for god and country to join in a conversation with your phone calls, this book, its context in tweets. watch booktv is in-depth sunday at noon eastern on c-span2. >> host: welcome to booktv "in depth" pro can pick this a special year of fiction on "in depth" for josie authors such as david baldacci, rhetoric, walter mosley, last month with david ignatius the "washington post" columnist and thriller writer writes about the cia and such. this but ripley's rep pulitzer prize-winning author colson whitehead as our guest. his most recent book is "the underground railroad." mr. whitehead, what's the appropriate response when your books appraised by oprah,, president obama, human apology and the national book award, what is it appropriate response? >> guest: if only a took the pain away. [laughing]

this book has taken off in a way that is unexpected and startling and wonderful, and so mostly i just sort of thank my lucky stars and i sleep a little better. i'm in a better mood generally and try to enjoy it despite my best efforts by one why does that put you in a better mood? >> guest: i been writing for 20 20 something years doing fiction for 20 years and sometimes you write a book and people dig it and people understand it, that sometimes you write a book and no one particularly cures and it sort of disappears. i have the pride and thinking i did a good job with the book, and the bows of other people digging it as well try in your first book was "the intuitionist" about elevator repairs, people. how do you sell a book like that? >> guest: exactly.

that book i wrote a two paragraph description and either when i send it to my agent, even you dig the concept of groups of elevator inspectors or you don't. you either sort of along for the ride in the description or not and definitely when i was writing it, my second attempt at a novel, my first one was terrible and went to a bunch of publishers and everyone hated it. i had an agent. the agent dealt with because i was going into it. for a year to say to my friends, i'm writing a a book about elevator inspectors. it's totally stupid and they would make fun of me. eventually after a year and half and writing i finally got down to what sounded like an interesting book. my new agents, likely doubleday did as well, is there a connection between "the intuitionist" sun one and the

"the underground railroad," et cetera? >> guest: a couple topics i circle around. cities, a new yorker. i love writing about new york. i get a lot of ideas and energy from the city. pop culture, race, race in america, technology and some of the themes are in some books, not so much in others. my book about new york, it's not race lies new york. it's just your. my poker book, no hassle, doesn't have much to say about technology but there's a sort of four or five areas i tend to circle around. >> host: how should people read your books, social commentary, auto biographical? >> guest: definitely "sag harbor" which is my fourth novel is about growing up in the '80s and does take off from my

childhood. i would say "the underground railroad" is my least autobiographical book. just because like i'm not in there in some sort of coded way which is what probably people like it. i think read them from the first page, from the beginning to the income that's a good, good wake-up start to finish. that's a a good way to read it. some books are funny, some are a little more tragic. i hope the experience is worth your time. sometimes it's social, chicken sometimes they are cometary and whatever kind of weird thing i'm going through that year. >> host: in "sag harbor" are you benji with a bad haircut? >> guest: benji is a 50-year-old kid growing up in new york in the '80s. as i did. unfortunately, my life was a

very interesting as i have to exaggerate. the summer of 85 was not that cool or compelling so you have to take a little bit of lessons. when i started the book i wanted to base characters on my friends and, unfortunately, none of them -- whenever they appeared on the page they became less and less like my friend david or scott as the book took over. it started off as purely on apocryphal and i in their but the demands of the story always supersede any kind of autobiographical or metamora stick urge come trying to make a compelling story which means exaggerating what happened to me. >> host: colson whitehead, what is the process to get to elevator inspectors or zombies or a railroad, underground railroad that actually exists in physical form? >> guest: i like to mix it up and not do the same thing from book to book.

if you know how to write a certain kind of book why do it again? perhaps that's foolish, and so but i think writing a book that's maybe very plot heavy and following up with a book that is not as plot heavy is way too very it up and up to the same thing. a first person that has a first-person narrative, a book that's funny, not so funny is way to keep it varied for me. the last couple of books i'm on a perverse streak. went from "sag harbor" about the '80s to zone one, and apocalyptic zombie tale to noble hustle which is a poker book to this book, "the underground railroad," a historical novel. i'm keeping a very different and i think i get my ideas from articles, just weird musings i have on my couch. spend a lot of time on my couch. sometimes the ideas stay with

you and when you get an open spot in your schedule, you can consider it, are you ready, you want to do are not want to do it? sometimes they the following by come from a lot of different places and ideas. >> host: the scenes be a common thing in your books about a guy who didn't get the rules of life, has a certain unease around certain people. >> guest: that's autobiographical but i don't want to tip my hand too early. we are here for three hours. want to save the good stuff for the last hour. i think there's something about an outsider. i think whether you are misanthropic like i can be sometimes or we're all sort of outside into the oyster and outside makes a good observer, good protagonist, a good storyteller. you are in the action but also standing apart. so someone who observes and is

part of the scene but also a bit removed i think it's a good vehicle for telling a story and definitely in the apocalypse come in the world of elevator inspectors it's nice to have a point of view character for the reader. most of us are not elevator inspectors sadly. my outsider characters become a way in addition for the reader to enter the story. >> host: some one didn't come until 2011 2011 i think i readn article that you are written that as a young guy like an eighth or ninth grade. >> guest: no, no. i was a horror fan and science fiction. loved the zombie genre from going back decades. no, i wrote two terrible stories in college and emily didn't

start writing until my mid-\20{l1}s{l0}\'20{l1}s{l0} fiction get up session with zos does go back to my childhood. parents who love horror movies. we would watch horror movies together and i remember saying night of the living dead at a very early age. stayed with me. to refresh your memory, it's a story about the eve of the zombie apocalypse. people try to hide. they don't know what's happening and main protagonists is a black man being pursued by white people who want to devour him eat him which of course is part of the story of america. growing up as a horror and science fiction fan, five books in i thought as ready to have influences my influences and try my hand at a horror story can you say you want hormuz but a get the impression there was an obsession with horror movies. >> guest: i mean sure. i don't want to get all judging,

obsession, but yes. >> host: a real interest. >> guest: a real interest. my brother and i came of age during the dcr boom and so we go to crazy eddies which was in electronic store in new york and five hormuz, slasher movies every friday go through them, returned in and start all over again the next week. it was sort of science fiction or and, that maybe want to write a lot of marvel comics, when i was growing up. my parents would by stephen king novels and they would come into my brothers room and i would read them. fantasy, horror has always seemed to be a potent storytelling tool. with "zone one" people have different ideas about what zombies mean.

for me i find my own interpretation and put my own stamp on the genre, was sort of fun and support for me. >> host: what do zombies mean to you? >> guest: different generations interpret horror genres towards your own needs. like dracula, vampires need something in 19 century in england. they mean something different to the twilight generation. zombies mean something different to teenagers now. to me they avoid spent an expression of social anxiety, fear of other people. psalm becomes obvious or can you go to bed and you wake up in the world has changed or your loved ones, your neighbors, teachers, coworkers are zombies had to get you and they have stopped her their voice and monsters but they are put the mask that and now they're out to get you. that speaks poorly of my psychology that i interpret

zombies in that way, but you know, the sort of zombie myth always stayed with me and i finally found a way to tackle it. i have these various ideas in the back of my head ready to put on page. >> host: is social anxiety, trade with novelist? >> guest: i don't know. i'm not sure. i think it helps, i think worrying about your work, are you doing a good job, maybe a good skill for being a novelist. it helps you not coast. >> host: worrying about what others may think of your work? >> guest: no, are you doing a good job? anxiety versus worry. a healthy amount of worry helps you make sure that you're

putting everything into this paragraph, into that page. making sure it's coming out right even if you have done it, it books, ninth book, it books under your belt. >> host: in the new yorker in 20 tell you were quoted as saying to be a good novelist for you it's to fully inhabit one's delusions to give into every kooky aspect of one's freakish this. it's a handy survival strategy. >> guest: well, i mean, i think what i like about my different books is that they are sort of odd and allow me to express different ideas about the world, about myself, different theories. and i think writing is becoming a way of me to interpret the world for myself. figure out how i feel about things, how i feel about societal systems, politics,

people. and so that license is very important for me. not being tied to expectations, following my own inclinations, and just because writing about elevator inspectors sounds like a bad idea, sort of a dumb pathetic idea, can you make it work and can you sell it to the reader at the same time you are selling it to yourself? so the delusion that just something to say, the delusion that your work is worthy of being read by others i think is useful for being an artist. >> host: where did the truth of the idea of the "the intuitionist" come from? we on an elevator? did you see an inspector? >> guest: i figured , what was that book about by the way? >> guest: remember gary

coleman, the tv star, little black boy, he was, a tv critic at the time writing about black imagery and pop culture. so i figured i'd write a novel about a gary coleman -esque child star. he goes up and has misadventures. it seemed like a great idea to me. in the novel is on a centcom called i'm moving in. he was always getting adopted by which white people. so i'm moving in seemed like realism. got an agent and sense of the book and everyone hated it. i think i became a writer then like i would get a real job, become a lawyer or something like that, i wish is going to write another book and maybe people like it, maybe they won't but i'll learn how to write by the end of it. i figured people like plots. maybe i will have plot driven book.

