had ever tried really hard to eradicate poverty in the united states. at the end of this book, it is talking about johnson's effort to start to do that. >> booktv want to know what you are reading. send us your summer reading list at booktv on twitter, instagram or facebook. booktv on c-span2. television for serious readers. >> hello everyone. can everyone hear me in the back? perfect. hello everyone. my name is matt and i work here at politics and prose. on behalf of the entire staff as well as our owners, i would like to take this opportunity to welcome everyone to the store tonight. before begin some housekeeping details. first, to remind everyone to please silencers cell phones or

any noisemaking devices.we are recording it we have c-span2 night. it is better to go without any interruptions. second, during q&a portions, we will be lining up at the microphone right here. we do ask everyone please to step up if you have questions. because we are recording again it is important to have everything on record. we have the microphone right here, by the way. lastly, at the end of the event, please fold up your chairs to help events definitely in them against anything remotely solid. i am pleased to introduce john lingan to politics and prose. he has been in many publications. in his new book, "homeplace" he writes about winchester virginia, a little town in the midst of an identity crisis. with the u.s. economy and american culture rapidly transforming in recent decades it centers on the way of living in winchester had -- homeplace

also asks larger questions. how do we move into the future without pretending our paths don't exist and what can you salvage from the past and what should we leave behind? the author of the man who caught the storm rights, brimming with humanity here is a -- a country singer that drove us crazy and broke our hearts into the slow erosions and monday 90 of a mountaintop town. john lingan writes with a sharp eye and open heart. please help me in welcoming, john lingan. [applause] >> hi everybody. hi friends and family. mostly appear it is wonderful to see everyone. thank you very much to politics and prose for having here today, having the book here. i have been to the store

countless times for reading. it's a really wonderful experience to be up at the podium here. this is max, my friend and editor at the oxford american. who is obviously just eye candy for the moment. but i am really happy to have him here to talk about the book. [laughter] once i read for a minute. before i do that i just wanted to say how it is really lovely to be here so early in the, let's call it the promotional cycle for this book. in d.c. because the whole book takes place in winchester, virginia and berkeley springs, west virginia. both of which are barely 60 miles away, about an hour and and a half drive. so this is really to my mind, a local store in my mind it will become increasingly so. because sort of the change that

i hope this documents a change from a sort of self-sufficient area of the country and with its own sort of difficult to explain region, i would think in the next 10 to 15 years winchester will be a full on d.c. commuter suburb. it is really not that far away. there are plenty of things out there in terms of i mean, the train is from where i live out to west virginia. not to the exact area but before too long i fully expect that this will be considered part of just the d.c. area. and so, i'm going to read for a minute and a second but i want to set up what this is. the place where i went, winchester, virginia is i suppose, for a certain type of person best known for being the hometown of patsy cline. which is why i went out there in march 2013 i suppose it was.

and when i went out there, it was to learn about sort of, her legacy, her reputation in town. it was around the 50th anniversary or commemoration of her death. which happened in 1963. i went out there and was surprised at how complex the local feelings about patsy really were. our surprise that they did not unequivocally claim her as a proud local daughter that instead, there was this long history of her being sort of cost to the curb. and so, the more learned about her, the more people tell me how to go up and visit this guy jim mccoy. jim mccoy 's claim to fame was that he was born in the blue ridge mountains of west virginia in 1929. he became interested in country music as a teenager right after world war ii. and notably, would go down from

the panhandle of west virginia into winchester virginia where he would host the only country and western program on the radio station there, winc. he reduced from 4:30 am until nine a appeared primarily for farmers who were waking up at that time. it's a big agricultural region. he would host the show and his sort of life changing thing that had been for him, he had a open invitation to anyone in the community. if you came in and paid two dollars, you could sing on air. and so, one day a young woman, who was 16 came in and did not have two dollars. asked if she could audition for the program in the hallway. which she then did. and that turned out to be patsy cline. she was still going by virginia hensley at the time. but this was the first time she had ever been heard on the

radio. this was 1948. she was 16. she was born in winchester but sort of lived all over the shenandoah valley for many years until her family returned. in 1948. and so, that was really i think a call in the book, or origin of sorts. it was a people who are big time patsy freaks and there are many, i have met a lot of them in the last few years. like jim mccoy is like a, like the brian epstein of her career anyway. and so, he did not rest on his morals in terms of just being known for that. he was a good friend of hers for many years until she died at age 30. and then he continued his own career after she died both as a songwriter, as a label owner. he owned winchester records in

