>> you're watching c-span2 with politics and publi public affai. weekdays between live coverage of the u.s. senate. on nightwatch key public policy events. every weekend the latest nonfiction authors and books on booktv. you can see past programs and get our schedules at our website, and you can join in the conversation on social media sites. >> robert graysmith recalls author mark twain's friendship with thomas sawyer, a customs inspector and volunteer fireman in san francisco, whose name twain would immortalize in his novel, the adventures of tom sawyer. the two met in 1863 when the 20 year-old mark twain befriended mr. sawyer over cards and drinks. it was during these casual meetings that sawyer relates -- relayed to twain stories of his youth. >> well, i actually left my cave. in the mornings i get up and at

early dawn, and i haven't does provide editors the drawing. i like the drawing best. and that work -- i've had 10 books. all illustrated. i'm just having such a great time doing this stuff. so they asked me when i came your what were my prerequisites for writing the book. it's got to be simply place am going to write it, it takes 15 years, i've had books take that long, i'm going to finish but the other one, there can be another book. they can't be another book under the subject. i like a subject that's never been touched or you have the challenge of going back and digging and digging and bringing this to life. and the rule i have is let's say tom sawyer our mark twain came back today, they would say how do you know that? that's my biggest joy. i want to know the name of the dog, with the wind direction,

which shops burned, everything that went on, i want to make it alive as i possibly can. so the way i got this idea, it was 1991, and i was reading bashing him a been the big guardian but there's a tiny paragraph about boys, boy firefighters back in 1850-51, 52 iran with the fire engines. in those days this was, no streetlights, lots of hills and they didn't grade anything. and these water engines that these five and carried, like 40, 50, 60, 80 men pulling this. they couldn't see where they were going. the streets were like quicksand but even reproduces quicksand -- pictures from the time. diatribe their wagons of horses and they were stuck down and they found it in the spring. that's about it was. i thought to myself, they carry fire to the fire, meaning running with their torches. i thought that a such a

political occupation. i can't believe nobody has written this. that i got to looking, i found that the city had burned down in 18 months, six times by an arsonist. so i thought who is this guy. i've got to finally become a true crime writer. that's what i would have to and that i found out one of these fireman, i read in an interview with tom sawyer who told, i think i forgot hurting, rob and i think it is, at the san francisco call that he is run with the very first volunteer fire department in san francisco -- in california. that was broader. back in your court tom was a runner, a torture boy, he'd been in competition with broaddrick and one broaddrick came west to make his fortune, eight debates going to be a center, he did become a senator, tom came along and an assortment of the we disguise you ever saw, the world's ugliest man, heavyweight chance, murderers, gunslingers,

conman. i me just absolutely amazing people. i thought i've got to write this. and as i'm working i realize we are very close to it that tom sawyer actually met mark twain in may 1863, about 3 blocks from here, in a steam room. twain like to talk to tom because tom new these great stories and they played cards and drink beer and they beer and they wind up taking of that. so that was the genesis of the. i thought that's got to be renewed so that was all these years of funding little bits and pieces, diaries and stuff, and that's how. so this is -- i took out 40,000 words. can you imagine? i guess i could reduce him know if you would like. okay, sure. may take a second. i will start with a quote from

tom sawyer. this is an interview. so here's the epigram. i have to read this, for. you want to know how i come to figure, sawyer said. he turned on his so, acknowledge the report, races brandy and took a sip. they were speaking of twain, of course. as i said, we both was fond of telling stories and spending us. san, he was mighty fond of children's doings and whatever he would see any fellow fighting on the street he was always stop and watch them. and he would come up to the blue wing, that's a saloon, and describe a whole doings and i will try to beat him compete his job by telling the antics when i was young. he occasionally taken down with his notebook. one day he says to me, i'm going to put you between the covers of a book some of these days, tom. go ahead, sam i said. but don't disgrace my name.

