word bitch can be used by men and women in different ways in terms of context. it's exalting someone's brassy personality or misogynies way of describing a female personality and female power. if you wonder if you can say it, don't. >> host: what if it slips out? >> guest: you're probably a racist. >> host: this is an e-mail from marsha. how important were your teachers in impacting your current literary success? >> guest: it's -- i'm often asked about was there a special teacher, mentor, who took a shine to you and the answer is, no. no one ever took a shine to me for singling me out for special treatment. i think about teachers i had, i think about mr. johnson introducing me to ralph ellison, his teacher who -- they were consistent of racist but did introduce me to hundreds of solitude as a senior in high school. no one has took me aside and was like, you're special. but they introduced know great books and important moments in my development as a person and a writer and i still think about so many things i read in elementary school, reading the lottery for the first time like all of us do and what does that teach us about 1950s america, shirley jackson's story. introduced to this novel, to james joyce as a freshman in college, when i'm speaking with my voice, and there's an explosive dynamic talent in ulysses. so, none of the teaches remember my name or know me but introduce node very important books that it still draw upon today. >> host: iris, south lyon, michigan. a few minutes left in the program with author colson whitehead other. >> caller: i love your hear. i think he went to my high school. lived in a mixed area. we all got along. we laughed together, we sat together, we didn't call each other names, and, boy, a lot of people that graduated with me of color, as they say, or noncolor, went on to really great things. in fact, one of the -- two of the officers from our graduating class were people of color. we didn't call each other names. nobody called me a dirty jew and i didn't call anybody another name. we live together in the same neighbor. we got long great and i think the new racism is really ugly and don't like the groups getting together in government to fight each other. i think that's really petty. >> host: irish -- iris, what do you mean by the new racism. >> caller: sub group of grouped in government that he get together and call. thes one group or another and get behalf microphone fighting for a certain cause when it should be one person, one important. they're supposed to speak for their constituents, not for. thes, wearing colors to represent at thing the differences of this is america. >> host: iris frog michigan. any comment for her? >> guest: sadly it's not new racism. it's -- manifestation of an american darkness that goes back centuries. i think when obama was elected, people would say, we're in post racial society. i don't know a lot of black folks who would say we're in a post racial society. that happened and i think obviously the people who did vote for obama, 49% of the population, did end up voting for donald trump. when we were talking about hate crimes on the rise, we're talking about people marching with neo-nazi flags and confederate flags, up ashamed to show their faces. they're not even bothered to wear a kkk mask. we're talking about the return of something or the reemergence of something that's always been there, it hides and will continue to be with us for a very long time, unfortunately. >> host: if you took out all the references to race, basically in sag harbor, that could have been written by anybody. >> guest: it's a book about becoming a teenager and entering into your own identity and it's not -- for me it's not a black kid figuring himself out. it's about a kind of identity formation we all go through in our teens, where do i start and where my community ends? i. >> host: why did atex -- apex change its name. >> guest: it's about a town in the midwest and they want to regrand themselves so-so they -- they hire a consultant who is the pronag nist. he naming there is like knew antidepressants, names a band-aid calls apex. a kind of band-aid that comes in different skin tones so you can fine your own skin color and not be ashamed, if you have dark skin, or flesh toned band-aid, and so branding, what apex -- the town wants to change the name of their town because of branding, the same way neo-nazis and white supremacists are rebranding themselves as the alt right. a new image projects a new identity for yourself, starts with a name. i'm bringing the two questions together. >> host: that was pretty -- what name wins, what names are considered, should i say. >> guest: it is the very -- >> host: we won't give away the end. >> guest: well, yeah. the main character is faced with what's the emessence of the town the essence of american history, how can the new name of the town capture where winthrop is going, where it's been, has duty to tell the truth or sell this new identity? and he comes to a -- a few misadventures and comes one -- comes up with a solution that represents his world view. it's not t-shirts or signs but his solution to the town's problem. >> host: bryn, tennessee. you're on book tv. >> caller: hello. you got my name correct. i wanted to ask a question i think what i've been listening to the program that you written work that has some humor in your written works. i'd like to know have you thought about