the 60s and 70s. he was a dj, he was a concert promoter. he was a music publisher. he was just an all-around person who really exhibited all of the sort of things that were open to people. all the career paths open to people in the country music world and at that time. it was really blowing up, it was really getting to be a form of popular music that it was not before. and it was actually largely thanks to patsy who is a style of music sort of helped bring it to the mainstream. so after nearly 4 decades of this career, jim decided he wanted to retire back to his family land on the top of the blue ridge mountains. and so he moved back up there and before too long because he had been so involved in the music scene in winchester, even though he had gone an hour drive away and a difficult hour drive, people just started sort of showing up at his place

saying okay, where is the party? you have been the party guy for 40 years. so in response he and his wife who he had met in the 70s decided that they would basically build a honky-tonk bar in the mid-80s on the top of this mountain. and they did that. they did not expect that it would become a sort of you know linchpin of the local community and economy as it did. but that is what happened. by the time i went up there, the troubadour was an institution of sort. you will go to winchester and ask about patsy cline and say you have to go up to this bar. it's like the last bar of its kind that you know of the sort that patsy sort of played in the 50s and 60s. and so, i did go up there and it was amazing. it was absolutely so fun and at that point when i met jim he

was about 80 years old and the book begins with my sort of first sort of encounter with it. and it was a karaoke night as well as a discounted steak night. you can imagine the kind of party that was going on.it was rowdy and it was super fun. and during the summer time though he has this place set up is there is not only these sort of indoor bar component but also an outdoor what he calls the troubadour park. and that includes a bandstand, on the hill or sort of the ridge of the mountain. where bands perform outside. it includes a picnic area. it includes a 10 foot six shooter pistol that he had made and you can fill the barrel, i suppose it is with logs and set them on fire as smoke billows out the barrel of the pistol. it is just this whole sort of

country music compound that he had up there. and so, not only does he have the things that night but he has these things during the day all through the summer. and so i would like to read a little bit about what one of those daytime parties feels like. the day after karaoke night, jim opened troubadour park for the summer season. where the 200 people pay their requested $10 donation for the privilege of setting their foil covered side dish on the long picnic tables near the giant smoking pistol. one man, his skin deeply textured as a piece of sun parched oak carried an enormous -- on his shoulder as he walked the crop he made his way to the outside bar and paid from one mountain dew a styrofoam cup full of ice. then took a seat at a white plastic table and poured his soda. as the bubbles phase in the sun the gingerly dismounted from the man's shoulder and put his

beak in the cup, guzzling. by the bar under a low canopy their employees prepared the smorgasbord. a man on barbecue sauce as a propane grills were nearby. i recognized him as the stake chef from the night before. and he obviously had the same fuss free both chicopee tipped the jug into a pile of thighs and legs he arranged in an aluminum tray. then toss the mall with his bare hands. getting sauce up to the t-shirt tan lines above his elbows. piece by piece through the meat on the grill and each time a fresh gust of smoke and burnt corn syrup filled the air. jim was seated by the donation bucket at the entrance way. greeting everyone who came in. he stayed glued to a stool giving thumbs up and accepting kisses on the cheek. after a while, jim's doctor, matt han, who was speaking of in hushed tones by the assembled crowd got on the stage and tapped the mic and

said turn the volume on.he was in his early 50s but looked like a freshfaced teenager even with a shaved head. he winced from a blast of feedback. back at the troubadour prolifically had to jim and bertha. i feel bad for all the people have to live somewhere else. another food is about to come out and will all get started but first i want to remind everyone that jim and bertha have had their problems lately. lots of doctors bills, there will be nowhere they will get better. little eddie, jim and bertha's busboy began to unwrap the foil from the pyrex dishes. they fished zealously for a piece of ice. his owner had ripped the cup down to 1/4 of its original height so the bird can still reach his prize. rings of carefully manicured styrofoam were gathered underneath his lawn chair. floating like bubbles in the currently mountain grass. the darkening clouds moved regally like galleons and full sale. and i know we also deeply grateful to the people have given us so many wonderful

afternoons like this up here. the roundabout friends and great music e. i encourage everyone to visit the donation bucket and see how generous you feel today. the plywood outdoor restaurant sat empty. the doors slightly ajar. the lights still glowed. to the left three children shook the thin frame of a swing set with chipped paint. there was a small boom as he clicked off the mic then donnie faded in a kenny chesney cd end line began forming. a breeze flew in. caramelized chicken and cool pine. the beer can be was just full enough to rattle each time a new empty dropped in. anxiety felt impossible.at least for all but one of us. after a trusting isle of lawn chairs and cross legs, a man in a gleaming white cowboy hat strode determinedly toward jim. he was late 30s , hairless except for a struggling blonde goatee. he wore a black sleeveless