so that's an interview with the real tom sawyer in san francisco in october 23, 1898. so he gave multiple interviews. so this is the prologue, and this will give you an idea of what we're just talking about with a steam bath. it was the first tom sawyer had ever seen mark twain looking glum. 's lawyer study the journalist, disjointed body, i repaired, long black lethal looking cigar and soup strainer mustache. a lanky man, twain didn't really walk but ambled and slashed his way through the muddy streets and back alleys of san francisco. is normal dress was careless and disheveled. is close were i brushed and freckled with tobacco, though at this moment he was new, his chest of matted hair, drank his eyes landed like an eagle.

on this rainy afternoon in jun june 1863, twain was nursing a bad hangover inside a steam rooms, halfway through it was intended to be -- that stretched three years. sleepwalking and melancholic journalists regularly went to the turkish baths this without any suicidal temptations which were not uncommon. after baffie play petty ante with a provider, and sawyer, the recently appointed customer -- customs inspector, volunteer fireman and bona fide local hero. in the clouds avoiding steam, sawyer was many his own words, now his were from a nearly fatal ordeal aboard a burning steamboat a decade earlier. in contrast to the lanky twain, sawyer three years older was a stocky round faced meza more. his sleepy blue eyes were comfortable to gaze into. his hair was a disordered

haystack, a dark brown shock with cyberspace his chest was hairless and his body smooth. in comparison to twain's remarkable superstring, his mustache and goatee were unimpressive. sawyer was not completely nude. he wore a coat of smoke and soot was as the three-man play poker, the hot steam gradually washed away. beneath their bare feet, of course an ancient secret tunnel, and under that a huge rack upon which a massive four-story granite building floated. two doors down was a distillery. two doors up was the waiting room. and a half a block away blood the bloodstained ground of murderous corner. in early may, twain had departed virginia city for a two-month visit to san francisco to visit

bill briggs, the handsome brother of john briggs, a close friend, and neil, a former classmate. twain past hours at the ground room floor barbershop and david steam baths on montgomery stre street. a fool if there he likened to just like being on main street and being the old familiar fac faces. extensive chunk of granite known as the montgomery block dominated the southeast corner of montgomery and washington streets. numbers 722, and 724 montgomery. and had been a gold rush tobacco warehouse, a theater, and now the turkish bath were twain sat with good friends. twain steadied his cards and hefted a bottle of dark beer. it was cold and sweaty in his palm. he took a swig. a few droplets caught in his mustache and he left them there.

he slumped as he played poker. he had become addicted to cigars when is a cub reporter on the mississippi. of income he contributed his own clouds to the roiling steam. twain bought the long disgusting licorice flavored robes by the bucket full by the barrel for $4, including the bigger. for his guests, he brought them in boxes of 200. he awoke to a three times a night to smoke pretty healthy cigar boys in there, took a few a rogue waves and scattered the favor with the long sweep of his arms. twain had acquired a taste for steam bath in virginia city. and while laboring under bronchitis industries cold of the recently discovered mineral waters, eight miles northwest on the geiger cream, the road

between virginia city and steamboat springs, a distance of seven miles. over the first of a long line of nine beautiful columns, there was a house debating. twain likened the jets of hot white steam emitted from fishers in the earth to a steamboats estate tax. they made a boiling, surging noise exactly as a steamboat it. he enjoyed racing eggs in his handkerchief and dipping them in this brings with it with soft boil in two minutes or hard boiled and four, depending upon his mood. sawyer loves the hot mist. the fresh bottles of dark beer were cold. in his 32 years, sawyer had been a torch boy. in new york fire and engine

company number 14, and in san francisco had run and battle fire for broaddrick one under chief broader, the city's first volunteer fire company and first fire chief. solar serve with other engine houses and toiled as a steamboat engineer flying the mexican sea trade. twain, who held strong opinions, worked up when sawyer mentioned he had worked as a steamboat -- steamboat engineer. the journalist caution any bold boy who dreamed of shipping as a steamer fireman, such a job he said knowingly, has little drawbacks. the boarding steam room he pointed out the suffocating temperature of the furnace room where the engineers stand in a narrow space between two rows of furnaces, which glared like the fires of hell. he shovels coal for four hours at a stretch and in temperatures of 148 degrees fahrenheit.

