they were. that is not fundamentally who they were. to think -- i wasn't making a political point in my book. i was just describing what i found. what i found is they were quite brittle and quite warlike and held there against everybody. but that particular view is overly simplistic because the five civilized tribes from the southeast if you go back to their origins they were enormously powerful and they were warlike and noble in their own way. ..no political.. i had no political agenda. anybody else? thank you all for coming. [applause]

>> from professional rodeo writer to becoming the most lethal sniper in u.s. military history. at so p.m. on at -- on after words -- >> and she said, when i get a raise at work, he's so proud of me. i really felt as though she had redefined providing to include what her husband does and that she had a lot of respect for what her husband was doing. >> liza mundy on the changing role of women as the breadwinner in their family. also this weekend, "america the beautiful," ben carson compares the decline of empires past with america and shares his thoughts on what should be done to avoid a similar fate. sunday at 3:30 p.m.

booktv every weekend on c-span2. next on booktv, amy reading presents a history of economic cons in the united states, and specifically recounts the confidence game that left texas rancher j. frank norfleet penniless in 919. it's -- 1919. it's about 45 minutes. [applause] >> hello. thank you so much for coming. so, first, let's talk about the big con before i dive into reading from the book, um, because you need to know a little bit what happened to the main character, j. frank norfleet, before we get to the section that i'm going to read. so it's december 1919, j. frank norfleet is a texan rancher. he's 54 years old, in the prime of his life. he has made a bunch of money for himself, and he has made that money by huing to his principles

which include doing business with a handshake with other honest, upright people. you can see where this is going. [laughter] he comes to dallas for a land deal, um, from the texas panhandle where he's from, and very quickly he is ensnared by a team of swindlers, five men, and they're headed by their ringleader, joseph fury. and they've done their region on him. they understand that, who norfleet is and exactly how to take him. um, and over a series of almost two weeks they very gradually ensnare him in what we now know as the big con, a particular structure of swindling that is a little bit too long to describe here, but if you've seen the sting, then you know what i'm talking about. it's an entire play with sets and actors and costumes and extras, and it basically boiled down to joseph fury convincing

norfleet that he was placing money on, um, a stock exchange, using insider tips so he couldn't possibly go wrong. and it was worth his while to put quite a bit of his own money behind this absolutely sure thing. and the stock market was, in fact, rigged. it was just rigged completely against him, and the whole thing was a set. so this all happens in the first chapter of my book, and that chapter ends with him realizing he has been taken for everything he's worth, plus a bunch more. the swindlers actually play the con on him twice because he was so invested in the story they were telling him that he went home and got more money and played the con again after he had been swindled. and so he was, um, 54 -- no, i'm sorry, $45,000 poorer at the end of these two weeks, and he was absolutely stone broke. so the end of the con, the last, um, act in the play calls for

the mark to go home silent and never say what has happened to him both because his reputation could not survive such a mortification, but also because the mark thinks that he has been participating in something shady or underhanded and that if he tries to prosecute his swindlers, he himself will be open to prosecution. so in this way the swindlers buy the mark's silence. but j. frank norfleet was no ordinary mark, and he made the extraordinary decision to put his entire life on hold, turn his ranch over to his wife and spend the next what turned out to be four years tracking down the five men that swindled him. and he had no credentials to do this, no qualifications, he was not in any way a detective, he knew nothing about where to find these guys, but he was so outraged, and his principles had been so violated that it made sense for him to do that. so i'm going to read from the fourth chapter which is kind of where his unique part of the

story picks up, the part where he deviates from the con man's script, and he decides to make this decision and what happens really begins. so chapter four, humbug. when norfleet asked himself where in the whole blessed country to begin looking for five men skilled in the arts of subterfuge, the image of a little red notebook floated up before his mind's eye. he hadn't consciously noted et before, but now that he thought about it, he remembered it as fury's address book. he turned it around if his head, put it back down on the hotel bed where he first saw it. inside he saw a long list of names written in different hands, and one in particular stuck out to him, is mr. s.n. kathy from corpus christi. norfleet knew kathy well, and though the name hadn't stirred

anything in him when he first encountered it, he suddenly realized its significance. kathy was a landowner like himself, and his name was surely in the little red book because he was on fury's sucker list. a flood had recently devastated corpus christi, and norfleet could imagine fury persuading kathy. norfleet's first trip was to corpus christi to see if his old friend had encountered the gang of five, but he was told that kathy was away in california on a prospecting trip. it was eliza, his wife, who gave him his next lead as they sat together talking over the case while norfleet cleaned his rifle. she mused that when spencer, one of the five swindlers, had visited their ranch to survey it for the land company, he had spoken learnedly of his travels all around the country

everywhere except the state of california, all mention of which was conspicuously absent in spencer's conversation. could it be because that is where the gang hides out? you've hit it, you've hit it, that's the very reason they never yipped a word about the golden state, norfleet shouted. and here i should say any dialogue in this book is not invented. this is all quoted from something norfleet has written. so these are his authentic words. it all comes to me now, see? they made a getaway from here the minute they got my money, he conjectured, surely they headed for sunny cal. eliza helped him pack, and within two hours he was on his way to california. this very sinister lead shot him all the way across the plains and deserts to san san bernardi.