t-shirt seemingly ironed when she had tucked into his wranglers and secured with a belt buckle enough for a buicks hood. it features soaring eagle made of polished silver. behind him, following his cowboy boots was a young girl, maybe 14 and not all graceful. poor posture, cramped hair and arranged purposely obscured her face she were boys jim's socks pulled up to her knees and black low top chuck taylor's that she'd scrolled on with pens. a silent old man presumably her father trailed her at a small distance. mr. mccoy the cowboy said looking into a conversation between jim and two older women. the women wrapped up with a kiss on jim's cheek and went to grab a spot in line. jim looked up and said nothing. mr. mccoy, have someone here i really think that you would like to hear her sing. do you? jim asked, skeptical. the name is melanie. he turned and gestured to poor girl in. a thick barbecue dan filled the air screams and laughter and debates over the approaching

crowds. she loves to sing i hope you might have our station and see if she's ready to record. jim looked at her with interest but without leering. he was assessing honestly is this young lady ready for show business? what do you sing he asked her? i like -- or agents face was so grimly focused you think guns were drawn. maranda lambert? she finally asked. i don't know if these fellas will know something that newstead jim gesturing to the road warriors currently setting up and tuning on stage. guitar, drums, bass, two microphones and ponytail speed and thing a little older? stammering but brave she opened her mouth staring at him for approval as the syllables came out slowly. loretta lynn? they might know that said jim. nodding with approval, he began shuffling up through the chairs toward the stage to tell the band they were featuring melanie on a couple of tunes today. they all shook her hand

excitedly the agent placed a gentle palm on jim's hunched back and said, we do appreciate this, mr. mccoy. this is another one of those tiny towns in the panhandle of west virginia. places that years ago had their own elks lodge or roadhouse where his old band might play with a local high school surf rock band. today, fewer than 400 people live there. maybe the man heard melanie singing with her friends while they watch the music video on a phone. maybe she was in the church choir. maybe she was his knees. however it happened, one day, he heard her voice and thought that could be it. this girl might sing well enough to get some attention. and who knows what might come of that. maybe a little money. maybe a lot of money. plenty of girls just like her from nothing doing towns and far corners of rural states have sung their way to wealth. what do you know? the real mccoy himself was right up the mountain. why not dream? it happened before. thank you.

[applause] >> hey, max. >> hey, john thank you for having me.i will ask john a couple of questions and we can open it up if you have questions. actually, before that i think we got from that reading, that one of john's great talent as a writer is his eyeball as an observer and a watcher of people doing things and his ability to translate that onto the page. and there is another very short passage i want to read where he is at the bar and he says one of the out-of-towners, it a guy in an ironed polo shirt approach the bar. can i get a bourbon need he asked the bartender? what does that mean? no ice. oh, she said grabbing the

handle of jim beam and putting a plastic cup on the bar top. recall that a shot. [laughter] and there's another passage i was going to ask john to read. it is just a paragraph probably my favorite paragraph in the whole book. he is in a cafc in downtown and he is ordered an american breakfast. and he's watching the cook make the breakfast on the flat top. will you read that? >> by request for you, anything, of course. this was a little tiny mom-and-pop place called just like grandmas. it was owned by a guy named perry. perry click the burners on and reach under his counter to pop open the fridge doors. he pulled out a few eggs in a tub of butter from which he spooned out a golf ball sized chunk and placed on the shining silver girl top. it instantly bubbled and slid as he commenced the batter in a

steel bowl. flour, soda, small pinch of salt, white sugar. they'll enter the bullet quick economical motions unmeasured but precise. and he cracked a couple of eggs and reached back into the fridge for a carton of buttermilk. he started with an old wire whisk. not too fast but steady until the batter seemed to almost move on its own. then he reached back into the fridge and pulled out a package of thick cut bacon. pulled out four slices and laid them down like newborns on the buttered rumbling range. they popped and puckered and the room smelled like fat and smoke. he grabbed a small ladle and added three dots of pancake batter to the glistening surface. spreading them out with utensils bottom until they achieved perfect browness. then he grabbed the coffee pot and walked over to fill my mug back up. >> i just love that. i don't know it might be made. >> this is a pretty tough interview. i feel like i'm getting cold here! >> when i read a book of nonfiction like this, it sort of inspires me to think about like why doesn't someone write this book about every place in

america? i want to read this about all of the places i have lived and visited. >> please tell my publisher. >> winchester is a special place. >> i mean, i would say so. >> i'm curious about how you got on the story and i mean you ended up spending on and off, for years going there back and forth and meeting everyone from jim to all of the people involved in patsy cline 's fan club to perry, this cook. i'm just curious to hear about if you could tell us about how you got in? >> it was late 2012. this is an actual story. i was listening to leave it on your mind by patsy cline. in a don't remember why. but i remember for whatever reason i was feeling that song that night man.

