book of the wright brothers. have you read that?. >> so all these people from north carolina you have just a bunch of sand and wind we claim aviation not you. [laughter] [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations]y herea . .

details are on the screen and on the back of your program and when you finish making the contributions violates your cell phone now onto the main events i would like to introduce the cochair of the national book festival david rubenstein. [applause]e book how many people here have read the book and are going to readad the book. how many people are going to buy the book today?

[applause] thank you very much for coming. a native of middletown ohio and graduate of the middletown high school. he then went to yale law school.

they are here somewher somewhere along the way with bringing his- two -month-old son. [applause]onth-old if you see a two -month-old somewhere, that's his son. shortly when you started too write this book in your wildest imagination you couldn't have thought you were going to write a bestseller. >> i certainly didn't think i would.e we had at yale we had to write a thesis in order to graduate, and i wanted to write the implications of the policy or the lack thereof, and the more that i started to talk through the idea

and the people that were providing especially my primary advisor was pretty successful out of their. she's the author of the tiger mother and encouraged me more and more to bring my personal experience because she thought that i could write something that was so intellectuallyrestin interesting and personally and emotionally powerful and as i continue to write the book, i was a little resistant to that at first, the idea of opening up my personal life into telling stories of the more i wrote the more i realized i hadn't a contribution. >> you had the idea of writing a book how long did it take you to write about? >> i was always working on it part time. it took me about two and a half

years towards metal 2013. i did it on my computer. my handwriting is absolutely terrible. it's interesting and somethingng exemplifies that i write about in the book of social capital and connections to. i started to think about making this into a book project and she said let me introduce you to these people i know. finding a publisher is relatively easy, and that's sort

of what happened with me. the hard part for me was getting into the publishing world and once i was there, it wasn't so thrd to find a publisher. >> others say it shouldn't be that hard and then they say how can i get out of this project. were you in that category?ar >> i definitely did want to abandon it. once i got about halfway through the book it was too late to givo up and writing an additional 60,000 words still seems imposing. it is until i was about halfway

through and yes i definitely thought to myself what it be possible to get out of this? >> the initial print run washato 10,000. people say there aren't enough coffees anymore. we have to print more. >> this happened relatively quickly after the book came out i want to say in two or three weeks may be. maybe. there was an interview i did in the american conservative a lot of people were sharing on twitter and facebook. i went to go check my amazon writing which most of you know it is a way to check in real time how your book is selling so there was a point in my life i was checking probably every seven or eight seconds and i would go to check my amazon

rankings and it said it is out of stock and will ship in about a week. we don't have enough books that are out there and so that's when they started to turn on the process. >> how many have been printed? >> i don't know how many in total.ar i know how many hard copies we've sold and it's a little over a million if you count the digital copies and all that stuff. [applause] very often they don't come up with a title that we and where they come from. >> it came from a conversation with my agent. i really wanted of the word hillbilly to be in the title because i thought it captured the sort of particular segments i was trying to write about, but i also felt it captured this

sort of interesting inside or outside dynamic that existed where my grand other would say we are hillbilly is allowed to call each other hillbillies butt then you have to punch them in the nose. so, if was this sort of interesting word that had a textured meaning as i grew up and i wanted to be in the title but it had to take a while canore i was comfortable with the. do people ask for autographs or is that a problem yet lacks >> it depends where i'm at. i gets noticed sometimes in dc and kentucky or southwestern

ohio. but in nashville a week or a week and a half ago we have to make a record. >> many of the family secrets people don't want everybody has family secrets what was the reaction of the family to this?f >> it's interesting i'm talking to my family about revealing some secrets and i've noted that there's been a slight tone from where i started to write the book canal and people are open about sharing the family history on the pages of the book no one expected.

there was more sensitivity but some people definitely say it's in the family. it's important and worthwhile let's talk about the book itself. i've read it and enjoyed it a great deal. i would like to go through each of the three things. one is the writing style was very crisp and clear and to thee point, not a lot of excess verbiage. second, the personal story is extraordinary that's almost like a novel and third, the impact of the relationship of what is going on in the country i and te opioid crisis and unemployment.