why? simply because he had to get off the train somewhere, and he decided to work the state from the bottom up. norfleet offered no other explanation as if this one sufficed. it was dusk when he arrived, and the decorations around the town reminded him it was christmas eve. the holiday had fled his mind when he'd had his revelation. as he walked around the neighborhoods imagining the families inside and wondering what his own family was doing back at the ranch, he experienced the first and really the only moment of doubt in his quest. he longed to get right back on the train and return home before he exposed himself as a fool, but as he walked, the sights before his eyes began to meld with the thoughts constantly looping through his mind. he caught himself imagining fury and spencer squeezing down chimneys, scooping up the presents and fleeing the way they had come. norfleet laughed to discover he had become inescapably obsessed.

on christmas morning lonely and sheepish but still resolute, norfleet went to the sheriff's office and met walter shay. he spared none of the details of his own gullibility and describing his enemies as precisely as he knew how. shay let him get all the way to the end of his speech before replying, the sheriff's office doesn't make a general practice of giving every stranger in town a christmas present, but i may have one for you. it took a moment for the wowrdz to register -- words to register. the sheriff beckoned to him and pointed. there sat ward and gerber, the fraudulent secretaries of the dallas and fort worth stock exchanges. norfleet's stomach turned, his entire body broke out in a sweat, and yet despite his revulsion, his first absurd impulse was to wish his enemies a merry christmas. after all, for most of the time he's known them, they'd been his esteemed colleagues, crisp,

well-dressed executives who had treated him with deference and respect. he marveled as how utterly they'd changed and how little they resembled their former selves. so you found us, did ya, ya damned old fox? gerber, the one norfleet had picked as the killer, norfleet, for god sake, have pity on us, for god sake, don't, don't identify us. keeping his face impassive, norfleet turned and followed sheriff shay back into his office. norfleet grilled the sheriff for the details of their arrest. shay told him a nearly unbelievable story, a texas can by the name of kathy, did norfleet know him? was in california for business and had fallen in with a group of -- he read of norfleet's swindle.

kathy knew at once he was in the hands of the same men, and he dashed from the hotel room he was sharing with the swindlers and accosted the first particular he saw on the -- police officer he saw on the street. fury's crew saw him talking with the police officer and fled the hotel. sheriff shay managed to interevent ward and gerber. he wired sheriff sterling clark in fort worth, and he received an instant reply under the warrant that nor fleet had filed after his swindling. in ward's suitcase they found precisely the same credentials and documents used by norfleet. only fury, now going by the name of peck, had bothered to change his alias. it did not dampen norfleet's fervor for the other three. norfleet continued scouring southern california for leads on fury, spencer and hamlin.

he searched the telephone and telegraph records at all the san bernardino motels. he visited police stations in the surrounding cities and towns, and in los angeles he had a minor score. while looking through the rogue's galleries of photographs, he identified a picture of fury and learned his real name for the first time. and while he was in the big city, he thought he'd try his hand at a little disguise, he sought out a suitably adventurous beautician to wrestle with his moustache. a few hours later, a clean-shaven businessman asked for his suitcase. say, how do you get that way? these things belong to a west texas cattleman, what you trying to pull off? norfleet beamed in happiness. norfleet's escapades in california were soon brought to a close by a summon to appear at a grand jury for ward and gerber's requisition. while the two men fumed in their california jail cells, norfleet

caught the next train east to the texas. he sat and thought about his case, his mind restlessly circulating the same meager facts, and then an elderly man sitting across from him leaned over and introduced himself as perry forwardst. i have just been reading about the capture of these fellows, ward and gerber. norfleet cry they would be if he had anything to do with it. gars was rivetted. garst had decided to stop at forfort worth with him, and in the meantime, he leaned in the corner of the car for a short nap. as norfleet watched the older man's head tip back into the seat and the light from the window may on his features, his mind suddenly froze. he knew that face, he was sure he had never met mr. garst before, and then he had it. perry garst was exactly what