i was just like man! this is quite a little performance she's given here. and i realize at that point that i knew nothing about her. like at all!i did not know when she was born or if that was her real name or where she was born or anything about her whatsoever. and so, i learned from wikipedia that she grew up about 90 minutes away from me. and i thought well that's pretty odd! and like it just happened to be the case that as i said, the 50th anniversary or commemoration of her death was fast approaching which would have been in march 2013. and so i thought, it would be super fun to go out there and take a look at how the small town is obviously celebrating this person who is you know one of the most famous singers in history. i thought that is a slamdunk sort of tourist local color essay. when i went out there i realized or learned quickly that her legacy was not

secured. and in fact, she was a somewhat controversial figure at her time. and it just sort of snowballed from there. i found out it was so interesting that i kept asking people about why it was and i learned this whole history of the sort of economic you know the economic portion of the town, going back to like its founding in the 18th century. and just sort of kept asking questions and is the kind of place where everybody knows everybody. answer every conversation i had ended with a list of the next five people to talk to. and so, i ended up doing a couple of freelance pieces. just based on the folks i was meeting and stories i was uncovering. eventually i found the jim mccoy and the troubadour idea as a way to give a shake to bring all the stories together and make it seem like one coherent thing. >> you write about winchester that the residents have always been engaged in the process of defining this place in his

character. those definitions are often in living rooms more the state houses and courtrooms. that's where people learn their values and hear their legends. homes. the places together with your people. with a true currency of a region in perpetual search of itself. so how does a reporter that lives in the suburbs of d.c. get into the homes of the people and the homes in the hearts of the people in winchester virginia? >> is quite easy i think anyone can do it. with jim specifically, there was a funny thing that happened where there are photographs in the book so i will refer to we as going out the unreported because it did go there with a photographer. and so, we went out they are initially for patsy and we were told about this place up the mountain that would be essential to learn more about her background. so we went up there and the first night jim kind of you

know, what i learned later was he basically gave us the stock show that he gives all writers that come to this place. because i was not the first person by any stretch. many people have written articles about this bar and about how it is the last of its kind and so, i went up there and he showed us a great time. he took us around the grounds which includes like a recording studio and the official west virginia country music hall of fame. which is a trailer on the grounds of the troubadour. i later learned, doing research that everybody who goes there has the night that i had. or at least the conversation with him that i had. but i noticed and this was true of all people i met in the region. like a switch flips when you meet them a second time. i feel like when you go up and meet somebody, a lot of people

come to the town either for patsy cline or george washington or civil war history, winchester has a lot of that going on. people have come there and asked a lot of questions about the place. they feel as many fewer have gone there, ask questions and then returned later. just to hang out some time even. there were plenty of times when i went to the troubadour without a pen and pad and just went because there was a band playing and i feel like if you approach people with that kind of genuine just, interest and you are doing a little research and you may even know something about their background that they don't expect you to know, i think most people respond with gratitude. to having their sort of context and history taken that seriously. i did not find any doors closed. not that i was banging on the difficult ones but i thought most people were more than happy to sit down and be asked

questions about their life and the place where they grew up. >> as we can tell just from what you have read here, is a sympathetic portrait. of some people. >> and so -- the book has just come out this week. has anyone had a chance to read it? have you been in touch with anyone lately? >> i will be there tomorrow. so ask me then. [laughter] >> last time you were there. >> i was in winchester a week ago but not for reporting. just happened to be passing through. my publisher brought me, this is not my request but i still can't believe it actually happened. we got a highway billboard in west virginia. i don't know how that is going to -- [inaudible]

>> i boot went out there to see this billboard and take a selfie with it. happened to stop by the store and know was there but i'll be there tomorrow for a reading. i am curious if anybody shows up, if they show up to throw fruit at me or if they show up to be really excited. honestly, none of the above would surprise me. either one would be fine. i got a couple of facebook messages from some of jim's relatives recently. though i do not believe have read it. but i think were confused and grateful that someone wrote a book about it. >> and you, i'm in your first visit there was at the end of 2012. he went back for four years to work on this book. in some ways it's a lot of time in some ways it's not. as we learned in the book is enough time for even you as an interloper to have witnessed changes in winchester.