steamers firemen do not live on average over five years. sawyer survived twice that long because he was a fireman in every sense of the word. he extinguish fires and the stoke fires to theory. he knew furnaces and every aspect of combustion in a medl medley. the stronger the drought, the thicker the fire should be he explained. his face lighting up in the clouds of steam as he warmed to its topic. if the fires thickness is kept even and no hollow places are allowed to form under it, the furnace temperature gradually increased until at a certain breath, the fuel reaches a state of brilliant white incandescen incandescents. he could tell temperatures by the goalscorer to within a few degrees. dull redmond 100 -- 1290 degrees fahrenheit. cherry red indicated 1470 degrees. the orangemen to temperature exceeded 2000 degrees, and white signaled a blaze of 2370 degre

2370 degrees. dazzling whiteness the temperature was climbing far beyond the limits of the iron order and had to be damped down. before sawyer at and in the sea for good he had made a brief attempt at making a fortune in the gold mines with john mckay who did strike it big, but not until much later. by then, the bonanza game was flushed to an unusual number of sailors were prospecting. had been unusually lucky in their pursuit. the fortune unfilled to smile upon sawyer's efforts and he got back to steamship engineering as fast as he could. when he returned to san francisco in 1859, he became a special the komen on land and was appointed fire corporation yard keeper. sawyer never realize his dream of becoming the foreman of san francisco hook and ladder company and it was all politics there he said. he had achieved an equally lofty

position. he held the highest office in the city, literally, not figuratively, as a fire bell ringer in the city hall tower. elevated four yards above the mayor. in 1862, because of his long experience fighting fire he was elected a delegate under william c. cox. a volunteer fire company he helped organize a year earlier. february 1863, he replaced the foreman. sawyer and every byway in san francisco, every steep hill, and twisting road. had to stall, wants a strong bloodthirsty vigilante had lived with his family on the top floor of the montgomery block. since the building was erected over a decade earlier. before that you have the baths across the way. he was living here when james king, the self-righteous muckraking editor of the daily

evening bulletin was gunned down out front. the shooter was james casey, a former volunteer fireman with a criminal past in the tombs of new york. king brought inside to die was laid out on ed stahle's counter. his huge head, heavy from so much brain, wolf to one side as he walked. as he lay dying, his head lay over the bursting table. when king died in room 297 of the montgomery block, every born vigilance committee alleged casey and set the city of flying. ed stahle still held strong opinions. he was figures opposed wind number of his patrons, especially the prominent lawyers and judges who were not too inherent to the law and order. menu worth a heated fight with almost to the point, did you want that arose in the bath and barbers chair. local author wrote that. when i first set foot in san

francisco in figure 1850 sawyer continued, i wanted to be an engineer on a steamer. twain granted in disapproval, but got sidetracked performed on this business of fighting fire and training a gang of ragtag adolescent boys to lead the engines with their torches. the city does billy needed volunteers, and needed runners like i had been in new york city even more. sawyer's 90 life-saving acts of courage had taken place on board a burning steamboat, of which twain had a particular whore. the kind of dread that wakens a journalist at night. and second shaking in clouds of cigar smoke. for that reason he listened, sweat rolling down his brow to sawyer story of fire and explosion on board the steamboat

independence. in which hundreds died. the steamer launched in new york city on christmas day 1850 did not reach san francisco for the first time and tells september 17, 1851. blasting the whistle, playing a wide trail of phone at thrashing her battles with the band, the independence lied -- collided -- collided. it was grim to the gauge, the cloud of white steam was known. in such an unconvincing agent answers, the exhaust steam sent to the air like a virginia city hot springs. i'm going to leave out the shipwreck, which is pretty horrible. not displayed or evening. it's an amazing feat. tom actually swam the people ashore on his back through swarms of sharks. is an absolute hero.