e.j. ward would look like in 30 years. his newest friend was, he was instantly confident, the father of one of his mortal enemies sent to tail him and reel out information. norfleet cursed his own egotism for never considering that the swippedlers just might be as devious and obstinate a he. garst woke and drew out an elaborate luncheon of many tempting morsels. as if compensating for his previous susceptibility, norfleet turned down everything, the sandwiches with their curly lettuce, the stuffed olives, the cream-filled cakes, t fruits. his paranoia was strengthened when garst refused to eat his own food and choosing only for himself two hard-boiled eggs. it would be difficult to poison two unbroken shells, and this small act told him all he needed to know about mr. perry garst. he resolved to double his

caution. and then in practically the very instant, norfleet broke his own resolution. he simply could not be held back, and he soon found himself in delightful conversation with a woman from georgia. when he learned that she had been a detective prior to her marriage, he unstintingly granted her his confidence giving her precise description of the three men still at large. she promised to keep an eye out for them and to wire him with any leads. norfleet stepped off the train at fort worth well satisfied with the progress he'd made. garst stepped off the train with him but was prohibited from following norfleet into the grand jury hearing. norfleet testified against ward and gerber, and as he left the courthouse garst asked feverishly, what did they do? norfleet affected nonchalance. he had done his part, and the rest wuss up to the jury -- was up to the jury.

garst grabbed him at again saying the hotels were booked up for a convention. eventually, garst gave up and took his leave. norfleet shed his indifference, swivelled around and did his best imitation of a private eye, trailing garst into a poor district. when garst was safely inside, norfleet dashed back to the courthouse, he button holed frank evans and cajoled him into returning to the boarding house hoping to confront garst with the knowledge of his true identity and publish it. on the way back to the boarding house, however, norfleet got lost, and by the time they found it, garst was gone. norfleet took that as the strongest possible evidence that his supposition of garst's relationship to ward were correct. norfleet's testimony secured the

extradition of ward and gerber to fort worth, and they spent the rest of the winter in the county jail. norfleet had another conversation that deflated his swelling sense of triumph a little bit. he was at the jail when the pair of swindlers was visited by g.c. cornwall, a u.s. secret service agent, who helped identify them as accomplices in the swindling of a furniture dealer named peter knee. cornwall told them that they were part of the infamous fury gang that used to operate out of new york. the photos are a right here in this town, cornwall informed them. i asked them to be on the watch and notify me if they appeared. norfleet was not -- knocked flat by this news. how much easier would his search have been had he possessed photos? you stay here, and i'll go hunt

them up and bring you enough pictures of that gang to make a big family album, cornwall offered. but when he returned, he shook his head in frustration and told norfleet that the office was claiming never to have received the photographs. norfleet got his first inkling of the slight of hand performed on the other side of the sheriff's counter. the photographs may have been a false lead, but they gave norfleet something invaluable: renewed conviction that only he was responsible for bringing about justice. his disappointment was soon offset by a miraculous lead. the two swippedlers he'd landed in jail would give him no information on the other three, so he found himself once again with a wide open country to scour, and then he received a letter forwarded to him at his hotel from the retired lady dick. a man had boarded her train in houston who matched norfleet's description of fury down to the smallest pore. the woman moved close to him

and's dropped on his conversation with a colleague. he started by telling the man that business in dallas and fort worth was as easy as running a picture show, clearly that could mean only one thing. she leaned in closer. he said he was on his way to miami to play the game and then came the kicker as he remarked in a casual aside, i think i'll stop off a few days in jacksonville. so many of the boys are down there, and i like to keep up with the gang and find out who the new suckers are. it was fury. the wide-open country had telescoped down to a single city. fury was squarely in norfleet's sights and as soon as he'd acquired guns, disguises and arrest warrants for his remaining quarries, the cow puncher hopped on the next eastbound plane. let's take stock. first, he landed in california and handed to find -- happened

to find two of his swindlers. in time to get wise and kick before he was cleaned out, then norfleet just happened to recognize a stranger on a train as the father of one of his swindlers in time to avoid further endangering himself. finally, norfleet described the ringleader to another stranger on a train, and she just happened to recognize that man halfway across the country and obtain precisely the information that norfleet needed to track him down. all this in just 20 pages of his autobiography. either the world was several orders of magnitude smaller in the 1920s, or something other than strict very similarly tuesday guides norfleet's account of these events. could he be conning us? he plays it so straight that it comes to seem like winking. for instance, the lady detective whom he meets on the train on