let's go through each of these first. first, the writing style. were you a gifted writer and college and law school? >> i think definitely wall school helped a lot in thate? regard because one of the things they teach is don't write for the love of excess verbiage. try to be clear and concise and engaging. thinking about how to write as l lawyer was definitely helpful. there was in eighth gradee biography that i had to write and it's obviously very similar to this end they will pass it around and say you were such a

great writer and when my wife picks it up [inaudible] [laughter] the first assignment i had ias t found i handed it in and they circled a big section masturbating in the paper graph so even as a talented writer he would say no. >> having read the first bookha that is successful they would go to the offers and say you arene ernest hemingway, let's have another book the sooner you get it out, the better are you thinking of riding one rightw? now? >> my view is that it's not something i am trying to undertake tomorrow.

if i write another book, it'll be another couple of years from now. >> that there will be a paperback edition. while you edit or change it a little bit or go ask the same way? >> the same way. i would like to add a chapter to contextualize some of the political salience people have attributed to the book because of course when i start writing in 2013, i had no idea that it would be attached to the 2016 election. so i would like to write at least a little bit about that because i haven't talked a lot about it but otherwise the rest of the book will stay the same. >> there is supposed to be a movie. ron howard is producing or directing it as well. who is going to play you? >> i don't know. the thing about this if i want it to be somebody that is good

looking but not somebody that is disappointed when they meet me.a [laughter] >> the question i have trouble is to fit into the not too warm and not too cold category. >> what's goolet's go to the set of the book and that is the life story for those that may not have read the book i don't wantn to give away everything. where were you born >> middletown ohio. >> and your mother and father were married at the time. did they get divorced shortly after? >> i think i was maybe a year old. >> so your biological mother was raising you for the early years and then you have a very close relationship with your maternal grandfather and grandmother. and what was their name?

>> bonnie and jim. >> is that a hillbilly word or unique to your family?onnie >> it is definitely broadened the culture. it's not something i learned in hillbilly culture that it's something people from that region of the country call their grandparents mamaw and papaw.ll >> you might find your roots were from kentucky. from kentucky, west virginia to the industrial midwest i think when they moved they brought a theyof the cultural attributeses with them. even though my family lived inil southwestern ohio, we traveled back to eastern kentucky a lot because i spent so much time with my grandparents and a lot of my formative years in kentucky it always felt that was

the homeland. and it's interesting that is a pretty common attitude. folks have country music songs about this and there's a lot of stories that are similar to mine where people that grew up in the industrial midwest in michigan or indiana or ohio felt like they were back in west virginia because they spend their lives in these places and that is where their family was from. >> so you were growing up and have a stepsister? >> half-sister, different dad,o. same mom. >> and how did she support herself? >> mom on i remember became a e somewhere after i was eight or nine or so. they were good times economically. we were not struggling economically during the period. before then, i don't know.

certainly one of the things were pretty tough for the family economically more important andi tough socially. >> and she had relationships with people who were living there for or five or sixour six different times. wasn't a disconcerting to you>>s >> it was unstable for people coming in and out of our lives and i didn't realize until i was older with effective as having on me. i certainly didn't like that i would defend this guy or he does becoming sort of a father figure and then all of a sudden he was out of our lives. i knew that it was common and a lot of our friends were going through the same things.

i didn't appreciate the affected was having until i started to look at these things. >> you read about the relationship with your biological father and went and lived with them for a while butt that wasn't the experience you thought it would be. tho >> in the sense that he had his life together living with my stepmom and they had a happy home life and in some ways i wa looking for that and searching for the family stability in eighth grade or something when this happened. but i realized i had becomeso w incredibly attached to my grandmother because even when my sister and i were living with wt her attitude we spent a ton of time with her grandparents and mom struggled with problems and we spend more and more time with our grandparents so there was a real beard moment.

i was so desperate to get back to my grandmothers house and that is eventually what i did. i don't think that i realized until that moment that in my own mind she had become by chief an caretaker.r. >> it wasn't as happy an experience as you'd hoped. you then moved in with your maternal grandmother and grandfather. he was very close to you.er so the shock of his passing away, how did that affect you? >> in all the ways that thell death of a parent affects kids. because of the situation growing up and the revolving figures, if he was the closest thing i have to add father during those years, he was the person that took care of things and made sure that we had all the thingsa kids need and it was just an emotional support for me and my

sister and my grandmother. he was always the person that was columnist and never lost his temper, never flew off the handle. but even as much as i loved her, she had a temper and he didn't come so i think that it affected the in a number of different ways. but what affected me is what camas whatcame after it. i understand that he was the glue that held the family together and i realized. >> you lived with your mother for a while but then at another point, she was violent with you and difficult to deal with and had a drug problem as you recount in the book. you recounted an experienceeriee

where police came and saved you from your mother is that fair? >> i think about this story i was 12 or 13 when it happened and i always wondered if maybe it wasn't quite as dangerous as i remember. in some ways it reflects fondly on people they love and i certainly love my mom and we are doing pretty well in our relationship now. i was terrified. she certainly didn't seem especially stable as i ran and found this woman had called police and she was charged with domestic violence.