>> for sure. >> can you talk about that a little bit? about the town that you first discovered, spent years in and then where it is now and what you said earlier about is becoming a commuter town? >> i would say that i mean winchester has this sort of, the change, the evolution we are talking about has been going on for i would say, at least 30, potentially 50 years. i think it was 1965 that they completed the federal government completed this stretch of i 81 that passes by winchester. which was a hugely transformational moment.i anyone goes all the way from the deep south up to new york. and now, i was surprised to hear that the wist commerce is like very excited by the fact that 50 percent of the u.s. population lives within a 12 hour drive of winchester. which i thought that was kind

of an interesting thing. >> that to me is indicative of the kind of like, what is driving -- when i showed up five years of out there was already well underway. maybe not completed but like you would go there and the downtown is a weird mix. it's like you know, they transformed loudoun street pier which is this main drag downtown which used to be the place where patsy clines, it is called patty's class of people. the poor folks, it was like there hang out street. that was where you took your car up and parked and like yelled at people. which as far as i can tell is what like a friday evening was in winchester in the 50s or 60s. you park your car and people came by and he said hello to them and shouted at them and stuff. so now loudoun street is a

brookline walking mall that has both a number of antique shops, a yoga studio, coffee shop and a couple of churches. but it also has a few, not condemned but unused buildings right now. so that big change that happened is one of like you know, this was an area that for literally hundreds of years, had a kind of self-contained economic systha social system e. and with the arrival of all those 50 percent of the american population within 12 hours like as he became more connected to outside areas, that really eroded a lot. and so it is not so much that the place is better or worse now. but it's like there are a lot more places that were started by people that did not grow up there. or that may be moved they are

only to start a business in their retirement. and that is a lot of change. certainly from the time i saw. i saw a number of important businesses, important is maybe strong but also businesses alike, certainly close. and the troubadour that i got to know intimately, you know certainly, its future remains unclear for a long time. i think that kind of transformation like the arrival of new money and outside people change is a place a lot. what it really does is it can make it harder for those kind of homegrown localized businesses to thrive. and i saw a number of them go out of business even in the few short years i was out there. >> last question i will ask before open up to everyone else. i just found the experience of reading this book in 2018 refreshing that you didn't focus on the politics of this

world place. they are there, it is part of the book. but it is much more of a attempt at somewhat holistic portrait of this place. i would be remiss if i did not mention the name joe -- someone who we have connected on before one of winchesters other famous, semi-famous -- >> infamous. >> the author of deer hunting with jesus. and so i just wondered if you had touched or would touch on your experience of the politics of this place and whether it was intentional not to have that be a focus of the book and how he thought about that as you were writing the book. it wasn't 2018 when you're writing a book. >> no. i think it's a really political book. this is not focused on the 2016 election. there is a chapter that is largely about well the part about the pancakes strange as

it may seem as actually late in a chapter that is largely about harry flood bird. who was a native of winchester and was the governor of virginia in the late 20s and then became a very and perhaps the most influential southern dixie senator through the 50s and 60s. to me that chapter the whole political history.it is a biography of him in a way and shows sort of how his you know he was a democrat but i think we will call him now, a pro-business conservative above all. he was a businessman as well. and you know, the transformation of this region that took place sort of under his watch i think is still happening now. obviously i was a few years into this book when the 2016 election was looming.

and there is a scene which i did not expect would be in the book. until the election. but i'll go up and visit jim and his wife in their trailer on the troubadour grounds and they would have a t.v. on. and it would invariably be on fox news. i never once spoke to him about anything even resembling what you would call political stuff. for me it was much more entertaining to hear about the time he had to pick up pills in nashville for johnny cash which is a true story. so wanted to hear about that. i didn't care what he thought of hannity. but once the election happened and the outcome happened, then it sort of seemed like okay well now i must mention the literal and figurative elephant

in the room and so, that scene which again, was just like anything i experienced personally, almost sort of off the record. i don't remember taking furious notes but just sort of the fact of being in a persons house at that moment really registered with me. all of a sudden it became an important thing to include. not to show that no, jim and bertha are some of the you know, great unwashed that voted for trump. because i think of anything, i hope that this book sort of conveys that folks like jim and bertha, which a lot of mainstream call it coastal media, oxford american. >> based in arkansas. >> a lot of the coastal media would you know you would notice throughout 17 and even into now you saw a lot of these -- and i've seen people call rednecks

safari pieces. you travel down to podunk ville arkansas. a guy used to have a manufacturing job and it's gone and he voted for donald trump and -- i wanted to show or at least after the auction, what i saw an opportunity to show was that the political makeup of these types of areas is a little bit more complicated than that. frankly, i don't think it was people like jim and bertha watching hannity in a trailer. that elected him. i think that there were people going back 80 years with the harry flood bird stuff. you know the people with power, money, a voice in the area of the country and throughout our country have dictated peoples

lives and particularly, poor peoples lives. and so, i wanted to show the degree to which that is true and not just that there's a bunch of angry hillbillies out there who want revenge and so they voted for the manhattan real estate developer for some reason. but we won't get into that. i did want to explain like you know that scene is in their, not to accuse jim and bertha of leading to one political outcome or another. but to sort of show like by that point in the book i think it is clear that like these are people whose lives have been beholden to a whole number of political and economic realities. and i thought after the election in the throes of working on this, maybe this book can kind of show those people and their complexity and the degree to which these decisions are kind of made before they even know about them. >> thank you.