his way to ward and gerber's hearing is named mrs.. as far mrs. ward. as far as i know, he says neutrally, she was not related. it was merely a quince dense. later n hot pursuit of joseph fury, he approaches a police officer who turns out to be named ward. norfleet nearly writes, would i never get rid of the ward family? be on the one hand, perhaps he should be commended for sticking to the truth of his narrative even when he risks our incredulity. on the other hand, perhaps these inscrutable details and asides should signaling? to his readers. the narrative sounds quite different from norfleet's early life history. instead of self-righteousness, he projects a hokey humor and an extreme tolerance for moral

ambiguity. when he finds himself almost broke in southern california, he takes a jaunt down to the race tracks atty tijuana, he finds a texas horse on the program and bets his last $90. it would be a poor texas horse who couldn't win money for a texas cowman. my little baby won and paid out at 6 to 1, this from the same man who banned gambling from his ranch. norfleet justifies his vigilante quest as an attempt to restore his cowboy values that had been so sharely violated by the urban tricksters. he starts to resemble his enemies more than he realizes. take a man with a propensity for spinning yarns by the campfire and then immersive in the deceptive arts of the swindler, suddenly, he almost seems to be impersonating himself and daring

us to believe him. this prompts a second question. if he is conning us, do we mind? arguably, the most defining and perplexing exactistic of an -- you might also say a writer. audiences and spectators have relished the very particular pleasure of accepting an invitation into a story they know might be false only to be immersed in it completely and then duped at the end by what they thought was true. it is a sensation that is composed of equal parts admiration for the cleverness of the ploy and gratification at a neat resolution, and it has a long pedigree in the culture. the rest of the chapter goes on to detail that, and the rest of the book goes on to tell about norfleet's story and how, actually, it really is true, but i wanted to give you a flavor of

why it's kind of interesting to poke at his own story a little bit, and i wanted to end with a paragraph from the very end of the book so you can see where that poking brings us in the end to this idea of sort of american sense of fun. norfleet's life is the story of triumphing over his susceptibility by embracing it. perhaps one of the reasons why he captivated so many listeners and readers with his tale is that he gave expression to an aspect of his identity that few would otherwise be able to admit they shared. norfleet never possessed that hard care rah pace of skepticism that the experts of his day tried to instill in the american populace. instead, he let out his inner mark, that fragile bubble of hope and optimism. it's what led him into fury's trap, but it's also what led him to believe he had a chance at succeeding on his quest. two stories that would never have happened without a large measure of gullibility. certainly, this cred yulty is as

essential to american mythology as the self-made man, but norfleet's adventures suggest that the mark inside is the first requirement for narrative itself. what he did is cultivate this characteristic until it became knowing, self-aware game for a wide awake deception. norfleet came to represent the personality type that best fits american modernity, is sophisticated sucker. thank you. [applause] i would love to hear questions, stories of your own conning. [laughter] anything you have. >> i was curious a question you answered earlier, but i was curious, first of all, how did you initially get interested in

the subject, and when you discovered the subject, did it instantly strike you as something that was kind of endemic in the american psychology, or was that manager that kind of came -- something that came to you as you were -- >> uh-huh. i first discovered norfleet when i was researching my dissertation which is much more boring. but i was writing a chapter on autobiographieses by con artists which are very interesting, and there weren't any before the beginning of the 20th century, and then there were a whole bunch. and these memoirs were fascinating to me because how do you convince your readers that you're telling the truth in a memoir when your profession is that of a liar? so there's all kinds of rhetorical strategies that they engage in on the page, and that struck me as very american and not particular just to the genre of memoir, but then also there was clearly a fascination with their stories in this time, and it's exactly the time that the

big con came about. so as i was researching these stories, i really wanted to read a book that would kind of tell me the history of con games and what was popular when, what was in fashion, what matched up with the economic opportunities of the time, right? because all of these cons are parasitic on mainstream, real life, legitimate investment potential, right? and there was no such book. so there was this hole in my mind that needed to be filled. and then the other thing that happened was i discovered norfleet, and i thought that his book was similar to the memoirs that i was researching, that it was, um, it wasn't true. none of those con men memoirs are true, and i thought, well, his obviously is not true because it's way too good to be true. it's this amazing adventure story, so it's obviously a false memoir of someone lying about being in the deceptive arts, and that seemed interesting and useful to me. i can do a lot with this. but then i found out it was true, and then that seemed like a good place to start to write

the book that tried to periodize con games and talk about the ways that they have been pretty crucial to economic development in our country. so it's a good story, but it's also, um, a kind of story from the underground and so a way to get at an underground history as well if that makesceps. makes sense. i know people in this room have been conned. [laughter] statistically, it's likely. so be you'd like to tell the story. >> what do you think a modern day con would look like, you know? you have the 20th century cons, what are some of the kind of things that you would see in today's society that kind of mirror what you saw back then?