so that was obviously a pretty dramatic moment. there is no other way to cut it. >> did you live with your grandmother or go back to live o with your mother after that incident?ime a >> i was always living with mamaw for months or weeks at a time so it wasn't that much of a departure from the normal routine. but yes i went to live with her for a little while and then eventually moved back in with mom that is the wa but that is s went with us. w >> and when you were growing up, when i was growing up i didn't have the experience that you did when i was 12 or ten or nine, how do you recall that or how did you know these incidents so while? >> being able to rely on your family helps. a lot of this stuff i try to

cross reference as much as possible. here's the draft manuscript. what am i leaving out orra missing, what have i not remembered correctly. and i think going back to how the family reacted in the book that is one of the reasons that they reacted pretty well because the process wasn't just from my memory onto the page. it is what is primarily a memoir. >> you point out your grandmother died as well. that must have been prettydm traumatic. >> i was in the marine corps at the time.

>> you were getting ready to graduate. >> i lived with her most of high school and left for the marines from her house. i had at least enough maturity at the time to realize this was my one opportunity to have anything in the way of a good job for a good career that if i screwed this college thing up that would be it, that would be me blowing my one chance. as a person if i went to college i felt like i would have takenta advantage of it. i knew i would have to take out

all of these loans and even with that i knew that it would be a pretty significant amount of debt. it was the more logistical side that made the college seems soe imposing. what is your dad's annual income and address address >> at that time i had spoken in six or seven years finding that information would require a certain amount of detective work. there were pages to sign off on these massive loans. it seemed really imposing and a little terrifying to go through this entire administrative process no one in my family have gone through.

>> it is a similar version of what happened. at that point there were six whds in my generation ofof grandchildren. i would be encouraged by my cousin rachel in the marine corps. she said if you're worried about how you're going to pay for school and whether you are ready for college, you should just go join the marine corps. you will get out, see some stuff, and he will gain financial independence and you should really go and think about doing that. >> it is definitely a patriotic community so people were proud of me but not especially happy.

remember i signed in 2003 where we had been involved in afghanistan for a little whilevr and a there was definitely some apprehension justifiably so about the marine corps command and what i was getting myself into. species responded very negatively. and some ways it is almost a betrayal you were going off and leaving me comments you could get hurt, and that was very hard. >> you went to basic training. what was that like? a >> i was never afraid i couldn't get through. maybe when i was in high school i was afraid of the physical demands and so forth, but they n told me if you think they will be mean, they will be nothingds like that grandmother hours.. [laughter] i really thought that as long as i could physically cut it, the

psychological part would be fine and i would be able to make it. i actually enjoyed the marine corps boot camp experience. >> your grandmother by the way has a colorful language. [laughter] hell did you avoid >> my son is too young to show evidence of how foul play language is. i definitely try to cut back on the language just because she loved a dramatic and well-placeh f. word. when you go from mamaw house to the marine corps, the phrase curse like a sailor doesn't come from nowhere.

and i think that i definitely had to scale back my language just to operate in the society. [laughter] but it is ingrained in me and i don't always succeed. >> so you get basic training. were you afraid you would comeme back in one piece or wouldn'tsu. survive? >> it's about whether they will come back in one piece and what you will remember is i had the military occupation specialty where we brought some people to combat injuries and i wasn't thinking quite about the danger if i were working in the infantry for example. but i also tried to talk myself up and recognize it will be dangerous than driving down the

street. >> after four years the leaves the military then decide you want to go to college. you thought you were ready for it.street but then you were four years older than their contemporaries. so why did you decide to go to ohio state? did you consider any other place? >> i think that it's possible to sort of make these decisions seem more rational than they were. the reason i wanted to go to ohio state is because i grew up loving ohio state in a lot of places. i was not nearly as thoughtful about the college decision as i should have been. i had a great experience there and i'm glad i went there but it was basically luck that i found myself at ohio state and found myself thinking as smartly about it as i should have been.