i will open it up for questions. before i do i just want to say it's a beautiful book. >> thank you. >> and i was reading this i thought about some of my heroes. i think it's a timeless book and i'm excited to see how it lives in this year and in years to come. >> now i'm going to cry, thank you! >> if you have questions we ask if you go to the microphone here. so that we can capture it. >> thank you. i'm very intrigued. i'm not look to the book even yet and i am intrigued about it. i wish you would expand a little bit on the controversy surrounding plat decline among the citizens of winchester. i am hoping that it has something to do with her music rather than either her

lifestyle or politics but i -- >> i am extremely sorry to disappoint you.it had nothing to do with music at all. >> in the 60s i used to go to the bluegrass festival which is close by. >> terrific, yeah. >> even as an outsider sort of college kid outsider i felt pretty welcome there. anyway, take it from there. >> his question was about why was patsy in winchester despite singing at carnegie hall, for example. and being not only performing but being a member of the grand ole opry. so these are like large achievements that the winchester ruling class did not care about. and i'm sorry to say it had nothing to do with her music. everything to do with the fact that she was poor. there was literally at.

winchester even now, but especially at that time, it is pretty geographically separated on the west side of town you have a number of just gorgeous sort of wrap around houses with big domes on the top that looked like something out of meet me in st. louis or something. then on the east side of town you have let's say, not that. we have duplex housing and particularly in the 50s and 60s, that is where poor folks lived. so she was born on south ken street. it is not the house that she was born but the house where she lived starting in 1948. it is now a historic house that you can visit. i think a person coming -- i think the people who owned the media and the businesses in

winchester and the winchester star, which is still the daily paper and still independently owned by harry flood bird 's family. it is still a bird owned paper. which i respect.i think it is amazing there's an independent paper in a small town america still existing. for whatever it's worth it is still owned by the same dynasty that owned it for almost 100 years now. i think they were sort of amused they were just sort of like maybe she went to carnegie hall but why would he write out about a person from there in that paper. we don't do that. it was literally not more complicated than that. in some cases when she did sing around winchester, she was literally booed. she performed at a movie theater standing on top of the

concession counter. so that little glass counter she was standing with a microphone, i assume there is a banter bye-bye she was performing at a movie opening and she was booed and to them she was a woman of good standing for winchester would not go around with a strange man all weekend traveling the highways and going to these little beer hall places. a person from for a woman of good standing were not where pants. that is a detail. they really hated that she wore pounds rather than dresses. a woman of good standing will not use profanity. which it did constantly. which i think was not well understood. but she was a, apparently those that knew her said she was a maestro of curse words.

with men and women. everything about her just stood as a front to a well lived life to these people. i think they were just kind of like a said, bemused or even grossed out that they would have to write about something like that. it is only recently people who knew her identify with her have become powerful in any way in winchester. that explains the sort of delayed recognition for her. >> so the controversy isn't something now. it was back then more. >> was definitely back then. but i'm sure there are some people clinging to the idea that she was disreputable still somewhere. >> i spent quite a lot of time at the lounge. >> nice to meet a fellow traveler. [inaudible question] i believe wasn't he and the

band that she performed with? and one of the most wonderful parts about the lounge was that it was totally covered with memorabilia that his musical career and hers and also that every labor day he gave this big huge free picnic that hundreds of people came and the purpose of it was that all of these women who sang like patsy cline would get up and perform in endless numbers of musicians came from all over the area. to also perform and it is just a perfect example was a generosity of jim and bertha. but i think there were a couple of points about honky-tonks. there is a lack of dancing. a particular problem i thought for us, it was -- and mean you

could see it at the troubadour lounge when the dance floor kept getting smaller and smaller. they put more and more tables and because people were not -- it's not funny it happened -- there is nowhere to go to dance to country music. the other thing i thought i would mention is, i don't think you quite have it right about winchester. >> okay. >> i mean winchester is a perfect example of pretty much every town in america. where there is nothing happening downtown and all of the commerce is outside town where people can park and in big shopping centers. the fact that the city fathers chose to take over the downtown and parking anywhere near where stores were is just -- it was a death wish it seems to us. >> she has been to the troubadour so we have more than

once of course yes. that is important distinction. she was saying that taking issue with my idea of how winchester has changed? or -- [inaudible] how all of the like every other town in america, there's nothing happening downtown. people don't go there anymore. all the shops up and down the main street keep changing. the restaurants keep closing and so forth and so on. >> this is the first time i've been told i'm to charitable to that process. [laughter] so i am grateful for that. but i mean, i think it's not a polemic book but i don't know -- max -- okay. [laughter]

that moved from -- >> who is spread out and all that is just -- >> there is a whole chapter here about a writer named joe who coincidentally grew up near the troubadour and then moved down to winchester when he was a child because his family could support the farm anymore. and joe then became like a total acid dropping hippie and traveled all over the united states. including boulder and the pacific northwest and came home and then achieved a certain level of notoriety as a political blogger during the george w. bush administration. he was a, just a frothing liberal. and conservative hater i think

maybe even more than that. all of his essays were based on sort of like what he observed in winchester. if you read that book, deer hunting with jesus, which i encourage you to read. you will find that basically, the town comes off looking pretty awful. in the sense of like he has this whole sort of systemic idea of what's wrong with capitalist culture. ... is anyone here from winchester i will be there tomorrow. you came along way sir. i've only look through your book.