90 people he is credited with saving. i think about 150.com and they were shipwrecked for a while. but he came back to san francisco. that's when he was really made his mark and went back to see and came back in 1859. this i thought you might enjoy a little tiny bit of chapter one. that was the prologue. this was about when david broderick in december system to start a fire company come and he was so charismatic that these incredible, all the -- even for boss tweed, they came with them just to be close to this guy. he had 49, what he called his shoulder strikers. and what it is a sort of nudged people at the election poll and got them to vote the way broaddrick wanted in order to achieve the things he wanted. he became very wealthy woody guthrie very wealthy when he got to pick a figure that nobody was making money. if he made a 10-dollar gold piece with $8 worth of gold he

could do very well. these now and san francisco, christmas eve india seeing the city really for the first time. so i will give you the full bit and let's see how this goes. in san francisco from broderick awakens before dawn. he was not only. he had been such a beloved and charismatic figure in manhattan that many of his fellow firefighters and political folk had killed after him to san francisco. lying in bed, he considered the range which had begun in early november and poured without season throughout december to early morning stillness made him contemplate this pic he was into billy wealthy so what was he to do now? he went to the window, weaving, still recovering from illness he had contracted outbound from south america and which kept them from the mine entrance serving his friends. pulling aside the muslim curtain, he saw the rain had momentarily stopped, and the wind had faded away.

volvo was a godsend. northeast of san francisco, four-fifths of sacramento still lay underwater, permitting a steamer to shuttle up and down its streets and allow passengers to enter their second story city hotel room via window. the 50 inches of icy wind and shotgun blasts of black hail that it's soaked and pummeled san francisco all winter had not dispelled the dreams of its citizens. they tossed in their beds, inside combustible homes, heads filled with nightmares of what would happen when the life-saving downpour ended. they would cause in front of the fires listen to the liking of seagulls and snakelike hits of wicks. they watched a clear blast other lamp chimneys blasting. instead of being warmed they feared the worst. they dreaded the high winds off the day that would drive the

soap would do in flammability. and with either water wells nor flame fighting equipment nor the inclination to buy any, everybody knew that san francisco would burn. four years earlier in pittsburgh they been a disastrous dawn fire, but that had come after a dry winter, six weeks without rain. san francisco's spring would be much different. but the results would be the same. from his window, broderick made out the end of the road where fogg mounted in heaps and the prickly forest of masts towered. these abandoned vessels had transported hundreds of thousands of gold seekers who in turn had made a thousand ships orphans. broderick stands on the sill with a callous hands of a stonecutter of a stonecutter, the practiced hands of a rough-and-tumble politician and consummate barroom brawl or. during the night, the ex-firefighter had slumbered

fitfully, feeling all around him the fan boards of cloth walled homes shaking in the rising winds. how strange the windy season pass and how tightly it stretched his nerves. broderick knew the danger san francisco faced even if most of its citizens did not want to know. as in most man-made disasters, there have been indications of the tragedy to come. someone had burned a shade so tell in january. on june 14, 1849, 2 weeks after broderick first set foot in san francisco, someone had torched the philadelphia at dockside. a series of had gotten people to thinking, but no action was taken. thinking was hard, and a little frightening. as christmas approached, people forgot to even think. instead they indeed nations fear and hinckley's shelves of overpriced gifts, based in fresh

water at $3 a barrel, and curled up before the fires to shiver. none were willing to take the least nominal steps for preventing the tragedy they so feared. in which broderick who is experienced knew was inevitable. instead, they pressed their noses against their windowpanes and watched black water flow down the muddy streets to the shallow cove. a horseshoe shape in the western shore filled with abandon ship's. i would like to say something about these ships. i've written another book that deals with these, an entire city, there's 25,000 people in san francisco between 1849, and a graduate built to about 1851. but on board the ships are perfectly good ships. people have gone to the goldrush. they jumped overboard. and i going to wait a second. is going to get up in mind that goal. the left behind all these ships. there were 1000 ships left, and a lot of them were under my