>> well, we all know now about ponzi schemes thanks to bernie madoff. and so that's an instance of a very old con. that's from the beginning of the 20th century. but it's continued in nearly unchanged form to the present day and, in fact, even this just the past two years which is well after madoff made headlines, he was first exposed in 2008, but even in just the past two years the sec has continued to prosecute over 200 ponzi schemes which i find really incredible. and it gives the lie to the idea that, um, once you know how a con is worked, you aren't susceptible to it anymore. you actually can't be inoculated against it. and so some cons don't die out and are not particular to a particular moment in history. and is so ponzi is the best instance of that. actually, a few weeks ago there was an article about an amish man who ran a ponzi scheme. so, yeah, it's true.

[laughter] and his, he didn't intend to defraud investors, but he did. so that's one answer to your question. another answer would be, well, of course, there are plenty of cons that are particular to our time, and they all happen on the internet. the most famous we all know about the nigerian 419 schemes. they're not all from nigeria, but that's the name of the con. if you go to the sec site, that's the one they're going to warn you against, there's some deposed nigerian prince or, you know, some high-up executive. a lot of them come out of the middle east as well, and they've got some sort of treasure that's, um, locked up in some bureaucratic way. but you can help them unlock that treasure in some complicated way that will generally involve traveling to lots of foreign countries. but if you invest in that cause, you'll get a share of that treasure. um, and it's hard to believe how

it works. um, but it has a similar structure to the big con in that no one can ever be swindled by something that's too obviously not true or implausible, that's too obviously magical money, too obviously something for nothing, but lots of people can be swindled by this idea that if you spend a little bit of often times in -- money oftentimes in friendship or altruism which is what the nigerian scheme plays on, spend a lot of money, then you'll get a lot back. and it's a sort of easy entry that plays on brief and other things like friendship. so i think we all have those e-mails in our spam folders right now. they must work or they wouldn't keep sending them. >> when i was reading it, i thought the story was really familiar, but i couldn't think of another example, cons and

take revenge. are there other stories that you found? >> yeah. it's a truism in these common autobiographies that i've read, and anytime a swippedler is bragging about -- swindler is bragging about his exploits, he'll say the sucker never squeals because the con is so deefsly structured that the mark is ashamed or fearful of being prosecuted. but as i researched norfleet's story, i found lots of instances of suckers squealing. they squeal all the time. they go to the, you know, nearest district attorney or police station and tell their story. those people are all bought off, and they're never going to go after the swinldlers. but there are a few instances of swindlers that, sorry, of marks who did what norfleet did who then just took it into their own hands to go after these guys. i mean, it's kind of incredible to think of you actually just

going off on this mad cap quest. it's so impossible that you could be successful at that, but i did find a few others. i mean, they're not famous people, but there are newspaper accounts, and then i shared the manuscript with a group of graduate students at cornell, and one woman's grandfather had pulled a norfleet, and he, actually, was from canada, he'd been swindled in florida which is where everyone's swindled in the winter time. he had been down there for some sun, he had lost his savings, he had gone home, and he went back to florida and got his con men, and when he died many years later, that's what they talked about at his funeral because that was the extraordinary story of his life. so it's not a common story, but it's not as uncommon as maybe the con man would have you believe. uh-huh. >> was there anything you left out of your story that, you know, at some point you had to say, okay, this is the story, and i can't include every single thing that i want?

>> oh, yes. you mean specifically about norfleet? >> or just in general. >> um, yeah. well, i mean, there's a lot that i did write that got cut because i got very interested in the story, um, in norfleet's own personal history, so i went deep into texas panhandle history. i just found that very interesting. then later the second half of the book norfleet goes to denver, and denver is this completely fixed-up town where the swindlers basically control everything, and there are many overlapping teams of swindlers swindling marks all at the same time. it's incredible. and i went deep into that history as well because how did that town of anywhere become this, um, this absolutely -- [inaudible] place for swindling? there's a very specific answer that has to do with denver history, but that had to be shortened. but in terms of norfleet's own story, absolutely. his autobiography is packed with various storylines, and i just had to pare that down because my

book would be as long as his book plus three more at least. so he, um, he, you know, i don't think i'm spoiling anything by saying he does eventually get his swindlers, but there are many different twists and turns along the way, and he narrates every single one of them. he didn't have an editor, so i had to be his editor. but there are parts of the story he didn't know at least when he was writing the autobiography. when he goes after the ringleader, the story that happens after fury goes to jail is just fantastic, so i did get to add some things in. let's just say that fury, he doesn't want to be locked up. he was clever enough to figure out at least a partial solution. so i added things in, and then i edited out, um, one instance of norfleet's autobiography. there's this woman named mrs. street, and she's this small, sort of trim, neat little