writing something that is purely humorous, either like a farce or a satire on some serious subject, like slavery or lynching or civil rights period with jim crow possibly. >> guest: sure. i think john henry days deals we moments of black history through a satirical lens. humor is just a tool. it's a tool for this job or not? the right tool or this story or not? so, my most purely comic book is the novel hudsle and i had a lot of fun writing it. the first line is, you know, i have a good poker face because i'm half dead inside. either you find that line funny or don't. you're bored for the weird, miserable humyear or not but i think that kind of sums up where it's coming from in that book. >> host: aneat dark madison, wisconsin, high. >> caller: hi. thank you for taking my call. got a big question. i'm a librarian or a retired one but never quite retired. i want to know, the books he loved or that were important to him in middle school and high school. >> guest: middle school and high school. thank you. reading hundred years of solitude as a high school senior was really great. i had a cool english teacher who taught a class on fabulousism. so we read pilgrims progress, that old british religious story about pilgrims going through adventures and that sort of template for corey and the underground railroad. pilgrim's progress, the odyssey, that kind of structure. then that class, i read hundred years of solitude, and the introduction to magic realism and use that in this book. earlier -- i think stephen king, i remember reading "carrie" in seventh grade. an interesting structure, the linear store of carrie in her high school in her town, and then interspersed are newspaper conditions of the carnage that carrie unleashes. so it's foreshadowing and also an extra -- it's a text outside of the main text that's being inserted. and i remember reading that and, oh, you can actually play whatever seventh grade phrasing of that it, you can play with structure in that way, and play with how you tell a story. however i would have phrased that back then, i remember thinking that by reading "carrie." >> host: ever have any trouble naming your main character in mark spitzy after the. >> guest: mark spitz one goad medals for swimming. mark spitz in my book cannot swim. so ironic name for mark spitz. >> host: barbara in virginia beach. hi. >> caller: hi. thank you for taking my call. such a fascinating interview. i'm enjoying so much. i'd like to ask colson whitehead if he admires or likes the work of walter mosley, a writer i very much enjoy, a writer who is versatile like himself in terms of genre, and also, as someone who can talk about being a black man in modern america. i thank you for taking my call. >> guest: thank you for calling in. walter mosley is great. as i said earlier, when i was trying to find a model for a book with a plot, i was trying to learn how to back better writer, learning about structure, reading a lot of detective books and i read elmore leonard and walter mosley and a great couple of months of my life, studying the convention of suspense, how to bring in politics, in terms of james el roy, how to bring in race in terms of james walter mosley and very fortunate when the intuitionist was finished, they sent it out to people for blurbs, and walter mosley was very kind and gave me three sentences endorsing the book, and i met him since then and it's great to see him. and when the book came out, people would say, i bought your book because walter mosley is on the back and i love walter most lee. wait really sweet of him to take the time. a good individual. >> host: warted tell mosley will be sitting in that chair for april during our special year of fiction authors. he'll be there in two months. if time, i think, for this last call from nancy in bremen, georgia, go ahead. >> caller: good afternoon. mr. whitehead, you are real refreshing breath of fresh air. want to ask if you know of the work of charles chestnut from the 1890s. he was an attorney and an african-american attorney in chicago, who wrote the conjure woman, and i was an attorney ump wonder if you know about his fiction. >> guest: i do indeed. i told you that my english department in college was very consecutive so i took classes in african-american literature, and the african-american department and that's where i came cross slave narratives and charles chestnut, very early black fiction writer. the conjure woman is great and has a great word gooper which is black southern slang for magic so some of the gooper dust in your eyes eyes and you would be bewitched. a crazy that as a writer i'm always trying to use and i was lucky to use the word in underground railroad and talking about -- there was a slavemaster would hire conjure team, which is to make us sort of hex around their plantation that would prevent slaves from running away as sort of binding spell and so people would be afraid to run away because they would cross this magical line and be goopered, and sickened by the bad magic, and of course, i... >> host: sag harbor, 2009. zone 12011, the noble hustle about playing poker came out in 2014 and finally the pulitzer prize winner, the underground railroad in 2016. the new book is out when? >> guest: hoping for next year. >> host: thank you for spending three hours with her audience. >> guest: thank you for talking with me and tuning in

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