chemistry. with montgomery state was the waterline pics on these ships we had 10,000 people. and i was found that fascinating. again, no one had ever written about this. so you have gentlemen with cows and servants, and pigs, they had gangsters and refugees. it was absolutely, it to me is the first real setting since the cow towns where you would have these, right down the middle of the street. this is something it's never been done. it's equally fastening with sawyer, and takes place during the same time. so there is a scene in his book, a true story, tom realized because they had no equipment that if he wrote in at night, he rode in, he could find owes and axes and all the things that they needed to save san francisco, and that's what he did. so afterwards, it was in a paper and other fire companies, there eventually were 14 volunteer fire companies, asked the six

fires set by an arsonist completely destroyed the city. they started rebuilding it unfortunately it was all the same problems with the wind and the rain. it was thanks to broderick and his gang of 49 funds, i like to think of them, they were the only thing that stood between san francisco and complete destruction. the fire codes we have, these buildings like on, over the transamerica building is now, they were granite buildings with the double windows. they are what saved to the city. but it took six fires and the capture of the arsonist, and there is more to that story. but that's when the fire stopp stopped. to me, these men, we wouldn't be here if it hadn't been for broderick and his gang and tom sawyer. just incredible people. the interesting thing is everyone of them met with a tragic end. they were shot down, deported.

they were actually murdered in some cases. broderick, he was in a duel. a big his gun so what are probably. so these are really like, peter said, rough and tough times with the toughest of men. and absently faceting to me. so i really feel like when i'm writing a book, these are my friends. you look up and they're walking around in that room, and i like that you're going to do than just. i'm not trained as writer. i'm trained as an artist. so maybe you guys could bang something out. it's a little more difficult for me, so usually do about 10 or 11 drafts, and usually 1000 pages, then the hard part is cutting it down. so i will read you the rest of this little tiny opening. so as of this done, the day before christmas, 1849, broderick thought this terrible thought. in the breaking dawn the ex-firefighter saw the road outside come to light. he heard the calling of ducks and keys sleeping through deep

mud to force in the school. three sides of the square were taken up by the devil. gambling dens were thrown together in hotels with dried pine and flammable kansas roots. bands who played music for glass. they were silent now. only on the fourth and upper side of the square had god taken a small toehold in the small adobe building where the reverend william taylor preached in the center. the way of the transgressor is hard, and that a great calamity was sure to befall the great tinderbox called san francisco. reverend taylor was rarely wro wrong. the building returned was all combustible, all combustible the citizens complained to his friend becky's. no fire engines, no local letters. and, in fact, no water except in very deep wells.

available -- is it not enough to make a very prudent man tremble? this resident warned that fire once begun if the windward side would be certain to burn the whole of the boomtown to ash in an instant. and he was right. christmas eve fire that first appeared at the light of a candle in the second floor window of an exchange, one of 30 gambling dens in the square, and what of nearly 1000 in town. it's to dead center in the fledgling cincy. on the side of the corner of kearney and washington street. from roof to ground, this genie of all catastrophe was personified. ceilings were painted with cotton fabric and rose with road tar, even the paintings on his unbleached canvas walls were executed in oil. throughout october, and novemb

november, the wagering house had said, as an oil soaked rag. ready to burst into flame at the touch of a match. at 5:45 a.m., when the fledgling place was first noticed, a mild sort of alarm was disseminated along the saloons, most of them had already been preparing to open in five hours. virtually no wind stirred, which in itself was unusual and fortuitous since the greatest threat to the city would then an aggressive wind off the seat fanning the flames. at first the fire crawled as the halfhearted alarm handled lazily across the square. the news was met by silence at the city hotel on the southwest corner of clay and kearney street. a large adobe general merchandise store on the southeast corner, and a crocodile on the northeast

corner. by davies were busy hubs. the crockett family rooms and saloon had closed at new dawn and its brocaded gamblers have staggered home. it was silent at the st. francis hotel on the southwest corner of clay and dupont. all the guests were asleep. the only sign of activity was between calais and sacramento streets. a handful of early rising vegetable merchants and wine cellars setting up their stalls heard the whispered alarm, and yawning absolutely, took up the cry and pass it on as if in conversation. notice how prettily the fire trolls along the beans, one remarked lazily as he put his crate down in the mud. haley house and belly unions are on fire, too, another added matter-of-factly. dogs began to yelp and the tiny fire bell finally rang out. at his window, broderick stared, started at the first.