woman, and she turns up everywhere he goes, and she turns out to be incredibly deadly and devious, and she is not what she seems, but nothing ever happens with that. so i took her out because i couldn't figure out a way. but if you like the story, norfleet's autobiography is there to read, and it's page turner. it's very hokey in its dialogue because he loved that, or maybe he really spoke that way, but the stories, they're great. they're long-winded. yes. >> [inaudible] i know you have an autobiography -- >> uh-huh. >> is it newspaper articles or google norfleet and this stuff actually pops up? >> well, a lot pops up when you google norfleet. i mean, that's a perfect question, how do you research the story. on the one hand, you have to research it because it's so implausible, you have to fact check it or do due diligence. but he was just this ordinary guy. i mean, he was this uneducated,

not well known person, and, um, but he very quickly enters the public record, and it's mainly newspapers. and they did, his story was incredibly interesting to people in the time. so newspapers not just in texas, but all across the country very quickly began following his exploits, and he became known for what he was doing, and, um, you know, his name became a shorthand for going after people that have, um, criminals, not even just necessarily con men, but going after a criminal. so then, so -- but, you know, newspapers will, you know, he can, he can game the newspapers themselves if he wants to. he's not actually conning anyone, but he is exaggerating his story a little bit. so how do you penetrate that level of falsehood. so then there are court documents that detail what happened to each of the men that he caught, um, and there's court transcripts. interestingly, the main court

case that, um, i would have liked to have used, um, when he does make it to denver and he tries to bring down the denver con gang, i mean, this is a whole other story that i didn't get into in what i read tonight, but, you know, this 30-plus -- no, much more than this, team of swindlers that have got a stranglehold on the city of denver and, of course, he's going to be the one to bring them all to justice. and there was a trial, and it's extensive, and it's completely miss prosecution the denver courthouse -- missing from the denver courthouse records. the cases right before it and after are there, and somebody just photographed a note saying these records are missing. so there's a story there that i don't know. and you have to wonder who would have been hurt by that being public. and then, um, you know, lots of local sources. i tried as hard as i could to track down descendents of the

people in the book not because they would remember anything, but because they would have letters and scrapbooks, and i did find some of that, an unpublished autobiography, a texas district attorney, who accompanied norfleet on a lot of his escapades, and he did say, well, norfleet exaggerated a little bit, but he mostly verified the actual events. so in the end what's amazing about the norfleet's story is how much we can verify, how much didn't just disappear into this sort of ordinary life but how much made it into the public record and how much he was telling the truth but slanting it so that he was pretty much always the hero. [laughter] yeah. >> in your research either with norfleet or with others, did you come across the iconic, dedicated, smart, tough lawman kind of thing? it's so replete in our literature, but seemingly less so in reality. did you occasionally come across

those people or even ever? >> um, so you mean like a sheriff or a police officer or -- >> yeah -- [inaudible] >> yeah, there were a few. the sheriff shay that i mention inside the excerpt that i read tonight was one of the honest ones, and there were a few that helped norfleet out along the way. but, um, but by and large, i mean, there was so much corruption, and i tell some of those stories in here. he encountered so many people who were bought off or all these double dealings, and that became his sort of sideline, too, was to expose that and bring that to light, so he had this sort of hobby along the way of his main quest which was to bring down the crooked police officers. so he was the lawman, the mythic figure that you're describing. he was very much styling himself after a kind of dime novel, american mythic hero, right? he's part cowboy, part detective, you know, in a sort of noire sense who is familiar

with the underworld but not tainted by it. he's, um, you know, some of the other -- what are some of the other genres, so i think he was taking that on, and that might have been why other people were so interested in his story is that, well, here it is for real, here is someone who isn't managed to be ensnared in the corruption that everyone can see around them. but, yes, there were some honest police officers, but none of them took on the quest like norfleet did. so none of them would have been able to really, um, break apart the structures that were so deeply embedded in these fixed-up towns. it took someone completely outside of all of those and completely oblivious to, you know, the norms to kind of come in and blow it all apart and bring publicity to it and that kind of thing. >> did norfleet's film survive,

the one he made? >> ah, yeah. he started to make a silent film starring himself, produced but himself, financed large hi by himself -- largely by himself right before the great depression, and so it never was finished. and all we know is that one of the actresses, um, sued him for something which is curious because there aren't actually women in the story, so i don't know what role she might have taken and, no, the film does not survive. there are a few stills, and that's it. i mean, i've looked, but i don't know what happened to it which is such a shame. the stills are amazing. there are a few in the book. i mean, they're so campy, but, you know, that's the era of silent films. he's peering out of bushes with a gun, and he's got the eye liner on. [laughter] so it would have been, it would have been good. [laughter] he saw the film potential of his own story. like, he saw this belongs on the big screen, but alas, another

