>> we are so excited to welcome tonight all we set about her new book "louisa". [laughter] the author of two novels in her first book examines the clash between conscientious objectors from world war i.

that was said of her book "louisa" for a long time i have been waiting for a biographer who could hit the emotional range to tell the extraordinary tale in all its splendor or. "louisa" has been worth the wait. please join me too well, lisa. [applause] >> thinks or coming. i am so happy to be here to talk about this booktv part of this group i feel there are others could be chosen this is also one of my favorite books i love it deeply not just the pleasures of reading about somebody with my own name

but i found as a biography to understand of the main character than any other in this character came alive for me and remained with me more than any other character and i have written this year. there were so many fascinating decisions but the most interesting was the decision to explore through her mind as much as she was exploring through her life so i am looking forward plus all of the others but as a little introduction of lisa adams it follows her from her romantic meeting of john quincy adams as it can be described.

but it follows her to berlin and russia us then back to washington as the wife of a president. so one of the things i want to ask right off the bat is whether the fact the character's name drew you to the book? >> i do think it is true and probably noticed her a little quicker than if her name was jean. [laughter] but beyond that it was coincidence. when you are writing about historical figures you cannot assume you can step inside their head but you do need of crack of the window and for me publicly sharing a name publicly i don't know

very many movies sell. [laughter] -- "louisa" so was a little bit of the window opener. >> my name had to do with who i became so defeat her indeed affected her personality? >> at the time it was more common than it is now. in berlin and everybody was named louisa. the duchesses and whenever and royalty so it wasn't quite the uncommon name and made a joke a few which were answering a question bin this character's name because of the background of how we knew each other.

so before i met her. >> people still think i am her. they compliment me. [laughter] i just go with it every time. thank you. i work hard on that. [laughter] >> so i do think this louisa had to make her own identity and a lot of ways. >> host: the other thing that fascinated me more than any other biography i felt i was in a world that was fictional i was trying to put my finger on what caused that feeling even while you were telling dash and one of the things i was thinking

was she lives through distinct lead novelistic settings starting her life in a drawing room, then in st. petersburg then comes back to america and lives in doing clint and i wondered what kind of strategies to use to make that parker feet feel like a novel and if that was a conscious decision? >> i tried to combine the straight story telling with the idea of the historical context i definitely kept in mind to regulate how she is feeling she is very unusual that she talks so much about her feelings and her

thoughts of lot of people were not. so we all have feelings but no woman could not admit that. but i do think she was always the best interpreter of the feelings but she gave me so much material to work with. at the same time i wanted to see a great story and i wanted it to unfold as it happened i wanted the idea is common not from 2016 with the block then now we talk

about this or how we talk about this. or how women were regarded. i wanted it from the soil from which all grows so what we get is a flowering of that. i actually did read some novels when i was writing she was born the same year as jane austen. she was born in london and raised like a girl like jane austen would have been raised. but i did learn something that was important not to

read their romantic novels as said high-school but to pay attention to though language that talks about marriages and that really helped me. and they declared bankruptcy right after they were married in to the degree she actually confesses year after year to try to get over what was constantly open i think this was her crazy that is the way they described it. then you go back to read the novel.

but were those grounds to get out of the marriage. in his diary he says i am doing my duty. then you realize he decided to stay in the marriage. this was deeply upsetting and destabilizing other guy could appreciate that in the same way had not been able to put that into the soil then to go to russia to cc petersburg as a starter alexander you can take too

much of it but to have it to come out of place in one book that was very important and that was written at the same time and they're really wish i could remember the name and that also helped to get to the place and then again these or not our research but to get a feel that just as he was interested with the facts

candidates and how he does something in which he was interested in. so to contemporaneously tories the story of her life narrative and then the other that she grows so much that is one of the most exciting things about her purported want to write a biography about this. she was a dynamic figure into wanted to map the growth of spirit that is something that comes through clearly in the book of how

serious of a character she is or how flexible. and also how invested to earn her own voice she wrote three different memoirs san troves of letters they're each in a very different voice and every letter is in a different voice whether she is completing or a hypochondriac or sensitive to or intellectual. so i feel there is a record of her voice but of herman the voice says and i wonder if that was complicated to track a person who has so many different voices did you feel you got to know her? >> definitely.