this indicated a fresh fire. from its code he could estimate its temperature and from experience new at such a hot fire could do. breathlessly a drag on his trashes, pulled on his side was, clapton sat on his his head and rushed out in his shirt sleeves. the instant broderick reached the square, he began shouting. formed a bucket brigade are cordially come in those days everything to the east of montgomery street was under water. cold waters lapped between washington and clay streets which ran from the northwest and southeast sides of the square and rose halfway to kearney on jackson. so few buckets were available at the brigade had to use canvas sacks, boxes, and the container that held water. broderick used his hat. so i tried to keep this short. i first loved every part of this book. it's always all of the detail. my drawings, which i'm proud of.

we didn't use them all, but i think you can probably see -- millions of lines in them. and i'm pretty strict when i work. i don't like, if i make a mistake i do it over. so i'm a bit of a bug on this. sea ethic i can find that one only. one of the things we did that's unusual, instead of having photos of people, i threw the ball. so these are actually what they look like in the time. and, of course, i made a nice map. and as you can see you are in this map are is where the steam baths are. and i wanted one of these pictures of time, but they really like to go with the drawings, so we did that. i just thought, and there's a coupler i really like. there's one that, the floating steamboat that i like. this is my favorite person in the book. that's the ugliest men animal. this is one of twain what you

do. usually my picture are sort of symbolic. this is mark twain and his friend decade on how to write. this is 1863, they knew each other but i drew the docks of 1850, sort of like the two stories. because they're sitting in a steam bath, telling the stories. i think my favorite part, i won't bore you with, but twain gives a speech about the future of san francisco. and in roughing it the action mentioned sawyer. he hired him to laugh at the right parts but the part i love is very serious, where they have gone, what's happened to these men that say there's to be. he sees the future for san francisco as bright. but better than -- the best city and the best in the world. i always thought this is such a wonderful piece of san francisco history, which hadn't been told. and i did find every mention of tom. i tried to put them all in here.

i just find him to be an incredible great and forgotten hero. tom, did all kinds of legislation for the benefits of firemen. we had stories what it would be a fireman who was very depressed to it was a rough life of these guys, and one was committing suicide at his last letter was to tom sawyer, who he knew he could count a. ton became very famous because of his connection to twain and he opened a saloon called the original tom sawyer's. what's a really wild about this, you know where the chronicle is, and it's the southeast corner, and when i came to the chronicle to be the political cartoonist in september 16 of 1968, god, what a thrill that was. they -- [inaudible] >> they were remodeling the building so them is go to the southeast corner. so for six months i worked on the third floor, the second for would've been tom's old -- and

the ground for was the original tom sawyer's. which burned in 1906. so it always thought there is this lee kair, you know, and this is a guy who never got credit. i wrote a book about the woman that was in the shower in the real movie of cycle. that was not janet leigh. that was an actress and a model named marlee renfro. they hushed it up. they wanted everybody to think that was gently. and i thought my god, in one year is forgotten woman, i heard personal she was a dead. that was the amazing thing. she had been murdered by circular kicks off at a guy to give the critics the one you're she was on the cover of the book, was in francis ford coppola's first movie, she was in the most famous scene in a horror movie in cycle. she was one of the first 10 buddies in chicago. stallions with steve mccoy. that was a great story. so i'm writing this book answers all time-consuming and, of course, i was as personally

involved. is without a successful book but it was a great story and a great woman. so gradually i'm finding little clues maybe somebody else was killed in a please can somebody was saying i was the woman and the average hitchcock movie, in cycle. they got altogether in las vegas. there was no day but there's a remark from marlee renfro. so about maybe on a wednesday i figured out she's a life. and i've been asking everywhere. some sitting there at my desk and i says just the olympics i read in a book about a woman who'd been killed by a serial killer and she moves to the desert and she's alive. and the phone rings and his voice is, i. this is marlee renfro. i'm standing -- i understand you are looking for me to for me. it would've but it would've commanded a ship called on tuesday. that's the cool thing. here's a woman, forgotten, very modest. just that one year being a model and actress and she did some amazing stuff. i like to do that.