what the heck? i wrote a detective novel and steady suspense and i thought i was washing 2020 as often do in those days, in my 20s. in the 1990s. there was an article on the hidden dangers of escalators. apparently if you don't repair as clinton you detach from the sides and you can lose a toe, very terrible thing obviously. at the escalator inspector was interviewed and i thought that's the random job. escalator inspector and growing up in new york you always see -- there's a law, not necessarily enforced anymore, of the elevator inspector sort of signed the certificate. i've been here, everything is fine. they come once a year. your work you at school and suddenly you see that the elevator inspector has been better so i thought with typical elevator inspector had to become

an expected to solve a criminal case? ha ha funny post modern detective story. i went to the life or to see of skills and elevator inspector would bring to a criminal case. of course the answer was not because they are in development -- they are elevator inspector to it became like i made up of a different culture elevator inspectors. i figured they are conservatives and progressives and that became the empiricists who do the right way inspecting elevators versus the intuitionist who are progressive, sort of place out in the book in different ways. i made an elevator inspector school, elevator inspector philosophies. really i was trying to teach myself how to write. i have -- i didn't have a book

that have plot or any kind of linear momentum so trying to do that and then i took this weird whimsical idea of elevator inspector saw that the criminal case of following it through its execution. so that's how that happened. >> host: prior to starting this interview you look at your books are on the table and said sorry for the clunkers that you had to read. what do you consider to be a clunker? >> guest: i think they're all pretty good but hopefully if you do something for a long time you get better at it. certain books i'll think about and i will wonder why didn't you semi-adjectives? isn't there a simpler way of saying that? maybe that book could lose the page were to here and there. hopefully i i become a better vitamin headed do things in a more efficient way. hopefully you get better and better and better, then

obviously you plateau and the start sucking but hopefully i'm still in the getting better phase and getting better at my job looking from each book and taking that to the next level. >> host: does i am moving and still exist? >> guest: the manuscript is there. for a while i thought maybe i will strip might it or something but it's really terrible and energy would take, bring it up to my now very high standards. so i better spend time writing something else. it's in my drawers. my children have a gambling debt, they can sell it for some money 30 years from now, you know, make some quick cash, pawnbroker. >> host: so lila mae watson is one acre female protagonist. core is another. what's the reason to write for a

woman's point of view? >> guest: i think women exist and i think they will tell different stories. you should take different points of view. that's part of that. i had a string of male protagonist before this book so seemed sort of wise to mix it up. i think if you know to do something, why do it? alamein watson i couldn't do my sort of hipster in new york voice. that was my first novel. i was forced that i chose a third person narrator. i couldn't rely upon my first person narrator. a female protagonist i had nothing before and by doing it i could hopefully become a better writer. with cora i had a few male narrators in a row mix it up. there's a famous slave narrative

by harriet jacobs called flight of the slater and she writes of how weslaco becomes a slave woman she goes into a much terrible for the slater you now praise your masters desires. you were supposed to pump out baby seek is more mean more slaves, more profit if you're a master so that predicament you know slaves is worthy of exploring. sometimes unkind mix it up sometimes i want to learn something and keep the challenge is going. >> what was your favorite one to write? >> guest: i think, you know, i mean, you know, this book was hard to write because i was broke. this book was hard right because i was broke and also the press. there are different cellos and when you are finished you can look back and think oh, it was pretty terrible but you know, it

was a special type in my life. i think with noble hustle is a folding slip but it was the most fun director it's a humor book taking off from a a trip i tooo the world series of poker. i tried to cram as many jokes as i could in there. there's a journalistic framework so there's linear movement. i really was trying to cram as many weird jokes and bits of myself into it, and it was really fun. it started from a journalistic assignment. there's a magazine called grant lan which pop culture and sports for couple of years and had great writing. they called it up to see if i wanted to write about the world series of poker and i was like no, i don't to to go vegas. it's really hot.

they said what if we, instead of venue for the article we page or in transit and just go to the world series was i was like okay, i'll do that. but i did know how to play tournament poker site just started cramming. i would drop my daughter at school, and the other parents would say what you up to? unlike i'm going to atlantic city to train for a poker tournament and i would get on a bus to atlantic city and gamble. come back at night. when i got to the world series and i stayed at home mostly for the first time i had to get out of my comfort zone, basically my foot area around my couch. it out of my comfort zone come learn how to play poker i wouldn't embarrass myself, my family new york at the world series of poker. and then one is writing it, writing a play and writing an article it was serialized and so we write a novel, like a joke, make a soft laugh.

it was two years before someone else reads it and you feel kind of stupid laughing at your own jokes for a while. but with writing in a serial way like dickens did back in the day, you get the media response that people like it and felt really good and gave the energy to keep going. it was a very certain special fighting experience in terms of the material, in terms of how it came to be. i look upon that six months perry foley. >> host: i will paraphrase the first line of the book which is, i got to wear sunglasses inside. it was good for me because i'm half-day anyway. >> guest: sure, yes. her years i have been told i had a good poker face i realized that was because i was half dead inside, which people mistake for that mass of a good poker player. my natural lack of aspect was

for once an asset in a social situation. do you want me to unpack being half dead? >> host: i'll help you here in our therapy sessions unpack this a little bit. you do write about having a mask on. you'd you write about the fact that you are semi-depressed, hermetic when you're writing and you are a different person when you're done with a book. it's that important, is that pain or depression important to your writing? >> guest: i think partial it is an partially it is good to have a healthy joking relationship with most things you do in life, whether it's art or anything else. and so not take myself too seriously i think it's important. i think in terms of sharing how you feel about my work with

other people, demystifying it is important. most writers i i know we are jt sort of, you know, crawling along the pavement trying to write pages in hand than in sonoma gets in our case and we can keep doing what we like to do. a lot of times writing is unpleasant. it also has an incredibly great when you figure out a new sentence or a a character or figure out the problem you have been working on. but for me not taking it too seriously and i think the character of a depressive shut-in i think is fun to play and it's partially true and also it's also sort of default setting in my public relations so what the heck, go for it.

>> host: what was the easiest book to write? >> guest: they are all free hard, i have to say. -- pretty hard. i'm going to go with the shorter one. the effects is pretty short, the book i'm working on is pretty short. so short isn't easy, but it tends to not prolong the agony of a 400 pager. >> host: when you win the pulitzer, the national book award, praised by oprah, praised by president obama, is that put a lot of pressure on the next book? >> guest: i think there's always pressure i think impose on myself because i wanted to be good. i want to do something different. i don't want to coast and so fortunately when i get good news, and amend middle of

something, i can feel really good at us to work the next day and, it's still kind of sucks and it's terrible, it's a terrible job. it's always hard. it's always -- the pressure is really self-imposed but it's always been there whether it's learning how to write a book, should i write a book? i would rather not be broke so should i get a real job? there's always some kind of weird pressure on you. whether things are going well or things are not going well. >> host: good afternoon and welcome to booktv on c-span2. this is a monthly "in depth" program and this entire year we are doing a special fiction edition with best-selling fiction authors and this month our author is selling off a pulitzer prize winner colson whitehead. here is a list of his books. we prefer to several of them throughout the first half hour but it want to give you a full

list. "the intuitionist" in his first book that came out in 1990. john henry days, 2001. the colossus of new york, 2003. apex hides the hurt. came out in 2006. "sag harbor" 2009. "zone one" about the zombies. 2011. the noble also which we've talked about a little bit a nonfiction book, 2014 and, of course, his most recent the underground railroad which won the pulitzer prize, the national book award, et cetera, et cetera. we want to have your participation this afternoon in our conversation. here is how you can participate. we have several social media sites you can also contact colson whitehead if you have a question or a comment. we've got facebook, twitter,

instagram. at booktv is and do you need remember for those three and here is our e-mail address as well, tv at c-span.org. we will begin taking those questions and calls in just a few minutes. what is the first line that you wrote in "the underground railroad", what are the first words you put to paper? >> guest: internet being i think the opening line the first time season approached running north. she said no. i always do a lot of outlines before i start working. i have to know the beginning and the end and the last, books i've known the last line of the book before i started writing, writing towards that. i didn't have that with this book but that first line i think came rather quickly when i was ruminating and organizing the book and survived the horrible

death and process that actually get into the book turn what is the vetting process? >> guest: you write something and his genius and two days later that was really stupid, i don't know why i put it that way. in this case the first line was durable in sturdy and i think spoke to cora in that one sentence and stayed with me. >> host: from "the underground railroad" about the grave robbers, and that in the group became a human being. only then was he a white man's equal. >> guest: that is from a section that takes place in the early part of the 19th century and there's a doctor who is going to medical school. the book takes sort of an eccentric root through american history -- route. the main storyline takes place

in 1850s, that was my mental year. that was my cut cutoff for technology in certain slang. then there are certain side stories in the book that explore some of the supporting cast. in that section doctor stevens to meet cora made in his life as a young medical student in the 19th century. how do you learn about biology? you need cadavers. where to get cadavers? you dig them up. there's a healthy trade in great propping and medical schools by these illicit bodies. people would go and compete to find fresh cadavers. there were gangs. they didn't beat each other up but there ran at each other in the same greater. dr. stevens who sees himself very liberal, his musing, and is talking about prejudice in boston in 19 century and uses

that despite racial prejudice, despite the aspersions cast upon black folks in america. ironically, when they use by section, these folks become equal, these dead folks are suddenly elevated in death to a level of equality. one of the many uplifting moments in the book. >> host: did you know you're going to write about that when you started this book? >> guest: i mentioned the outline, yes. we know lord our south carolina, but a white supremacist state, a black utopia state. and then i knew i wanted to have

the opening be an overture of the slaves white, so the grandmother, we follow her for six pages. oliver from africa to mills passage to two different plantations. and the secret i would, typical slaves story, and move onto corridors life. it seems short six-page chapters could be a way to open up the world took place cora can't go. while i was writing the book and i did have strong structure different characters were auditioning for those short biographical chapters. so dr. stevens in medical school, maple gets hers. after certain sections i would think who should get them. after north carolina we made a husband and wife team who had taken court in. who is more interesting? what can his upbringing bring to the book if i gave them that

sort of stage your quicken ethyl bring to the book if i give her that stage? even though i do have a strong structure before i start you have to be open to that, the process in which the book takes you. those short sections are very useful. in terms of giving voice to the book was evolving. >> host: can you read "the underground railroad" as historical fiction? >> guest: i think if you are well versed in historical fiction and you will know that this section didn't actually happen in 1850. i'm moving something from the late 19th century. i had the idea to make "the underground railroad" this metaphor into something real, that was the fanciful idea i had on my couch many years ago. from the very inception is a fantastic element. it's not as straightforward which means i can do a lot of

different things in the book. have these different alternative america's and i think a lot of the books power and successful conception comes amid a fantastic structure. but no, it was not a straightforward historical novel. i take many, many liberties and i guess my motto when i was writing the book was i wouldn't stick to the facts but i would stick to the truth, a larger american truth, if not bound by chronology and what happened but the different kind of connections that i i could make and give to the reader by moving different historical episode around. >> host: colson whitehead, did the randall plantation actually exist? did you visit these places in your research? >> guest: the randall plantation where court is raised and what where she is enslavedy own creation. in doing the research i had the