>> you seem to get through ohio state in two years. >> you take in a lot of classes and transfer credits you've been doing the marine corps over to ohio state. those three things are enough to enable me to cut a few years off. >> where would the money come from an ohio state did the marine corps shadow you and supplement you? >> it wasn't a salary, so a little bit of savings, a little bit of debt that i incurred and the steps had some pell grants at osu and the bill i was trying to save for law school during college.o then i worked jobs during college so the multiple different sources of income were enough to get me through.

>> you graduated in two years then decided he wanted to go to law school but there are not as many people buffington gao were harbored or ohio state. there are some, but happened to veto how did you happen to go to yale law school as opposed to ohio state or some other school in the west? >> this is another thing i wasn't thinking super strategically about it. i applied to a few law schoolsls and sort of was thinking about just going to one of those schools and one of my besting to friends. if you've got good grades and can get into a good place, this is 2009 after the great a good recession so they were struggling to find work so you could get into the best school shoucan because that will be the best insurance policy against t

unemployment so then i ended up taking off a little bit of time and then reapplying. i was just a more mature person and was getting ready for college. when she was 14-years-old to come to ohio she didn't have many educational opportunities and was super smart.e

to get me to a place like this i should take advantage of it and actually try harder to. >> i think that in my ear i was the only ohio state graduate at yale. it was weird to me because i realized that there were high schools and preparatory schoolso it was astonishing how different

the expectation and backgrounds were. they were relative to where i came from. >> another that went to law school. i didn't introduce myself and say i'm a hillbilly from ohio, how are you, but that definitely came through in the way that i conduct myself. i was strong ohio partisan. i don't know if i use that usedt precise phrase though. >> were you academically at top, the middle, the bottom? >> i don't think i was at the top by any means. i definitely didn't do as well as her. it yale

how did you decide what you wanted to do a? >> they had an opportunity in eastern kentucky which both of the judges worked for separate

charges which was just over the river from cincinnati. so it was the opportunity to clerk for a federal judge and be close to home. we got stuck with bad judges and worked for great people and had a great year.

of the world has changed a fair bit since you concede to writing the book. it's one of the problems in the country that we have a lot of drug abuse and opioid abuse, unemployment in the midwest and a lot of the people in those roots have you come from. it was a problem in your area and you think it's gotten worse. >> it's definitely somethingng that i saw growing up and i pamember when it hit our family. the problem hasn't gone mainstream as it has now. in 2017 we sit here and talk

about the opioid epidemic which is a nationwide crisis so i got an insight into the crisis. to be honest of a lot of these drugs are marketed as the people got hooked on them. i was in southeastern ohio a few months ago talking to some folks dealing with this.

if you have domestic violence or love family stability and a lot of unemployment than people do find a way to deal with it maybi 50 years ago they dealt with it with alcohol and now they arema dealing with it through a substance. the. i think that she appreciated how bad addiction can be an be an af its role in our family, the thing that ruined her life for the first 30 years of her marriage was alcoholism and then the lif wife of one of her kids

was very much on guard almost obsessively so. ithey gave me the synthetic opioid because i had to take some medicine. anyway i was in the hospital at ohio state and i remember evlling basically everyone in my family.

you see a lot of unemployment in the background. can you describe it as getting better or worse. >> the economy picked up aed little bit. i don't think that it will be significantly over where it was 30 or 40 years ago. what i mean is the number of old in the industry di and let's noe 1950s and 60s it's not as bad as it was but i do thinkst that you are seeing a bald in terms of second shift in the sirius. at the policymakers were blind to it and thought the economymaw

would adjust and move in different professions but whatjo happened is a lot of communities have one of the undercurrents of the book. what is there to do about it there are a lot of different things we can do about it. between going and working at a fast food job or getting a four year education i don't think it is surprising when those are the only two pathways when you see people going in those two directions. but i also think we have to think more construct typically about the way that this has gone in that i'm a local municipali

municipality. new restaurants are fantastic but that doesn't redevelopment that has to happen in these areas and it's something that basically all policymakers have to be thinking differently than they are right now.mocratic >> some political entity will say governor, senator, and something even higher so have you ever thought about or have you been opportune to write about something >> i think we are out of time. [laughter] [applause] when that progression is exactlo right, people from various political parties ask if you

would be interested in these things. i talked to a couple members of congress not about me running but do you actually enjoy what you do and they say i liked working on the policy but we don't do any of that. so, no. >> leaving aside, the platform that you have now is so greathe you can be a spokesman aboutoke alcoholism, unemployment, the opioid addiction, and are you going to try to make it a part of your career talking about these issues or do you want to not be seen as a spokesman for these issues? >> i don't know that i want to be seen as a spokesman, but now that i have this platform, i might as well do something with it productive rather than just go and talk about the book.