moment of american history intervened. >> if they were to make this into a movie, who would play norfleet? [laughter] >> i mean, i just see, i see paul newman in that role because he's not -- norfleet was very short 5-4, which is interesting to think about him in relation to the conmen were all very towering, so i think of paul newman who's got the light blue eyes, and then i think of paul newman in the sting. so i don't know. i don't know. let's play that game, who else -- [laughter] i mean, who would play him? it can't be someone, it's not like a brad pitt hero, that's not who norfleet is. would james franco do a good job? [laughter] i don't know. somebody with a little -- you know -- >> robert downey jr -- >> jon stewart. >> jon stewart. [laughter] i'll give him a call. i'll tell him that we talked tort and we've all agreed. yeah, could be good. [laughter]

>> was there talks about the movie? >> no. you know, as these things happen you publish a book, and then people try to sell it in hollywood, and that competes with all the other books that people are trying to sell in hollywood. the feedback is that hollywood wants a really bloody shootout in the end. they want norfleet to come into some kind of fight with his con men which he momentum, that's the whole point of the book. he could have, his cowboy sense of justice would have entitled him to kill these guy cans, um, but he made the choice early on to catch them by gilens. so -- by gilens. that means hollywood doesn't get the book. [laughter] >> [inaudible] >> yes. i think i've seen that a while ago. >> it's a great show about con artists, but one of the things they try, they sort of make a moral distinction between people

that are really greedy or unethical versus just someone that might get brought into kind of swindle. have you seen, or in real life made -- >> right. you mean con men that aren't going to swindle, you know, the retiree on a small pension, they're going to go after the one that is really greedy? >> right. >> that another truism that occ, they only swindle the people who have it coming and that their swindles work by greed and only a greedy person would respond to it. i don't buy it. i think they would swindle anyone that they could, and because the truth is they didn't just appeal to greed. they appealed to a lot of really nice emotions that we should be proud we have including intelligence and kindness. so i think that's a very self-justifying, you have to take that with a grain of salt. um, but they, you know, they consider themselves the aristocrats of the criminal world because they don't use

violence and because, apparently, their, you know, choosy about who they swindle. nah, i don't think it's true. [laughter] one more in. >> what's your next book going to be about? >> thank you forking for asking. i don't know yet. i'm researching a bunch of ideas and haven't narrowed them down, but i'm interested in american history, and i'm interested in capitalism. that's a very large category, but it would being? there. not swindling. it'll be nice to spend is some time with some good people. [laughter] thank you very much for coming. i'll be signing books over there, and i'd love to talk with you more individually and what a pleasure. thank you very much. [applause]

>> this event was hosted by the eliot bay bookcompany in seattle. for more information visit ellittbaybook.com. >> with the u.s. senate on break the rest of this week, we're featuring some of booktv's weekend programs in prime time on c-span2. monday night, books about pearl harbor. craig shirley with december 1941. at 9:20, stanley weintraub's pearl harbor christmas: world at war. and at 10:15, burt and anita folsom talk about their book, fdr goes to war: how expanded executive power, spiraling national debt and restricted civil liberties shaped wartime america. all in this week on c-span2.ttle >> i'm going to tell you a personal story today, and it's

something that i normally don't do, but this story i'm going to tell you is in large part what motivated me to write this second book, "what it is like to go to war." and one of the things i talk about in that second book is that our culture has, basically, got some kind of agreement, ire call it sort of the code of silence, about what really goes on in combat. what really goes on when our nation asks our kids to go outs and killon some other kids.nati i'm no pacifist, but i think that we tend to sort of want to not think about it very much ink it very much. in my family the same as all families, i was 50 years old when i found out that my father had fought in a battle of the bulge. dad, wasn't that big deal?