her voice is is what drew me to her originally. how funny isn't how sharp and insightful so i do think that it was interesting because her earlier letters to read later it is one incredibly long run then the second is i will therefore quit the subject. [laughter] like that is all she could write about.

[laughter] but it is of story ever becoming a writer although not published in then to become a little proud. i think that insight is important because she is a complicated person. she actually calls herself lady sharply and describes her as the august compound of warmth and cold and cure and a seriousness and she is right and she is driven by these tensions is a the paradox.

>> so that made it easier to understand where they were coming from and also obviously. >> i love that about her so my last question and we can open up to the audience is one of the complicated factors of her personality is she rose to the rule of leader in the early republican eric deficit way and i thank you to make your issue was responsible for the success of her husband's political career. she was incredibly sharp and intelligent and in one of

her letters pretty easily get the same time she seemed to fully accept a woman's place to be subservient to her husband one of her three memoirs she fully embraces her nothingness and her smallness like her humility. and now we want to to find a heroine to rise above that to be bold and brave to have no doubts affair educated in every way and i just wondered how you felt about her with her extreme courage and whether if that is what

drew you to her? >> this is one of the ways that we do have to understand. so if they first start talking to me they want to meet margaret fuller or to talk to read how strong she was. but to make that to thousand mile journey from st. petersburg to paris and then to plan that escape and she is amazing and she survived a lot. she was a complicated person

and earn her husband was very serious and and has been an important role to play and have to feel that way because she didn't have to be this american icon. she could be herself she laughed at everybody else alien herself away her insecurity was a part of who she was and something would be lost if she had the eye of a boss attitude towards life so that paradox with her excepting those

restrictions and her life at the same time working against them is important. she wrote a narrative of that journey and it is a great story. but she wrote it because she wants to be remembered she was worried about being forgotten at the same time she made it universal she was writing to show what women can do and that really stayed with me. >> any questions? >>

[inaudible] >> but i do think that she was not part of the underboss of. where slavery that it is complicated. so i do think that isn't why i approached this book but i am drawn to people in this

period of the populist rising the way in which they negotiated that is quite interesting how the country was changing to think n contentious times has of perfect document in fact,

everyone disagreed about everything. everybody is making compromises. and exasperated. >>. >> there are people like dolly madison leading the dissipations of the day.

that there is a wonderful tribute and how appealing she was. and they're right about the newspaper's and people were drawn to her. so how do you see the role of the first lady to be different than how we can we see them? rebekah is quite different.

is appointed her life there isn't any precedent literally that is what they did. but for the role of what they do now. in to make up the flaws but you cannot draw a straight line. and because she was criticized to be so for word

in she was punished for that. and then to you criticize to be invisible. there was something in the women in washington and. there has been a growing movement especially if they are elevated in the domestic spirit. this started since when they were president.

see you could figure that. >> with. [inaudible] that she had known she was in the white house? >> she was influenced that you cannot be too aristocratic that i have to pretend i am not a traveled lady.

is that once he didn't care. >> in the 1828 campaign and with her propriety she was accused of a sex scandal at the same time the act the camp accused the other wife of not divorcing her husband which was true but it is like politics was very simple but it was not very

nice. civic in that period of their life or that aspect if you were frustrated of that historical record if you go into more detail? >> certainly one of the things i became most interested because of legal documents so to piece together i cannot talk about her attitude but the reason to go silent in those

moments for sure. but she herself left a record. with a time they would burn their letters. [laughter] but i feel very lucky to have chosen a subject line may come back with a better answer later