latitude to make my own sort of plantation. i think from pop culture a lot of us have that idea of a plantation naturally big, 100 slaves. but you could be one of three sleep on a small family farm. you could be on a midsized plantation. you could be a domestic slave in a townhouse in baltimore. and so randall is my own creation and it borrows from our plantations actually worked but it serves my artistic needs. in terms of visiting plantations, i was two-thirds the way through and i figured let's be a real writer and do some field research, and so i flew to new orleans with my wife and went to see two plantation tours. i got got on the tour bus. i was the only black person on the tour bus, and we're going north and the tour guide is

giving her spiel, and this is the riverboat that would take all the good some northern louisiana data new orleans, the port city. it was very complicated. owning, , running a plantation wasn't just sitting on your porch drinking mint juleps. just keep track of the counts, keep track of the workers and obviously i'm not in rigorously historically rigorous travel log i went to two places. the whitney plantation which is a news in devoted to the slaves experience. it was great. you should go. and for a fiction writer just sort of feeling the atmosphere on my skin, that sounds of the insects, seeing the implements. and then getting names. they would describe how they of

various exhibits to how much slaves were sold, when people came. for me i'm just writing down names and some of those names i cut from the whitney plantation are in the book. how much people were sold for,, all that sort of green stuff. then i get back on the bus, go to the next plantation which you probably have seen in movies. beyoncé film a video there and it is sort of that stereotypical -- you know, if you want an anti-fellow themed wedding you can read rent caution and have slavery themed wedding. they have hotel rooms, and do not sure if it still says it on the website it says if you want to break free from hotel chains, you can stay here. get it? you know, but writing a book

about slavery and getting people's actual stories coming across early 21st century iron is about race and sort of the way we deal with race, sort of nothing compared to the actual stories of slavery themselves. it was a weird adventure and yes, i did go to some plantations for research. .. i think it -- give the same speech two times a day, other times a year, don't even think about it and how we think about slavery we don't necessarily

think of day-to-day conditions for slaves. a complete vast array of dehumanizing apparatus. we don't examine our assumptions about the cost in terms of people's families, people's psychology. in the same way she gives a big speech about louisiana plantations and all of that, to think about slavery in a deep and thorough way to give us an understanding of it. >> host: this fiction is new to us on c-span as well. it became almost a month-long read for a lot of colleagues that c-span to read "the underground railroad". i will read one from our colleague who just finished your book and she wants to know

about the five ads for escaped slaves. are the other ones actual ads? >> guest: the university of north carolina digitized the digital archive and they invite me to go down there. hopefully i can express my gratitude to their digital archives. when a slave runs away what do you do? place a classified ad in the newspaper and as a fiction writer i like people's voices, hear people talking. i couldn't compete with the tourist's eight line runaway slave ads that encapsulate so much space. the format is usually $50, bessie who ran away for no

reason at all, why? she has a downcast expression, a burn on an arm from an accident last seen in the vicinity of edmonton farm, what is the free black community, how did she get that? levels of the nile and the ad. one is going to put it in there and the research, i was struck by an observation but you would have to be a farmer or slave master to hold up the system, you could be a journalist with a classified ad and hope you are upholding the spaces in the enterprise.

the link in the chain, you are a blacksmith and make shackles, the iron rim, the cards taking cotton to the market. they are making nails, they are popping up in the new slave economy and so researching, thinking how fast enterprise was and the blacksmith and classified ads gone there, broad idea on the scope of the world, was asked -- >> host: you have a line everybody is working for that? >> guest: i went to the cotton jim, the slave masters, ridgway

is the antagonist in the book, slave catcher, as much, in bondage, everyone was caught in that. >> host: colson whitehead, did i is read this or is there a sympathetic aspect? >> guest: hopefully you recognize it for his humanity. and the antagonist for the formidable protagonist and you should see your self in the heroes and the villains, makes them 3-dimensional and recognizable. he is a terrible person with a terrible philosophy. when cora is revealing her flaw

as a human being, you recognize some self reception, how he sees the world. you see that quality in your self, makes artwork that recognition. >> you taught at several universities over the years, what are two things to do? >> guest: we have three months to write three stories. you teach undergrads, from new jersey, a goal from new jersey, to write about the story of a 22-year-old from pennsylvania. you write fantasies, try ballistic stories and vice versa, 3-month is sympathetic or semi-sympathetic, try these different stories, the first person voice.

it works for you and stretching your self. >> host: you have three months to fail and then try something different to use it. and then i think it -- if you find a not are you really love, sometimes you teach people who will be architects, engineers, study art class and people like lori moore or junot diaz, they read once we get out of school, to get everything by them and how you are attracted to their work. and read a lot to find the writing you want to be.

they are two different things. aspiring voices, finding our own voice. >> host: was it hard for you to write in antagonist as a white southerner? >> guest: no more than the elevator inspector. and you are drawing upon your own. whether you speculate what makes good people operate. if you have a big cast like munro does. like sag harbor. you always find your self,

different chapters of the place where you are different. and other people, making characters who are not like you recognizable. >> host: another colleague at c-span has been reading all your books, you retweeted him a couple times. i start with the "the intuitionist," who was james fulton? >> guest: it is not yours anymore, and academics have questions, you went to a college and james fulton, obviously based on some code, i lived on fulton in brooklyn, the first name i saw.

james fulton was the investor of the intuition school, the "the intuitionist" step into an elevator and divine what is wrong with it. the inspectors in your community like the empiricist, in my book "the intuitionist" there is a sort of insurgent force. james fulton has come up with their philosophy. i went to college in the 80s, words between the canonist and multiculturalists. the elevator inspector school, that conservative, war play out. that and "the intuitionist" are the finally establishment,

james fulton comes up to that. my book sounds good or bad by my description but back to your first question. i am re-creating my own feelings when i was writing the book and -- >> host: i have no idea what you just said. i'm sure the audience follow you closely. is sag harbor a real place? >> guest: it is a place on the tip of long island. the resort community the last couple decades. it is nestled in more famous parts in southhampton.

and old whaling town mentioned in moby dick. starting in the 30s and 40s african-american doctors, lawyers, teachers, getting summer places, extra money, the most safe place to go, by word-of-mouth, in the 30s and 40s, they start doing that. going out in the 40s, in the city, to college. "sag harbor" is based on my adventures in sag harbor the town. >> host: here you write was there anything worse than a bigger kid playing keep away

with your stuff, for adulthood. >> guest: the main character benji is 15 and doing a lot of identity formation. in this community, he deviates from his community. in bell house, in dmc, to be a person and that weird identity battle as you get older, psychological warfare engaging with your community, when you are a teenager you sort of wake up. it is sort of upscale, and it

means like you made it or not making it, embracing the fact that you are a little bit posh. >> host: back to "sag harbor," getting rid of your sag house was unforgivable, something your kids often surfaced. you still have your sag house? >> guest: my mom living in there since the 1990s, what is lovely about the place, going for generations, my grandparents and peers, plots of land, the kids grew up in them, spent their summers in

them, anyplace in the world, the community changes. i wouldn't call it gentrified but a lot of families used to go out there, you won't go to sag harbor - people take over the neighborhood, a lovely piece of land, the black part of town. on beachfront property, it has changed from what it was and to talk about that moment but for the hamptons proper and posh environment. >> host: what was your mom's reaction? was your dad still alive? >> guest: my dad passed away short time ago.

not sure how much he would have liked it. not sure how much my friends would like it and then it came out, seem to embrace it. he said i hear him in your book. he is somebody. he is like, heard them in your book. it is good. how come you didn't have me do the audiobook and i kept his voice over work and kept coming up with all my friends, like i heard. people in the book -- move to pick it up. >> host: if your mom got it,

this is a fiction book. we were a made-for-tv family. when he called action we had our marks and delivered our lines like pros, we have formula staff. >> actually that has not much to do with my family but it does deal with pop culture, talking about the cosby show, when the cosby show came out a lot of people embraced it as we are finally on tv. brownstone, parents or professionals and in many ways the first time we saw ourselves in that particular way on tv. pop culture is important to the main character and focus on the world so his relationship to the cosby show comes away

talking about the lie behind that kind of cosby show fiction and of course bill cosby's own life is underscored the separation between the televisual reality and how things are in the world. whether it is the cosby show or road warrior or hip-hop, pop culture becomes a way of figuring out the world and emotions and had to exaggerate to make a story interesting, that has to do with my family, a proud family of zombie movie watching. >> host: did just magazine really do that?

>> in the 60s and 70s, jet magazine weekly would run up a listing of any black person, so rare and so lovely that the black press could tell you when you were going to be on tv. >> host: we talked for an hour, colson whitehead. had a lot of people -- >> guest: kicking me off? >> guest: >> host: kicking me off and giving more americans phone calls, from charles in albuquerque, new mexico. thanks for your patience. you are on with author colson whitehead. >> guest: you don't have to thank me for my patients. it has been wonderful. not only your insightful

questions but colson whitehead opening up and having a bird's i view into that magnificent brain of his, had the blessing of being friends with the person who won the national book award for poetry and he always talks to me about having to find the harvest time. sometimes you are stuck knowing how this character developing or having a life of its own, want to craft it towards a certain way and colson whitehead talking about making sure you maintain the movement of the book forward, linear structure and things of that nature and the beauty and difficulty in opening your self up when you do a historical novel you have to take some creative license with what you are doing so it helps in terms of story development but being true to what the story is. my question has to do with so much colson whitehead talked

about, amazing and interesting, the story that everybody has, this idea of plot and structure. if you get bogged down, exactly where to go to take something but he persevered, said you've got to write those pages down like my friend had said about persevering, the daunting task ahead of you and cranking out a few pages a day. >> host: let's hear what colson whitehead has to say. >> guest: it is work and some days you are in tune with the project and everything came together and you are struggling through a paragraph. that is a victory.

a novel is the marathon. that one paragraph is a lot. my own way of keeping saint is eight pages a week, eight pages a week, 400 a year it is like a novel, dorky way of thinking about its and see a movie, read a book, pages are tuesday, wednesday, saturday and sunday with tuesday through friday, could be one page, if i get eight pages, am i feeling it? that is work, the same part of the brain but you are making progress in the book. >> host: do you have a sense for these characters?