might of the one that enjoyed the most was the bob crane story which became the movie autofocus -- autofocus. i tried to keep my word with people. i think people know that when it comes to i'm going to quote you right. i take everything. so i went back with a suitcase. i literally had to buy a ticket got it was so heavy, it was all of ops secretly. this was a guy who been murdered, got a new trial after 17 years, new evidence. it just came up and it really worked out extremely well. again, a fabulous movie. the movie of course "zodiac" is a masterpiece. and this one, autofocus started william dafoe. did an incredible job. i'm just the luckiest annual. i do love movies. we've already got an option for this new book. so i can sort of see that, big

screen, the city inflames six times. an incredible feeling to you and upload, i call him the light keeper. i got this idea because back when i was working -- we had a guy come in, he must've been 90. he got his picture taken and he was a sea captain. and i thought to myself, he posed by an old school. and i thought he has really nailed it. i wasn't sure wanted to be. i thought looking, as he runs through him. you can feel all the salt in them. that's what i want to be like. we started talking about these fires in san francisco. he says we called him the light keeper. i know how many people use that but i like that title. he would only strike when the wind was blowing away from telegraph hill. the light keeper's win. that's when they would like all the torches to the ships and set. so i stuck with me. i have a few things like that but when you find out the secret of the light keeper i think you'll be surprised. when i'm writing the book i had no idea what was. so at the end of this book for the first time in 150 years you

know the identity of the man that set fire to the city, his affiliations and his motive. so it's a lot of pics i guess i can take questions. i think we have read enough stuff. [applause] >> it's a thrill to be a. it really is. this is such a land mark. it's hard to believe i used to come in here and shove all the time. and now i get to be here. yes? >> tell us about your research. >> all, i love my research but i wrote the first book on the unabomber. my way of doing this is i got up there while the cabin was still there and the snow was clearing, and they just build a fence around that i have pictures of the fbi. they tried to figure, we want to take this cabin because we think our bombs and. so they decided to build, they're going to fly at the. somebody said anybody ever see

the "wizard of oz"? solid build a road and so it was months building roads. this is up on a mountain, you know. i got to know the neighbors. so i got in behind the fbi lines, and i cannot to stay with the neighbors and to take me up on snowmobiles and all-terrain vehicles. and i found in the woods, in the fire there's a big piece of wood and it has all these mathematical symbols that the unabomber had been. and his root cellar where he tried to get his brother to go in and locking them. but the neighbors loved jasinski. they just loved this guy. and i thought my god, i would like to write the story, forget the unabomber, just this guy interacting with people. all black installing bad and he would ride to the town and all the docs were chastened and he would get glorified. he would get everybody vegetable to do what i did is i went and

stayed everyplace ever said, all the hotels. i rode the buses. i went to the library where he had used. so we would never forget why the unabomber's bombs come sometimes e-mail to somebody they weren't there anymore. but he always had a return address is on elsie didn't like. so the bomber go back. so i had to know why were these things misaddressed excite go to dislike her one room i forgot about as big as this room. and that go to the reference section, all the books were one or two years out. ibn going to this little library and writing down the professors and the geneticists he wanted to get rid of the. and again, a connection with berkeley. i like that because i had 100 days to write the book. i just simply immersed myself. i saw the letter that kaczynski's brother wrote to the lawyers thing we noticed similarities. i got a copy of the rough draft of the manifest. i like to do that. so as far as i know the next

book was somebody else did a book on them. it was like six or seven years, and it was about his time at harvard. it's all too. i wanted everybody there's -- get everybody their money's worth. so that's another one. well, thank you. [applause] >> booktv is on facebook. like us to interact with booktv guests and viewers. watch videos and get up-to-date information on events. facebook.com/booktv. here's a look at some upcoming book fairs and festivals happening around the country.

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