i did not see a large image of patsy cline. i did see the memorial service. i should've brought my poster because i do had one. i'm a native washingtonian. those people who have not heard that. she has one of the most powerful voices that has ever been heard. bar none. he also died in a tragic airplane accident. what was interesting.

i've read in terms of what happened. to cause the crash it was an identical -- identical crash. it was her. she was magnificent. and i have not been there. but i've been to winchester many times. i know people who were there. it is one of the most beautiful areas you could ever visit. and i can see why people would want to relocate. lovely without question. the same thing is happening. it is everywhere.

i felt like that. the whole process. we have the epidemic of diagnosing the ones that they were discussing our taking place everywhere. there is no neighborhood in the united states. that is neil not dealing with old man. the old hardware store closed. and it's a dollar general or a walmart or target.

this is a secondary concern of mine. i certainly wanted to show that the what is happening with the rural america thing. as a broader issue than that. it's a much broader issue. it's a mistake for us to believe that the small pockets somehow are unrelated to us. here in washington. or elsewhere. >> think you. who else do you know about. who else. i know about a lot of people. i was saying if were ever talk about country music. i have heard of johnny cash. to be honest the thing that excited me more was that jim

was a close confidant. among many other things. he was a male patsy. a male patsy cline. the whole story with johnny cash was that he was sent to the wrong pharmacy. there were like you better get out of here. dr. robert. i know a lot of people. i have not written books about many.

i've not written a book about johnny cash. thanks for coming. i have started reading the book. i think a lot of people have the idea of writing a book. how he kind of got the started. is also an unusual topic. thank you young man. i appreciate that. i probably went out there thinking best case scenario i could pitch the oxford

american about something. now you rejected a picture at one point. if you want to make this awkward we can make it awkward really quick. i went out there i was trying to be a writer. i think it's okay. i did go out there and i did write that piece. but then kept coming back because i found that there

were so many things about the place i'd love to thinking and writing about. i wanted to talk about politics i could do that. if i wanted to write about history i could do that. those four areas are about a sum of total things that i care about. and then that is that is a book i would read. and jim, as a vessel into the place. that was not my idea. originally i have the idea of writing a more traditional essay collection. and then i met the original editor of this book that really liked this idea but was

kind enough to say nobody wants to read or buy that. it's not like i think people care about. he said the gym story reappeared and popped up. he was already kind of like the greek chorus to it. a couple of random chapters in the gym thing. what if we made it just a gym thing and then a couple of chapters. we trick people. he is the narrative backbone. you can insert all of that. i felt really dumb for not thinking of that myself. i learned that this is what makes a good book editor.

thank you young man for coming out. it seems like the way it develops patsy in the music she created was really a gateway. his other music. where the music that you encounter. that is a great question. i think all music is a problem -- a product of musicians and their history and what they are bringing to the table there but the life of music had them will beyond the

recording studio. i would even say that i was less interested. they will not learn about about the various recording sessions or how she developed her sound. you will learn about what she meant to people. that was interesting to me. i wanted to learn about that. and if he wants to learn about they met a lot too. i was reading a book about the beatles.

you make music. it becomes a thing outside you. they can occasionally. i was in baltimore on tuesday. one of the people i was speaking to there. brought up a rapper who have died a few years ago. he was a community leader. and he was a person that lived a clean life. a life of a person to inspire. i love that. about how he was discounted.

it meant a lot to her community. and i loved that someone was able to make the connection between that in contemporary hip-hop music which i think is deftly worth making. you mentioned a friend who became a developer. he became a developer in part to kinda get back at the landing jen tree. can you talk a little bit about the role the haves and have-nots still play in the legacy of the people who have been haves for a very long time in the area. i'm so happy to talk about this. he's in his 80s now. it's a very different kind of 80s than jim's. he was originally from falls church. and after college he then went to live in the beat hotel in

paris in the late 50s where he became good friends and hallway mates with william s burroughs. and then he left they immediately moved to the dawn of the 70s where they live in pol pot west virginia. they did that for a few years as literally a million people did during that time. and then when they had kids and their kids got to school age. it may be good as many of those millions of people did. they left and that's how they ended up in winchester. and from there he became a real estate developer. and he actually sold the land to walmart to build there.