>> guest: not mad. a minstrel show seen. i remember getting very angry with regard to "sag harbor". i was a little more removed from my previous captors and "sag harbor" is very personal. i thought raw writing it a lot. under my railroad and my new book which deals with institutional racism and more horrific aspects of america. i do get angry when i research and i am writing it, and act of creation and not of grievance. trying to put things together but the reader comes to the story.

>> host: you've got a bit player in underground railroad. >> guest: an assistant to the white slave catcher, got that idea many years ago and i was ready to write it and if i had written the book ten years ago, and homer is going to home iran to do what he wants, the black assistant to wait slave catcher, and he keeps that going and trying to illuminate the weird corners of the master/slave relationship, slaves -- the civil war knew nothing else except the

plantation and can't conceive of that psychology. there were slave masters raised by a house slave and would swear that is for the family. she raised me from a cup bus you torture or rape bessie, her family, her children and have that psychotic denial of a slave master. they make a weird duo and hopefully in a different episode they illuminate for us a kind of very very odd dynamic. >> host: martin in erie, pennsylvania, you're on with colson whitehead. >> caller: good afternoon. had you considered writing

drama either for stage or media/cinema? >> guest: thanks. i went to harvard for the english department and in one class, american fiction after 1945, i took classes in the african american studies of, the drama department and dialogue and kind of dramatic structure is important in my work. in times when i needed money i thought i would teach, maybe write a screenplay and having to get dressed and shower,

never write a screenplay, this sucks, i know how to write a novel so i end up going back to fiction but i grew up on tv and film and those are very important, a lot of ideas from film, will from science fiction in the 70s. i can do fiction and nonfiction but don't have the chops to leave those two genres. >> host: is underground railroad being serialized? >> guest: my books have too many black people to be adapted to film but this book has been embraced. various people looked at it, he had great ideas, barry jenkins

did moonlight, we sign early version of it and had to interview him to see if he was right for the job. any slave movies? slave movies? i don't know about that but thomas anderson's there will be blood in the master, and then got the oscar and a week later was pitching folks and amazon studios did a mini series of it, they are writing it now and we will see about the score. >> host: dean is in monmouth junction. i can't see it on the screen. >> 6 miles north of princeton.

so you were kind enough to lend my copy of "the underground railroad" last year and was he ahead of you? you were classmates? >> kevin young, poet, nonfiction writer. >> host: we are going to let you go, hard to interact with the delay in new york. >> guest: we started writing together for writers in college, he was always the more professional one. we knew what he was doing and was published and in new york

city, in the new yorker and the author that came out a few months ago about hoaxes in america, the american way of conning the public. always very supportive, it is great to see and have such a great year. >> host: please go ahead. >> guest: i was -- something i didn't know about, how did they come -- how are they built? quite interested in seeing that. >> guest: social network in the 1840s, the locomotive is

transforming america. there is a slave who ran away from his master, the master woke up the next day and said to himself there is no trace of him. as if he just disappeared on an underground railroad and that is a term that would help slaves escape to the north, a person with a seller hiding someone for a couple weeks when the coast is clear. taking them 200 miles to someone else. free black people, risking themselves, slaves escape and eastern seaboard roots, more midwestern roots in indiana, massachusetts, new york.

not a literal train, it is in the middle of the train, very impractical to have a train in new york that is 7 miles long. a 2000 mile tunnel from new york is very impractical. >> guest: is their significance in the fact that different underground stations, very utilitarian? >> guest: a new york station with a subway tile, some are roughly very grand or accommodating just coming through so different characters in train stations. >> guest: from your frontier couch more than once. that is where you write and what is the typical day.

>> i took my son to school. on the couch. the weeping jag, the first page, a snack, 1 to 3 pages a day, a really good day. a doctors appointment at 1:00, the whole day is shot, 3 to 5 days a week, eight days a week, 10:323, and then obviously cooking. and when you cook a couple hours a sense of completion,

some short ribs, the satisfaction of not waiting 24 months. >> host: let's go back to the crime jag. >> guest: joking about the creative process and the safety valve. some people go to cafés to work. i would rather be able to make a & which, take a nap, take a nap in the café. indoor, so many, what's the word, people out there. it works.

>> host: with your notoriety now can you still be anonymous? >> guest: for many years, small communities since the book has come out i have done more tv than usual i am recognized, sort of uncomfortable, is my fly open, just recognized me and people say i am teaching a book, just read your book, give it to my mother and could be on some sort of taxicab almost hit me or something or something terrible and always nice when they take the time to read the book and a nice kind word brings you back. >> guest: in 2002 you were taken to the harlem renaissance

writers at the white house and the washington post book editor at the time asked you the question how you felt about african-american section in the bookstore and you didn't really give an answer. i wondered if you had a more definitive answer. >> guest: borders, long-standing policy of that section and african-american book section, toni morrison would be in the african-american section and ideally you are in both. i was in high school, went to the black section and the bookstore and find a person you never heard about, frederick douglass, who is this guy?

it was a place to find books about your culture and a good idea in the 70s on black studies but why have toni morrison in that section? should be in both. nowadays it - i don't think it is a book section. my books are in the book sections and it is not as big, had a purpose and that was its purpose but not as much anymore. >> host: next call from tina in north carolina. you are on booktv. >> guest: i would like to tell this gentleman i was raised in a suburb of philadelphia. we were never never taught that there was a variable with blacks. i just apologize to you that this is what you have experienced so thank you for your work.

it is wonderful and i appreciate all of you have gone through. thank you. >> guest: thanks, glad you grew up in a very progressive place by philadelphia. a lot of the country isn't as lovely as it has its terrible side and a lot of that -- a terrible part of the human character, determining so much of our history but thanks. >> you grew up upper-middle-class in new york city, did you go through a lot? >> it is called -- based on the color of your skin not your zip code and so like most young black men stopped by police,

handcuffed, interrogated for being on the wrong block at the wrong time in manhattan, pulled over without a drivers license, my friend is driving, two black guys in this neighborhood in a nice car and you never know when that kind of episode will escalate into something lethal. black lives matter and ferguson, a conversation about police brutality and we have a conversation and then we stop. rodney king we talk about for two years and then stop talking about it and then talk about it again and then stop talking about it. whether there is a national conversation about it is part of my existence ever since i grew five feet and became seen

as a target. the talk, the first person to give it to me was richard pryor in his early 70s about being stopped by the police. be with you in a second. when you show your license and registration, i am reaching into my -- what is that move, the first one giving the talk with richard pryor and my dad later, many times at the house made aware of that target and i can be shot any moment basically. >> host: from our facebook page tank rights my question, did

you always write such short but brilliantly descriptive sentences? yesterday i quoted you on my facebook page as an example of your skill, quote, tennessee proceeded in a series, the blazer devoured the next two towns, did you write? did you hone it down to the core or was that an original sentence? >> guest: thanks, very nice to say. you get better at it and there is a narrator in the "sag harbor" -- "the intuitionist" has more with them to the sentence, more complicated sentences. the narrator of this book in times of hurt and you narrate for the job and the encyclopedic narrator is great. i'm in a concise mode but we

are working on now and that is from different voices, different sentence styles, you exhaust one and move on to the next and invigorate from both for and you get better at it. >> host: you mention a new book coming out. will you tell us anything about it? >> guest: it takes place in florida, a funnier book, maybe a darker book, underground railroad has the smallest page count of anything i have done. two jokes and 200 pages but this book is also in a darker vein. maybe just mix it up. the next one is a little lighter.

>> host: hire, it. >> caller: can i call you colson whitehead or do you want to be called -- >> guest: mister -- >> caller: i told him -- the extra room here, i didn't know if this was prerecorded but was life. i am 73 and had books in my head for years since i have been in my 20s and had people tell me my gosh, are you downright? you get busy trying to make a life, feed a family and get distracted but one of the stories, when my mother was alive she passed away 92, and had a powerful impact on me like her father had an impact

on her and you call my mother don't you call me mom and the only thing i ever called her was that. my dad, a nickname he came up with and i had older ladies that took me to church in the neighborhood, it is horrible, why don't you call her mother? my dad pulled away from me, closer when you call me only. maybe i was adopted. i look too much like my great-grandfather. >> host: you have some books, 73 years old. >> guest: i teach undergrads,

people in grad school, it is all ages, that first novel, the autobiographical story, and when do i have time to work. having a job, and get your story down and it is a struggle whether you are eight books in but no one will write it for you. only you know who oldy is and what she meant to you. only you can tell that story. the sooner you start the sooner it will be done. >> host: what is the mistake first-time writers make? >> guest: a lot of hothead friends, the first hundred

pages over and over again, stop fighting and get to page 100. you can always go back later and get to the end and fix it. don't get caught making the first 100 pages perfect. keep going, look forward, revise but don't get stuck thinking you're going to get it right, get to the end and the end will tell you what is wrong with the beginning. >> host: devil, cleveland, good afternoon. >> caller: i have two questions for colson whitehead. the first one is when you are writing, who is your target audience? my second question is, is there any subject that is off-limits that you wouldn't write about?