there are issues that are worth talking about.t. i try to be a construct that participant during the healthcare reform debate and i try to talk to folks about how this might affect the opioid crisis and people back home so i tried to be constructive as possible but we lived in an especially nonconstructive time. so you have to be careful and you have to be smart and recognize that sometimes even when you try to be careful and smart you're not being careful a and smart. >> do they just want a picture and autograph or do they listen to what you say? >> it depends on some of the staff members. i found generally speaking i become more cynical about the

process at-large since the book came out. i feel more optimistic about the members and their staff. i think by and large people want to make a difference and care about the policy and care about what effect it's going to have but w we happen to live in a political time when it's hard t translate the accomplishments. >> are they proud of your book for having exposed some of thelb challenges they have or are they upset? >> i think the opinions differ. some people think i'm basically a traitor and if they hate my guts. others think that i'd shed a light on the issues and they appreciate it.i hear p

when people run into me on the street, they appreciate the book talked about the problems in the way that they feel like it wasat not talked about before and wrote a story from the inside. nobody talked about what is it like to grow up in a household with a loving stability and addiction, was it, what is it like to grow up when you have to worry about whether you can pay for college or pay for moreholde fundamental thing that is the part that has been the most gratifying. what is the most frequentnd question on the speaking circuit a little bit and cnn, you are a contributor for cnn, what is the question that you get asked about your book or background?

something people are really curious about i would ask, my mom is doing really well and she's living back home and is doing well. i think in some ways while she may not be ready and i'm not going to foist it upon her, i think she's a good example ofgo what can happen when even after five or six times you get knocked off the course of addiction it's still possible to climb back out and find the right t support and make another go and that's something i admire is she is incredibly tenacious. [applause]

he is a great guy and he and i most often talk about his grandson and that is what they are interested in. >> you grew up largely with your sister and what is she doing now? >> back in middletown she's been married for 20 years or so and what we thought of the successbn we didn't have as kids her oldest is 18.

did they laugh at your jokes more than they did before or how did the people that you grew up with thank you so famous andwe wealthy blacks do people ask you for money? >> it isn't a common occurrence? my real friends do not laugh louder. one of the good things about having a successful book or what it can do is you don't realize people that are loyal no matter what those are the people i latch onto. >> leaving aside the potential political career, right now you are not practicing law. you are in the highest callingng of mankind private equity.

so, why did you choose to go into the capital space in the venture capital and few are doing it here and also in ohio. >> if it is done while it can actuallwell it canactually helpw products and companies. one of the things i realized in law school and i'd came to this witintothis with a veil behind . the people who frankly call the shots in the economic system are those that are figuring out where the capital goes.wo i would like to be the guy that can figure out how to get

capitagetcapital to go to placet is indicative of good and value nott ho just for investors but people on the receiving end, t too. >> some people write a book and have a hard time writing a second book. they get writers block because they think nothing can be as good as the first. you don't worry about that problem. >> i don't know. i didn't know my first book was that good so i don't know if ifa follow-up will be measured well were compared to it. i think that i would be an idiot if i didn't expect it to be possible. >> what do you want to do withth your life to come up with a background that you came out of and no right or wrong you are a role model for people in the background as a role model to you feel more responsibility to live life a certain way or

should you get back to your community a certain way how does your life change as a result of this book book >> i definitely feel a certain responsibility when i go on tv enough to make my entire community seem like an idiot s because one of the things i've not appreciated that i've just accepted as a reality is people see me as a spokesperson for the working class and what does the trump voter feel about this, i don't think that is fair that anyone can speak for the people or a trump voter at-large but what i try to do is some people see me as a representative so i try not to sound like a totall buffoon and when i go on tv. but it's crazy the year and a half ago i wasn't sitting here in the auditorium in front of hundreds of people so it is kind

of impossible to describe how my life has changed.d. and sitting here in front of hundreds of people they call and say i read your book and have you had that kind of reaction? >> i have not heard that fromd president trump i've never gotten a phone call from president trump. >> so you are a very happy person today and experienced in the publiandthe book has made yn better.k >> the book is changing my life gr a very weird way that it is a positive way. >> i read the book as i said i highly recommend it for those that have not read it yet and those that have, read it again.

and i want to thank you for a very interesting conversation. [applause]

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