build their winchester area store. how does a person go from the beat hotel had to go from that to shaking hands and signing on the dotted line with walmart. it was a little bit of a self justification. self-justification. but it made sense. but the way he really described it. it's the old way of doing things in winchester. for 100 years or more people who were rich just controlled everything.

i take from. for some of the wealthy winchester folks. and mentioning that one point the great gatsby which makes one person who he's he speaking to. i hate these people. if i'm getting in the way of some type of ancient civilization that they control. good for me. i have my own feelings about that sentiment. those personal attitudes thank you to our speakers tonight. if anyone is interested in buying the book you can get it behind that register.

[applause]. book tv recently visited capitol hill to ask members of congress what they are reading this summer. senator dan sullivan. what is on your summer reading list. i one i'm one of these serial readers. it was her book called simply called democracy which i would recommend to all readers. she is a former boss of mine when she was secretary of state and national security advisor. she is a smart insightful

government official with experience but she's also an academic. as secretary of state. as national security advisor. and kind of the theory of democracy. they just had a combination of a great book. i'm also just finishing another book called the restless way. it was a really good read. it helps them understand i really important country but one that will pose challenges.

and i am restarting. they are all great reads. send him this summer reading list. television for serious readers. we have a lively pull. were starting out. they have a long hard look -- look. one of the things we think makes money actually does. are they extracting money.

nasa is a research organization. one thing that doesn't make money it takes your money. i have a book here. with how to get rid of the president. obviously you can be in an election. i hope you will admire that.

they have silhouettes. he has written a book about negotiation. it is a wonderful woman. on the successful talks to get around to sign up. with the lead on that. and advice to all of it. what is the history of public

affairs. they have always had their feet it might they consider a timely conversation. it's a very happily. two years ago. it has always been there. two just join with the chef. we are in imprint who is in the office.

really a music publisher. in the strength of music. we have expanded for the health and wellness. and actually we we were required by that. it is a very successful in print. and they know how to maintain the independence. altogether we are pretty eclectic. so even though you were employed there. are you independent of each other. what are some of the books.

we are excited about a bunch. american history. military in particular. we are excited about brian murphy. with a true story with the journalist. what he is really engrossing in the narrative. it was carrying cargo and 100 mostly german immigrants. from liverpool to new york about 400 miles offshore. and on his one survivor. using that journal.

and using that. in the future newspaper articles. they really tell the story. we are on there. military history. in the specialty is american history. he is set versatile writer. this is history rinsing out for two reasons. it's really a narrative with them. and a couple others who we hear from our the pioneering war photographer. alexander the second is the father of the battlefield

medicine. i'm not sure of that. it is very dramatic. in lincoln of course is at the floor. that lincoln lincoln needed this victory at the time they were very low. this is the victory by the narrowest margin. they used as a catalyst. in the history. and finally edward l'engle. this october is that 100 anniversary of the largest battle in u.s. military history. the news is there.

they are writing about one particular battle. in this battle about 600 u.s. troops. with the brutal terrain makes finding resources or path to resources. nearly impossible. they are surrounded by enemy troops. they even refused the offer of surrender. a week later. we went with a tragic but uplifting story. really told through four particular filters. it resulted in seven medals of honor.

with the service crosses. on this anniversary we are publishing that. three history books coming up. politics, history and economics. from public affairs. book tv is on twitter and facebook and we want to hear from you. or post a comment on her facebook page. facebook.com. >> i qualified for my first team in 2010 when i graduated from college i have a hard time finding a job and at the same time i was still part of the rest -- westbrook foundation.

we take a good look at the team usa. and that i did not see someone who looked like me. there had never been a woman of cover -- color on the team before. i was going against what everyone around me was telling me. i was 23 when i went to my first international competition i have no world ranking. i have no national ranking i never had at senior competition before. there were a lot of naysayers around me. an olympic team was in my future because i have never been on a cadet or junior team that i have the tactical training or skills. i feel like my journey as an athlete is kind of about challenging but the people

around me think about me and i feel like society tries to put you in the box. there is this idea that people that excel as kids are thought of as olympic hopefuls. that they don't have the skill set to make it. there's also that layer and a no exactly what to call it. but to be different in a sport that is predominately white is very difficult. there's a lot of pushback. even wanting you to occupy that space. on the national team there is a lot of commentary. there was almost like this hopeful rhetoric that somehow

i would not qualify the next year. imagine having to wear that baggage every single year. i think a lot of athletes of color who are in similar situations. you can watch this and other programs online. [applause]. we would like to say once a month you are not alone. i also like to welcome c-span. watch what you say i guess. i am delighted to introduce