>> guest: with "the intuitionist" my ideal audience member was the 60-year-old black kid who might think i can write. i am a weirdo, this guy colson whitehead is a weirdo. i think meeting the invisible man at an early age, maybe let's be white as well and the book came out and there is no 16-year-old kid in the audience, white or black and i stop expecting it. ice which genres gaining people, "sag harbor," realistic, i got a new readership, followed up with a book about zombies and lost all those people. i'm used to getting new readers and disappointing them and they move on and my next book i don't think about my audience anymore. the thing i don't want to write

about, i don't know much about football so i am unlikely to have a football novel but i think that is a matter of distaste and not taboo. i never thought i would write a book about poker. as you go through life different things become more or less interesting to you. there is no way i could have predicted a lot of my books. >> host: next call for colson whitehead is david in georgia, good afternoon. you are on the air. >> caller: i was going to ask you, never read any of your books but the african slave trade. i was reading an autobiography of henry stanley and he describes where the arab traders came to east africa specialty, murdered 40,000 villagers to get 5000 slaves.

of course there were buyers in the new world so the drug dealers now, after buyers, people supplied the slaves so i would like your comment on that. >> guest: i have a section on the african slave trade in the opening of the book and before i get to america and american slavery so that is what i have written on the subject but where there is money people tend to explore their worst impulses. there's a lot of money in the african slave trade, there is money now, stories about

slavery now whether it was wage slavery, building iphones in the factory, or shrimp or shrimping boat, slavery exists now, many makes you do things. or anywhere else. >> host: lives in long beach, new jersey go ahead for colson whitehead. >> our interpretations were all over the place. could you expand more about it and especially the main character? >> guest: that book is very open, much more ambiguous than my other books which sometimes have ambiguous endings, sometimes not.

what does "the intuitionist" mean? something in terms of the permanent elevator inspector, something in terms of technology in the city. when i sold the book i didn't think about it but with elevators you can't have a modern city. before elijah otis invented safety elevator they could only go up to 5 stories so the elevator enables modernity and the modern city. so that is one meaning of the elevator. i was writing a book and the phrase up lift the race occurred to me. i was writing elevation and sometimes it is about transcendence and achieving a higher consciousness or higher level of being so the metaphor is very open and a lot of

interpretations so once i am done with the book it is yours to read, interpret, ignore, and wherever you think whatever reading you have has some of it, thanks for picking it. >> when you're done with the book it is yours. our conversation with colson whitehead continues. if you have a comment or a question here is how you get through, 202-748-8200, 202-748-8201 for those in the mountain and pacific time zones, we also have several ways to make a comment on social media. twitter, facebook, instagram, remember@booktv, email booktv@c-span.org and we will

continue our conversation in just a minute. we want to show you colson whitehead's acceptance speech at the national book award in late november of 2016 right after the election. we will show you his favorite influences and some of the books he is reading now. >> the last four months have been so incredible. just like today the make a wish foundation. am i dying or something? i only get it. so it is so confusing. my model for acceptance speeches is the oscars, the first one i saw was 77 with star wars against annie hall and when annie hall won i was crushed. never thought i would become a writer and be at one of these

things. at doubleday for 18 years, i was going to say who gets to stay the same person for 18 years and then robert caro is like blows this whole thing, well done, sir. my daughter maddie is at home watching onscreen so she can go to bed. you are 12 years old, started living the day you were born, thanks for your ongoing gifts to my life. beckett is 3. i don't know who you are yes. i'm excited to find out. it is so much fun, you have all these ideas about things. i'm excited to see how they develop.

my book is dedicated to my wife julie. [applause] >> it is okay writing good books when you are unhappy. it is better writing better books when you are happy. so thank you. [applause] >> lee hamer from home magazine and oprah winfrey of oprah winfrey fame got the word out. i get people to read my crap copy, i don't know and oprah is like people do and it is all crazy. so this time last year i was finishing up the book.

only 19 pages ago, don't mess it up. you never know what will happen in a year when the book is out and i never thought i would be standing here and who knows where we will be a year from now? outside is the hellhole wasteland of trump land. who knows what will happen a year from now? because i am still promoting the book, any words about the election? not really, i am sort of stunned. something that was making me feel better and i guess it was i think other folks, be kind to everybody, make art and fight the power, a formula for me, anyway. [applause] ♪

♪ ♪ >> host: colson whitehead, in

your speech you referred to the terror that is trump land, that was just a couple weeks after the election. >> guest: it was. i grew up in new york and as a teenager, a weird tabloid buffoon creature but he persisted. i watched the apprentice, a reality show, then he was so repellent in terms of during the campaign season with his racist and xenophobic speeches that it was startling, having written a book about white supremacy to have the white supremacist in the white house. >> host: you consider him a white supremacist? >> guest: he says a lot of racist things and govern in a way that benefits whites, to the detriment of people of

color consistently and over time. if you say white supremacists marching in charlottesville raising nazi flags and confederate flags calling them very nice people, evidence of a certain sympathy. >> host: isabel wilkerson, one of the books that inspired you. >> guest: sort of captures the story of millions of people who moved to the north in the early part of the twentieth century. that is how my family grew up in new jersey and new york. my dad's family came from florida, went out of town when his father got into a fight, great-grandfather with a

shotgun, that is what you here. my mother's family is from virginia, people got to new her, the word newark, for new york, got off the train and ended up in new jersey. they thought they were in new york. .. she was half white irish, half black, came over a servant and worked on james madisons farm, plantation. had eight kids and those kids were free and had kids.

married, yeah, so that line and my fathers line comes from ms. mother is from barbados which is a sugar plantation island and the american south, georgia and florida. >> does ralph ellison said invisible man hold up after all the jews? >> guest: it was eight years ago i taught it and it's a marvelous book. i'm going to sort of concise stage, could've lost a few words in that sermon but i mentioned it being a a revelation for mes a teenager and i remember reading the first section that opens the book was excerpted in my seventh grade river of american short stories and at that point i was reading fantastical literature and there's so much absurdity in the opening scene i felt a real

kinship, and so he was aboard to me when i was younger and still is that kind of real sort of inspiration. >> host: what do you get from allen ginsberg? >> guest: just that ecstatic american voice that is tragic, sarcastic, loving, cruel. on twitter people retweet howell, and infinite loop. i'll be watching the news, angry, watching the news on twitter and then three lines pop up and that guy is a genius. the colossus of new york which is a series of impressionistic essays about the city. hopefully at moments reaches that ecstatic american voice section that's in ginsberg and walt whitman.

>> host: from "the underground railroad" colson whitehead writes that the divine thread connecting all human endeavors, if you can keep it, it is yours. that is the destiny. >> guest: you can't really take capitalism from human slavery. people are objects, they were bought and sold. they had a value place on their lives, and the more they worked, the more they made money for the people who owned them. the story of slavery is part of capitalism. slavery makes america into a global player because of slavery. we have imperialism. we have capitalism. we have manifest destiny, and so the book at different moments is trying to wrestle with all the sort of major forces that shaped

our country. >> host: next call for colson whitehead comes from built in new york. you are on booktv. go ahead. bill, are you with us? i'm sorry we will have to lose bill. just a reminder, turn down your volume when you get on the air. otherwise there's a delay and he gets a little bit confusing. let's hear from can in spartanburg south carolina. we are listening. >> caller: hi, mr. whited. i would like you say i'm enjoying the program. my question is that has been answered, but i want to know who was like one of your favorite authors and what type of inspiration did you get from that author? and when did you know that

writing was going to be your lifetime duty of doing, instead of going out and getting as they say a real job, a nine to five job. >> host: we will get a natch to that and just a minute, but ken, who is writer who inspired you and which of mr. whitehead's books have you read? >> caller: toni morrison has been one of my most inspirational writers. i'm reading mr. whitehead's right now, the underground railroad. i'm presently reading it now and i'm enjoying every bit of it. this has been a treat for me to see you on tv today, so thank you. >> host: ken, what do you do

in spartanburg, south carolina? >> caller: i'm actually, i work for the hospital here. i'm a nurse. >> host: thank you, sir. >> guest: thanks for reading. i hope the end of the book is not disappointing. but i'm glad you are enjoying the first half of the book. so writers have inspired me, so many different folks. you can get something from raymond carver, a writer of realistic short stories. something from ralph ellison. i guess early influences was twilight zone and marvel comics and stephen king. before i got to college i wanted to write horror. i wanted to write like the black salem slot for the black shiny. if you took any stephen king title and put black in front of it that is basically what i wanted to do. then i started reading people

like gabriele garcia and samuel beckett, , people were playing with the fantastic i can genre writer, a horror fiction writer or a science-fiction writer. for my early love for genre storytelling, i see fantasies as the tool. you use it here, you don't use it there but it's in the novelists, his toolkit. >> host: what does the term magical realism mean to you? >> guest: what does it mean to me? it means that the real and the fake are both presented in the same register. so gabriel garcia marquez team up with it, it was one of those bigger practitioners and he came up with his wisdom from listening to his grandmother. she would tell stories about her village when she was growing up, mix in some fantastic detail like and then they share

sprouted wings and flew away. she presented it with the bricks face and he never knew because of her brick face what was real and what was unreal. if you read his work, the word of other magical realists, were in a recognizable world and we fear off and come back and there's this matter of fact merging of the two. when i was working on this book "the underground railroad" from the years it was more science-fiction, each state was very different in terms of time. and having much more broader, fantastic portion. i went back to 100 years of solitude by garcia marquez and thought instead of having the fantasy cranked up to a spinal tap 11 where if i have dialed down to a magic magical realism one, have that as a story. when cora encounters these fantastic moment or at certain moments, it's presented with a

brick face, and matter-of-fact tone and it serves the book. >> host: what did you study at harvard? >> guest: i i was an english major. it was a very conservative department and so i had to take african-american studies classes to sort of -- i went back in 2001 and that's when someone was teaching the "the intuitionist." i said isn't that kind of recent to be taught in such a conservative department? he said now it's the 21st century so now the 20th century books can be taught because now they are officially old. so anyway i thought it was funny. >> host: the college quincy "apex hides the hurt" come is any connection to harvard? >> guest: i go to harvard names because i remember going there and there were dorms like legals worth, , what can obtains that?

so wigglesworth family, i'm sure you are -- but it seemed like wherever it takes teetering on the harvard dorm, incredibly waspy. i can't think of anything i will go for a harvard dorm name. >> host: as someone who teaches regularly what is your take on the first amendment discussions that are being held on college campuses? >> guest: people get upset at college students, but college students are supposed to be annoying. better be annoying those years about here with us being annoying. for a lot of people they are first learning about other cultures and other races. they are getting out of there bubbles of a small town that they grew up in. cloistered communities. you are noting things for the first time and it makes you engaged. you are learning things and you

can be really kind of annoying. but again better annoying for four years that out here with us. >> host: joan e-mails into you, you mention depression and being sad at times. yet your sense of humor comes through in this interview. how does humor seep in to your thoughts? >> guest: at the part of life and i mentioned richard pryor earlier, george carlin and those were comedians i saw when i was very young. they were making fun of the world. presenting the world and all of its absurdity. something that is really terrible and go back. that is sort of life. my book colossus has this narrative voice they goes from

the tragic to the ecstatic, specific to the universal and we're all moving between streams throughout our lives. i was try to capture the in the book and so i write books that are funny and i can't accommodate certain part of my personality. books are a little darker and that's a part of me. i think that's everybody. >> host: is that in your outland, your outline when you're putting the book together, a chemical to do this first-person and it's going to be outrageous and then we're going to go sat here and it will be third person? >> guest: satire is a tool. >> host: isn't that specific? >> guest: yeah, i think perhaps it's not -- i'm not always conscious of it. i know the book will be satirical in nature joking. in "the underground railroad" i knew it was going to be the treatment of slavery was going to be so brutal and unrealistic that it was not going to be

satirical distance, ironic distance would not serve the story so i knew i would have fewer jokes. i know sort of going in, and if you don't, if i don't, i'm not totally aware once i write the first couple of pages like this is this narrator, this is how i'm going to tell this story. >> host: let's lecture from gla in california. >> caller: i had two questions. one was, is colson a family name? and secondly, there were a couple of ways that insulate people communicated to each other about the underground railroad. one was of course through song, through negro spirituals. was it any other way they communicated to each other? >> host: thank you, ma'am.