i get all kinds of stories about normandy and that sort of stuff. our culture are good about don't wind and don't brag. any combat veteran will do you -- to wine and complain about and 4% and the things you want to brag about. and things to start breaking down a little bit. personal history, i grew up in a very small town in oregon. a lot being town called seaside oregon and when i grew up virtually all the fathers had been in world war ii. we called it the service back then. that was when your uncle was in the service. our culture is starting to make

the change. i don't hear the service anymore. i hear it called the military. i think that is an interesting switch in language that is happening. that we should think about. i got a scholarship to yale and blasted out of the county and joined the marines because that was the thing to do. guys on my high school football team joined the marines. i joined the plc program which is a sort of marine rotc. you get run through boot camp in the summer and people who survive go to college as reservists. you don't get paid but you get to be a marine. sounds like a good deal. we don't have to wear uniforms or march around during college. i got the road scholarship and thought i wouldn't be able to go. i wrote a letter to the marine corps and they said that is fine. take it. i was there about six weeks and

started to feel really guilty because the guys are served with and kids from my own high school had been over there and lost five boys from my high school in vietnam and there i am drinking beer and having a wonderful time feeling iowa's hiding. i went to the war and ended up in the fourth marines and we were stationed in the jungle in the mountains and the ocean border. and eventually the executive, and finally after i got shot a couple times. and how can you get aaron metals. i wrote this book "what it is like to go to war" for several

reasons. the audience was young people who were considering making the military career. i wanted to reach them. i don't want any romantics joining the united states military or the armed forces. i want to join with clear heads and clear eyes about what they're getting into. i wrote it for veterans because i have struggled with a lot of things. if aiken struggle with these things and get some clarity to someone reading it, might be helped by it. i also wanted to write it for the general public and particularly policymakers. is important that we understand that we are involved very deeply in our wars and we tend to think we are not. i opened the book with a quote from bismarck. one of my favorite quotes. bismarck said any fool can learn from their own mistakes. i prefer to learn from other people's mistakes.

i thought if i can put some mistakes down that i learned the hard way maybe someone else could do it. here is where i launch into this story. we were on an assault and going up a very steep hill and by this time it had broken down into chaos. as anybody will tell u.s. and as the first shot is fired, the way it gets done is individuals 18 and 19-year-old marine's figure out how to get there and and that is how it really works. two hand grenades came flying off of the top of the hill and exploded and are got knocked unconscious and when i came to, sort of a mess but still functioning. we through two grenades back and two more grenades came flying from the top and we were scrambling up hill to get under them so they went below us.

we through two back and, karl marlantes figured that we only have two grenade back. i told the two guys who were with me next time you throw grenades are am going to be around the side and in a position to shoot you guys when they have to stand up to throw their grenades at us. i worked my way around the side of the hill. i could see one of the soldiers was already dead. the other one just like us was a kid, late teens. he rose to throw the grenade and our eyes locked. this is a very unusual thing in combat. generally don't ever lock eyes with people you are about to kill and he was no further away than the third or fourth row. i was waiting for him and i remember whispering, wishing i could speak i won't throw the

trigger. if you don't throw it i won't pull the trigger. i pulled the trigger. i remember being slightly chagrined because i anticipated the recoil on the rifle. drill sergeant kick you in the rear end for doing what they call blocking your shot and it hit the dirt slightly in front of the guy. and the battle still going on. about ten years later i was in one of these california groups they had. remember the california stuff about getting in touch with your feelings and no one had heard of pg s t. totally unaware of it. i was the typical sort of guy trying to -- my wife had brought

me there. finally the leader turns on me and says i understand you were in the vietnam war. she said how do you feel about that? i said -- a typical answer. she said why don't we start talking about it? she asked me to apologize to a kid that are shot. i am game. i said i will do that. i start to think about that kid. that kid had a mother and sister or whatever and i started to cry and i started to ball. i started crying so hard that my ribs ached. i couldn't stop for three days. literally three days i couldn't stop crying. i go to work and have to suck it up. folks start to talk to me had to leave and go outside and walk around. i managed to shove that down again and deal with this.

i got five kids to raise. everything is cool again. 1990 i am driving down i 5 at 2:00 in the morning and this is a wonderful -- you are all by yourself, the dashboard in front of you and country music, radio and no one can touch you at your doing something and it is time -- two eyes appeared on the windshield in front of me. >> you can watch this and other programs online at booktv.org. wheel serving in the iraq -- while serving in the iraq, u.s. navy seal sniper chris kyle accumhated more officially-confirmed kills than any other sniper in u.s. military history. in his new best-selling autobiography, "american sniper," mr. kyle writes about his early career as a professional rodeo writer, the challenges he overcame to become

a seal and his experiences in the iraq. he joins us at booktv for a live one-hour conversation about this book today starting at noon eastern. join the conversation by calling in this during the program or by sending in your questions or comments via e-mail to booktv@cspan.org. or tweet us at booktv. coming up next, author and historian richard brookhiser, the national review senior ed talks about the conservative movement. he is author of 33 books in-- 11 books including what would the founders do and his 2011 release, "james madison." >> host: richard brookhiser, when we talk about the founding fathers, what's the era we'rehe talking about? what are the events we're talkineng about?? >> guest: we're talking about the american revolution