Facebook. Com booktv. Booktv is live from savannah, ga. Home to the annual savannah book festival we will bring you several authors including mike redmond, lily cobble, scott bird, john rizzo and debra solomon. We kickoff live coverage of the savannah book festival with gabriel asherman, author of the loudest voice in the room. Good morning, everyone. My name is alex gold and i am happy to welcome you to the seventh annual savannah book festival presented by Georgia Power. Into our new venue of the Lutheran Church of ascension which is made possible by the generosity of fred and john kane. Many of you have already attended our terrific special events with our opening and keynote addresses. Today your work is cut out for you as you choose which authors to visit during this day that offers dozens of announce writers to established astounding books in the last year. We would like to extend special thanks to our presenting foster, Georgia Power, individual donors who make Saturdays Free ev
From the 7th annual savannah book festival, the Astronaut Wives Club is discussed. Good morning. It is nice to be here. I heard there was a rumor i didnt make it out of new york city because of the weather so i am glad the volunteers believe this is me and i am here sharing the story with you this morning. I loved Great American stories and i love bee hives and a combination of those two things, as you will learn, led me tell this amazing, but looked over american story of our original asastronauts. We are going become to 1959 and the country is waiting for the announcement of the mercury 7th astronaut. It is the height of the cold war and we are looking to these seven men as our cold war care warriors. These silver suited space men who are taking us to the star and beyond. So you have these matcho test pilots on the stage and the reporters are raising their hands and instead of asking, you know, tell us about your bravery or why you wanted to volunteer, the reporters want to hear what
Occupation and that does not end and toe hiroshima. A and tell hiroshi meant with the Chinese Foreign minister there was the map at the held the stage and would like to get back to Something Like that. To do with very slowly and steadily without bloodshed if you look at the gambles that mao took we are all long way from that fate god so we are optimistic they are aware of their own problems. Everything is regional. One more question talk about making up a character such as montagu but todays headline on this cnn says Dennis Rodman you could do not make this up as well. [laughter] people have really crazy stories as well. But talk about rodman. A great basketball story about frankenstein. [laughter] i dont know i feel bad for him in the end he says i am practicing basketball diplomacy like pingpong diplomacy. And with the huge framework a very active framework that does not exist the chinese is very busy sending positive signals. In early 1971 as a signal. That would be a very easy low
Wife. And, of course, they were very guarded, and these were highlevel military wives, and i dont know, you know, i just told them, you know, that i found a great deal of significance in their story and that i wanted to approach it with a lot of integrity, and i think they knew time was of thes essence. Theyre now in their 70s and 80s, and so, you know, they just had to get onboard x they did. Yeah. And they helped each other sort of feel comfortable, you know . Some women wanted to tell all. Maybe theyd been divorced from their astronaut after the Space Program which was pretty prevalent among the group, and they sort of wanted a little bit of revenge, you know . Like the womens heroic tale. Others were still or very proper were still very proper astronaut wives, and, you know, i just let each woman sort of guide how she wanted to tell her story. I now know you brought a bunch. Of pictures, so i dont know if you want to share some of what you brought to give everyone a what it looks l
These were monthly tea and coffee events. Fabulous scenes that are not reproduced in womens gathering today because times have changed, doubled as and over crowing overflowing ashtrays and martini hours and just sort of being there to support each other and going through something very few will ever experience. The way the wives dont with the pressure was very different. You have the pressure of your husband and the pressure of the media. And the most dreaded moment, even more than the possibility of something going wrong on the launch pad, was opposed flight press conference. This was the moment when all the wives would have to walk out on their suburban lawn, face the cameras and give a statement and receiving very little formal coaching from nasa besides what they heard back in their air force and navy days which was feed your husband a Good Breakfast of steak and eggs so he doesnt get white headed up in the air. These women were basically just told to act pictureperfect and so they