>> guest: so the first part of the question was -- >> host: is colson a family name? >> guest: colson is the family name. my first name is actually arch your my father was named archibald. he hated archibald switches naming arch. colson is my middle name. my grandfather was named colson and his father was, or grandfather, worked in a hotel in virginia in a small town. i think maybe it was lynchburg. he got himself out of freedom. he worked in a hotel, would hire himself on the weekends and that's how he got free. and he kept doing that and then bought his daughter out of slavery. and so colson goes back to that individual who got out of slavery by paying off his owners

he. in terms of communication among underground railroad folks, you know, if you were, you would be put to death. it was very clandestine. in my book she comes from georgia. in reality the underground railroad didn't operate that far south. you would never make it through the carolinas, virginia. so it really was a north carolina, virginia type of thing. you could escape south to the caribbean, mexico, if you were enslaved that far south. but there were so many different ways people communicated. and again if you are caught you could be jailed, beaten to death, strong up. >> host: marshall, houston, good afternoon. >> caller: good afternoon.

thank you both for this. i love booktv. two questions. do you need to become from an msa program to find an agent? and two what if you write different genres? how to settle on an agent or how does an agent settle on you? thank you. >> guest: thanks. good luck with your writing. i didn't get an msa. half of my friends who write did go to grad school for letting. half of them didn't. for me my apprenticeship was working at a newspaper. i worked at village voice and that's how i learned to sit down for five hours and knock out a piece. they didn't i wouldn't get paid and they couldn't pay my rent. i learned how to collaborate with editors. i did not get my agent to an msa. my first agent who dumped me i got because i work in newspaper so i knew nonfiction writers by

the agents and so i had, someone i knew. when i had to find my agent who i'm with now for 20 years, i got a recommendation from soap to it passed on my first book. i asked her, i'm writing this crazy book by elevators, who do you think would be open to that? she recommended nicole was a new agent at that point back. she represented juneau diaz and so obviously from her list she had a sensibility that seem to overlap with my. you find, you can google it now but if you have an author you like to write in the same vote as you come find it to the agent is and send it to them. in my case i wrote a two-page paragraph and two-page description of the book was not offputting and was intriguing i

guess. and so that's how i found my agent. you figure out who is representing books that are like yours, that's the first of. >> host: "the underground railroad" has been a bit of a phenomenon. you've been talking about it, working on it, talking about it for two years and working on it for x x number of years. are you getting tired? >> guest: yeah, i mean -- >> host: are you getting bored? >> guest: i not getting bored or tired. i think it's really an incredible, you know, four years of writing it and it coming out, and so now i never could have dreamed of, the reception in terms of people to pick it up, endorsed it. full of surprise. it's so wild and it is a once of a lifetime thing so i am enjoying it and really appreciating it.

>> host: how did you find that you won a pulitzer? >> guest: it's actually, i mean, actually finding out if not anticlimactic but it's a live stream from columbia and it is like really fast. just like in the pulitzer for investigative journalism goes to blah, blah, blah newspaper. it's not really a theatrical which is quick and sort of life streamed so my wife went to work and i was like can you watch with me? she came over and we plugged in the ipad to the tv so we had the bigger thing and they said my name. we started dancing, had a little dance party, broke out the rosé and then met up with some friends who were in town, my editor and then we celebrated. >> host: what was your friends reaction to winning a macarthur genius? >> guest: well, you know, it was, i had written to macbooks and all of a sudden a check arrives in the mail.

i think people do ask, like wasn't there a burden? expectations like leave you alone. the way i took it was i had written two books, sort of oddball premises. keep doing that. we will give you money to support you so you can keep doing that. i took it as just encouragement, i wasn't anxious about it, but this pressure to live up to, it was really saying you are doing exactly what should be doing, keep doing it. >> host: let's hear from john in ohio. john, you are on with colson whitehead. >> caller: thank you very much, and colson, the praise that you received from the rolling stone and "washington post" and the "miami herald," you deserve it.

you are stepping in high cotton. i would just like you to give a short overview of trento because you and i come from north new jersey and i am a curator of the underground railroad. in my town. so go right ahead and tell us what you can. >> host: john, was there a station in flushing ohio? , there certainly was. this is the northwest all territory, illinois, indiana, michigan and wisconsin avenue what colson has said is up to date. >> guest: thanks a lot, john. "sag harbor" i talked about it before. it's an important book for me because it's a moment i started with the sort of intellectual questions i was trying to explore, and that was the premise of a novel. say john henry, john henry days

what if i updated this industrial age, anxiety myth of john henry for the information age? what kind of story could generate from that? i had been avoiding writing drawing from personal material that had seemed for macbooks income novels income that it was time to. that book was important to me as a writer. just to access different parts of my personality and my world, and put that out there. and it started with a character as opposed to intellectual question, a character in a setting. benji, 1985, sag harbor vista in long island. cincinnati -- since then i've had emphasis from our work in my characters starting with sag harbor and i think cora and "the underground railroad" is a culmination of two treats of my work. there's a really strong character grounding it, and i've

been learning from "sag harbor" and "zone one" and of the books but the last eight years and this absurd abstract premise commode amid the underground railroad into something real. so the was that sort of strength of an abstract premise and also the character work that come together in this book. "sag harbor" was very important for me as a writer and as as a person and i see its influence in this work. >> host: angelo, newark delaware. >> caller: how are you doing this evening? on an author here in delaware and i'm amazed how this gentleman writing this book, i just never seated so i just have gotten his book, "the underground railroad." i just got finished reading my soul is arrested by harold rines, and i'm going to tell you it's amazing you are definitely

in candor in pen because you are doing really, you got a sense of humor. i mean, you're doing it and by me being an author i'm learning something off of you. how do you get that last name of yours? is that -- how can i said? is that like a slave last name or was it given to you? because my father also is a barbados and he's from roanoke virginia by this father was from barbados, and me and my family had it hard. so in like me, how do you keep that sense of humor? >> guest: the name whitehead, it's not from my barbados side. that name is clark, and so the clark family comes to new york, ellis island, in the 1920s. in talking about the book, i

talk about some parts of my family history in virginia, not knowing others, and last summer someone sent me a genealogy that they did for me piecing together from things i talked about. so why did, i'm not sure of the origin but this person traced it back to florida and the before the georgia in the mid-19th century. so before the i'm not sure. i know there are a lot of white people named whitehead. was that a slave masters name? i'm not sure. and in terms of artistic work, i think your writing, you can only get better by doing it. say write a story that is not a successful. annexing can only better. then have a relapse and then you learn from that. i keep a sense of humor about my work. that's my point of view about the world, and then i just try

to keep going and try to keep getting better. >> host: maria, el paso, texas. >> caller: hello. >> host: we are listening. >> caller: thank you. i have a question. how much should i accept a nonfiction book as factual? is there a writers bias in there, or can i rely on the facts from a nonfiction book? >> host: you have a specific book you are referring to? >> caller: just in general. i like history, autobiography. i accept fiction as just a novel, that they may have some historical facts in there, but that may not be true. i'll give you a simple example.

let's say bill o'reilly book. on the pacific war, the son of something, the sun rises, or something. how factual is a bill o'reilly book? >> guest: sure. strangely i don't read a lot of bill o'reilly. [laughing] but i think come i grew up in the '80s. that means in the age of high postmodernism, and so there's no objective truth and your political biases, or social conditioning affects how you tell a story. writing, if you write a history of slavery now, a feminist interpretation is possible. if you write the history of

slavery 100 jews go all these things do not enter into it. so your cultural point of view, writing a more obviously it's a subjective account of how you saw things, and your mom, your cousin may disagree. and so in terms of how much do you believe, you hope they are getting it right. the difference between fiction that i get a nonfiction is at nonfiction has to get it right and fiction can make it up. i haven't asked in terms of "the underground railroad" by saying people who read lots of nonfiction, aren't you getting in trouble by mixing the real and the fake? in the age of fake news, don't you have a responsibility to your readers? the answer is no, i don't have responsibility to the reader. i assume that when a book says

"the underground railroad," unlawful, you know it is a piece of fiction and shouldn't be taken as gospel of how it actually happened. i know we lose people die every year when they step in tornadoes, thinking it will take into the wizard of oz. that's an error. you shouldn't taken fiction seriously. i for one refuse to go to costa rica because i know that's what they felt jurassic park and i'm deathly afraid of dinosaurs and don't want to get eaten. but for most people i think don't have that problem and can differentiate between fiction and nonfiction. >> host: you really will not go to costa rica? >> guest: i'm joking. [laughing] >> host: okay. tragic it's very humid. >> host: i just wanted to check on that. it's their significance in john henry days to the fact that the protagonist just as the j for a first name? >> guest: i think i have been

sort of kg about people's names. i was trying to take this figure of folklore and find different avatars of john henry threat the decades and as paul rogues incompetent blue thing the 1930s, the main character. he's another sort of avatar in his john henry ways. i'll leave it at that. >> host: i want to go back to something you said to our last caller, that you do not feel a responsibility to the reader that you to tell a good story, yes. i don't feel responsible to educate them about history. i think what's been nice, seita tuskegee super extremist did not

happen in in 1850, happened in 1930s and '40s and beyond. forced sterilizations of poor people, , immigrants, people of color didn't happen in 1850. it happened later. people haven't heard about this episode in our history, or if they have it happened under slavery and they've been moved to do more research and i think that's great. i have a responsibility hopefully not to bore people too much and have my books be worth their while. my responsibility my family and friends to be a good husband, good father in good friend. besides that, if you think advertising of the book sounds compelling, pick it up. if you don't think it sounds compelling, don't pick it up. >> host: next call for colson whitehead, betty in tennessee. >> caller: hello.

>> host: we are listening, well, i just called to give him a message. i'm not even able to see well enough to read much anymore but he was talking about the way the black people, the things that used to get out, they use quilting. they would quilt patterns served in quilt and hang them on the clothesline. that was used in the deep south. i'm a a white lady. i'm an elderly lady and i'm not well educated but i read a lot of history, and i have a lot of love in me too. i love people and i've always read a lot of books, lack in white, and god gave me a lot of love in my heart. this guy is really interesting to watch. but i haven't read his books but that's something he needs to know is i have a paper here somewhere that shows the

different patterns, if i could find it again of the quilts where they would hang them on the clothesline and maybe 50-mile or 100-mile there would be another signal. they used that in -- >> host: can you give us, before we let you go, tell us a little bit about yourself and if you were raised in tennessee and what tennessee was like over the years. >> caller: raised in tennessee but i lived in georgia for about four years in different parts, and that's when i realized that part of tennessee i was raised in the mountains and we didn't have that prejudice. but the part of georgia, and i met some real sweet black people, i have never forgotten them, and i couldn't believe, i couldn't believe things i was

seeing, you know. i just couldn't believe it. let's sit on the front porch, i would say, and rock the baby. no, we can't do that, they said. that was like 50, 60 years ago and it was a painful thing but now the quilting, and i just thought since he said the singing, he knew about the singing, but the quilting was used in the deep south. certain quilts, if i could find that page. >> host: thank you, ma'am tragic thanks for tuning in and you said you're not reading as much now. the audiobook is very well done. >> host: did you do the audio? >> guest: i did not. i can read things i read come i do lectures, if i practice them and i read the audiobooks so my short books but it's really exhausting and doing different people's characters and the drama goes into a real dramatic

reading of the novel, i can't do. it's been on my power. professional actors, do it and i know people like the version, the version of "the underground railroad." betty, you are talking tennessee versus george and its very interesting, since the book has come out the conversation in different parts of the south. i remember when the book came up people would say it's going to be weird taking this book down to the south where slavery happened. well, you know, we have -- had slaves in europe as well. it's not isolated to the south. north carolina gets a bad rap in my book. it's a white supremacist state in this exaggeration of what happened under jim crow during the lynching time. >> host: but so did south carolina and georgia troop sure, but if they north carolina gets it the worst. i'm going there this week to

durham and to greensboro. i've been there i think i've time since the book is, so we have -- it has been embraced by colleges and lifers and people come up to the events. it is a reckoning. if you grew up on a piece of property that was in the family for generations and you are a white person in south carolina, how do you reckon with the fact that your great, great, great grandfather raped, tortured, brutalize people and that's with paid for this land come for the house you are still in? as a black person when i was researching the story as a group i had to reckon with in many ways i shouldn't be here. it's just luck that my great, great, great grandparents were not killed at this point that junction on this at that plantation. so the book, no matter where you are coming from i think it's an

interesting to see people's reaction when it came out in france, a people connected the french resistance under the nazis to the underground workers, didn't people to safety, subverting the order, and so it has been interesting to see people's different cultures, different countries react to different parts of the book. >> host: you enjoy the college lecture circuit? >> guest: i do. >> host: do you have anxiety? >> guest: no. i mean, i talk about the book in a i don't have anxiety. if i'm doing something that is new for the first time definitely i'm going to start reading for my new book later this spring and how people respond. >> host: is it finished? >> guest: i'm two-thirds of the way through but i think certain books it is for me helpful to road test it. our people laughing at the jokes? are they falling silent at the

terrible parts? and also if the goods the good reaction it's like it's not such a crazy idea. it is working and people are sort of understand what you are trying to do. >> host: without delving too far into your character, if you didn't sign up for the college lecture circuit, would you be essentially in this, tethered to your couch? could you easily do that? >> guest: i work at home and so if i do spend a lot of time there, and going to foreign travel for publication in different countries, going to north carolina, going to tucson, there's a way of not being such a hermit also -- i love new york, and travel has led me to see a lot of different places i would not normally go. it's a really good and positive part of the work.

>> host: president obama praised "the underground railroad." if you get a chance to meet in while he was in office? >> guest: i did. it was very strange. i got an e-mail from one of his assistants and i was like someone is cranking me again. then i i googled the guys named he actually was a white house worker, and so i went and he invited a bunch of novelists. barbara kingsolver, dave eggers and me, and he just said he had been in the white house for almost eight years. it was the week before he is going to leave and he said he always wanted to chat with writers and at lunch with them. and he only had a couple of days left. time was running out. so being sort of lefty writers we were all like in trump sort

of days by the news that trump was coming in. after 20 minutes he was like lightning up. we did sort of like not and then he started talking about writing. of course he some great books and become really animated talking about being a broke writer, writing his first book. i guess he was on like, on an indonesian island. i guess he was broke fighting in a hut and there some lizards that were really about anything animated thinking about how that thrill of creative act all this we can relate q. >> host: where were you writing your first book? >> guest: i was in brooklyn. >> host: moving in or -- >> guest: i wrote some really good books in brooklyn, and i'm really fond of those early days. i was really broke and writing

an article for the village voice would buy me three days of work and then i would write another article that would buy me a couple of days. lived in various rooms with slanted floors, and so i was popping advil at the end the date because i was totally messed up by writing in this non-ergonomic chair, this really terrible apartments. but that's what you are -- but that's what you do when you're that age. >> host: jenny, honolulu. good afternoon to you. >> caller: thank you c-span. colson, i would like to know if you're familiar with the writing of an italian -- he wrote in the '60s, his most famous work is the cosmic comics. it's not really a novel. each chapter is like a little short story unto itself. but when i hear you laugh i

thought maybe you'd you like tr of the cosmic comics. also wrote, i don't know how it is translate into english, the climbing baron or the beer bearn the trees something in italian. anyway -- >> host: why is this the appealing to you? , it's a magical realism thing. he came a little bit earlier than garcia marquez. about the same time. very light, language is just beautiful and it is so intriguing to the imagination. is that a familiar offer to you? >> guest: thank you. cosmic comics, winters night a traveler are both great books. and again i felt a real affinity within one encountered his work in college from being someone who likes fantasy. so-called highbrow writer, , usg

the tools of the storytellers that i adored growing up and whether that's fantasy dial is on magic realistic one or four or arthur c clarke 11. you pick the right tool for the job and the lovely whimsical fantastic voice is inspirational. if you're watching in the books are short, pick them up. >> host: according to what you sent us, colson whitehead is currently reading your comic book. mr. miracle. >> guest: yeah, i had my last big comic when i was writing critical. you do real research here with "sag harbor" which about 1985 and pop culture i just re-created some of my -- mix tapes from 1980, a bunch of new wave mix tapes with comics so

lotta stuff is coming nowadays but mr. miracle is getting a lot of great reviews and so i downloaded it and it's just really, it's about sort of a small corner of the d.c. comics world and this writer, teen, is having a very sort of postmodern 20th century take on this character of the '70s, and pick him up. >> host: david, tulsa, you are on booktv with colson whitehead. >> caller: thank you for taking my call. to preface my comment, one of the most interesting summers i've ever spent as a teacher was in 2003 as a teaching fellow for c-span. and as mr. whitehead probably knows it's very difficult to

encourage students to read and to get them to read. could you send a message to my students on the benefits of reading books as opposed to some other activities? >> guest: sure. i mean, i'm only a writer because i love reading a lot when i was a kid and it wasn't like the stuff i was supposed to read. it was comic books, science fiction. wanting to write stories about zombies and robots and werewolves made me want to write serious fiction. and so it doesn't matter if it is twilight, doesn't matter if it's hunger games. if you like it, read it. don't worry about whether people -- what other people will say. if you like hunger games, there are other dystopian books,

dystopian takes on society that you might also like from different writers. there's lots of stuff you can read that become a gateway to different kinds of fiction the same saint stephen king was a gateway to kelsey leyrer. stephen king is great and so is kelsey no. but yeah, i mean occasionally i will at a library and for a website can you say something nice about libraries? like, why do you read books? why do we breathe? why do we eat? libraries in both sustain us. >> host: are your kids are readers? >> guest: yeah. i mean, the four-year-old not so much. he likes to take a lego catalog and like as if he is reading, you know, batman, joker said, 3000 pieces are ages three to

seven. and my daughter, novels for younger readers, means a really big now. so that was a big part of reading. she's 13 and i should move into more why a staff. >> host: next call is myrtle and elizabeth, new jersey. modal, you're on booktv. >> host: i join you have you begun sunday and sometimes in the week. why did i want to know if you're going to do any book reviews in the elizabeth newark area? >> guest: i'm not sure where that is a website has, i am doing a lot of touring in the spring and perhaps i am coming to a town near you. >> host: she is and elizabeth, new jersey. >> guest: i was there for a book festival i you're and half ago. i'm going to newark on tuesday

actually which is not too far. so maybe i will see you there. i'm what you were speaking at rutgers? >> guest: i am. >> host: do you do booksignings? >> guest: i do. >> host: what's the most common comment to make you a what's the most offensive comment somebody has made to you? >> guest: offensive, well, i wake up at 2 a.m., that was totally messed up. it's funny because definitely in new york there's a different acquaintance or lack of acquaintance with african-american black culture, and so there are basic questions about "the underground railroad" and how it worked which makes sense. but then questions like, could a white person have written this book? i get questions of cultural authenticity and you would never ask a white person like could k

person have written this book? and can white people right outside raise? that's the big question now about cultural appropriation, authenticity. it is being framed in a way that has nothing to do with my book. it is sort of like you're an exotic black person. >> host: these are questions you get in europe? >> guest: in interviews, you get apologized a lot to in the south here in the u.s.? >> guest: there are people who are moved to apologize for somma southern culture -- some. what their great, great, great great grandparents did or did not do. that's fight a small percentage and it doesn't bug me. most common question is about why a female narrator, female protagonist, which i answered.

he inspired by harriet jacobs, mixing it up. exploring the dilemma of the female slaves and basically if you take the time, even if the question is kind of dumb, i really have you came out and unhappy to sort of answer and engage. >> host: because of "the underground railroad" and because of, well, your books, have you become an african-american writer? >> guest: i think if you get, comfy for african-american you get any sort of slim recognition, people do want you to talk about black lives matter, likely have this booking, when you talk about on our or o'clock blog? are you available? why don't you have some of them black lives matter talk about black lives matter and not some dumb novelist? my book has been on lots of different topics, race and

racism in 1850 because things have changed, things haven't changed. contemporary political culture and just natural into conversation about the book. i'd rather be home working. it's not my job to fulfill your, be the fourth seat on your talk show. i really am a writer and i would rather be home writing. >> host: grade from missouri. good afternoon. >> caller: good afternoon and thank you for the fascinating interview. two quick questions. mr. whitehead, are you familiar with the slave writings of william faulkner, especially in the long short story the bear and using the stream of consciousness technique lacks in the novel go down moses? second question was what you think about the postmodern novelist like robert hoover, william gaddis, and that school?

>> host: what do you think of them, great works. >> caller: i thought, i think they are fascinating. robert cooper, a postmodernist novel about rosenberg executions in the in the '50s, and never called public burning. william gaddis, william gast from st. louis who just passed away at 88 or something, and fascinating novels like the tunnel. but interesting school of writing. >> guest: sure. i mean, i have read in terms of faulkner midnight in august and -- i'm blanking on the other ones, in college.

he has not really stayed with me. me. i don't think of them often as an influence, and i don't have much use for him i guess in terms of my work. i haven't written in like 30 district the postmodernist definitely robert hoover, i remember reading the babysitter the first month, first year in college and assertive postmodern collage with very important for me. he was one of the first writers, i read in in a class and that without and bought the books that summer to continue studying up on them. i haven't read gast, but gaddis definitely a time -- i did my time with recognition, did my time with like 800 pages, and jr, i prefer jr, those sort of really distinctly american novels, kaleidoscopic

interpretations of american culture. in terms of public burning, richard nixon is there as a character, the rosenbergs. and that kind of with taking real life characters and putting them into book and having them spin, that was okay to do that. i got from cooper, from reading the works in the late teens. >> host: from a profile of you in the guardian in 2017, his parents ran an executive recruitment firm and were less than delighted when he announced a desire to become a writer. >> guest: sure. i think my father of four in the first generation college and hoped for his children that they would be broke. i have been that many time since i got out of college because of my career choice, but so they

were hoping for a long time i would get a straight job and become a lawyer. and then when "the intuitionist" come up the realized i was in for the long haul and have been pretty sight since then. >> host: is this your father in "sag harbor"? can read that this is your father, quote, he kept changing the channel out of habit, cnn and the nightly news with the only things he watched. to him the faces on the screen, the anchors, newsmakers, this days victim and all the everyday heroes were operated of shifting masks. props of an idea like the souvenirs our friends and neighbors brought back across the atlantic. he saw the true faces beneath and called them out. he didn't need a teleprompter. he knew his commentary by heart. the televangelist snuck his head into the collection box. problem with black people is a waste of time praying to god when they should be out looking for a job. nobody ever gave me anything, didn't ask for anything.

some people need to get off their asses, et cetera, et cetera. >> guest: share. he had a very conservative take in terms of pulling yourself up from their bootstraps. he grew up really poor and at the time had his own company. that is him definitely in that last part. i think sadly the first part of that, the tv news now sounds like me, i have become him. all i do is yell at cnn, msnbc and -- >> host: have you thought about changing the channel? >> guest: exactly. i didn't get work done. i have to have like months free. but i became such a news junkie in the last spring just to avoid, , i started working on ts new book and it helped. from ten until three i was off the tv news nipple. >> host: and have remained

sober? >> guest: exactly. definitely the slow days, you know, i am back or something crazy is happening. is this actually happening in america? i'm stuck back -- sucked back in. i'm really glad i finish this book before our latest charming round of news because i know a lot of people who are writing your just elegant drooling idiots. >> host: which round of news? >> guest: did trump really say that? this is happening? i really going to open up a national park to drill for uranium? all these crazy things. i knew people who are just thinking like, good liberal tradition, is it worth living now? i was writing a comedy i know we living in such a dark time i think. i'm glad i finish my book before

i got sucked into the news cycle. >> host: kirsten, new york city. >> caller: thank you for taking my call. >> host: we are listening. >> caller: two questions. one is what does mr. whitehead think about the use of the n-word today? the second one is if there a difference in a fight between stereotyping and racism, between any racist or ethnic backgrounds? >> host: what's your answer to those questions, kiersten rex. >> caller: well, i live in washington heights harlan for the past 30 years as a white woman and certainly hear the n-word on thought. but god for bid if i let it slip, it would be a big wrong. so my personal opinion is that all vocabulary should be available to all people. and the second one is i think stereotyping is a gateway towards racism or could be a

mindset. but there is a difference. if i hear somebody say black people have a great sense of rhythm, is that racism or is it stereotyping, or is that a dangerous stereotyping? >> host: where did you grow up? >> caller: originally i am from germany and the integrated 32 years ago to new york city. >> host: thank you, ma'am. >> guest: very good. i can't break it down the deep differences between stereotyping and racism. racism depends on negative stereotypes of people of different skin. misogyny on stereotypes about gender. xenophobia about stereotypes you have people from other cultures

and there are things between the two become not really smart enough to make. in terms of the n-word, you know, as somebody who has dealt with like culture for many years, like, to master at this point in history say who can use inward n-word and you can't is really exhausting. it's just really tiring. .. or a misogynist way of assigning personality to female power. i think if you, if you can

say it, don't. [inaudible] well, you're probably racist. >> host: this is an email from marcia. how important were your teachers in impacting your current literary success ? >> caller: was there a teacher, a special mentor who took a shine to you and the answer is number no one particularly took a shine to me or singled me out for special treatment. when i think about teachers i had i think about mister johnson introducing me to ralph ellison. this teacher who, they were kind of racist but did introduce me to hundred years of solitude as a senior in high school so no one took me aside andwas like , your special. [laughter] but they introduced me to great books

and was important to my development as a person and a writer and i still think about some of the things i read in elementary school, reading the lottery for the first time and what does that teach us about 1950s america, the shirley jackson story. i was introduced to this novel, to james joyce as a freshman in college when i was ignoring out my voice and it was a dynamic talent in the dubliner, ulysses. so none of my teachers remembered my name or know me but they introduced me to important books that i still draw on today. >> host: iris, south lyon michigan, a few minutes left in our program with author colson whitehead. >> caller: i'm calling because i love your hairdo, it's cool and peter read that profile by your father and i think you must have gone to

my highschool because we all thought the same way . we all got along in a mixed area, we laugh together, we sat together, we didn't call each other names and a lot of people that graduated with me of color as they say or non-color went on to really great things. in fact two of the officers from our graduatingclass were people of color. nobody called me a dirty jew and i didn't call anybody another name . we lived together in the same neighborhood and we got along great and i think this new racism is really ugly and i don't like the groups that are getting together in government to fight each other . >> host: iris, what do you mean by the new racism ? >> caller: you got all these subgroups in our government that they get together, groups of five or six and call themselves one group or

another and get in front of a microphone fighting for a certain cause and it should be one person, one vote, they're supposed to be speaking for their constituents, not for themselves . wearing colors to represent the differences.it's crazy. this is america, i wish to get back to it. >> iris from south lyon michigan. any comments for her. >> sadly it's not new racism, it's a manifestation of a american darkness that goes back centuries. and i think you know, when obama was elected people would say we're not a post-racial society, i don't know a lot of black folks who would say that we were still in a post-racial society. because that happened and i think obviously the people who did vote for obama, 49 percent of the population did end up voting for donald

trump and when they're talking about a crimes on the rise for talking about people marching with neo-nazi flags and unashamed to show their faces like they don't even bother to wear a kkk mask. we are talking about the return of something or the reemergence of something that's always been there and will continue to be with us for a very long time. unfortunately. >> if you took out all the references to race basically in sag harbor, that could have been writtenby anybody . >> about becoming a teenager and entering into your identity. and for me it's not about black kid figuring himself out, it's about the kind of identityformation we all go through in our teens . where do i start and my community ends, wheredoes

that and ? >> host: why did apex want to change its name ? it's. >> guest: it's about a town in the midwest. and they want to rebrand themselves so they hire a nomenclature consultant who is the protagonist of the book. the name things like new antidepressants. the names of and a call apex, kind of band-aid that comes in different skin tone so you can find your own skin color and not be ashamed. see if you have dark skin or a flesh tone band-aid and so branding, apex wants to change the name of their town because of thebranding . same way neo-nazis and white supremacists have rebranded themselves as the alt-right.

you want to project a new identity for yourself it starts with a name. >> host: so what name wins or what names are considered ? we want to give away the ending . >>. >> guest: the main character is faced with the essence of the town, with the essence of american history. how can the new name of the town capture we are winthrop is going, where it's been. because they have a duty to tell the truth or to sell this new identity. and he comes to a, he's a famous adventurous and comes with a solution that i think his will do, not necessarily going to look great on t-shirts or signs but it's his solution to thetown's

problem . >> collingwood tennessee. you're on tv. >> caller: hello and you got my name correct. i wanted to ask a question, i think what i've been listening to the program that you've written work that has some rumor in your original works and i'd like to know have you thought about writing something that's purely humorous even like a farce or a satire on some serious subject like slavery or the civil rights period withjim crow possibly . >> guest: i think sunny day does deal with different moments of blackhistory . in a satirical lens, apex on the heard also and i think humor is really just a tool. and is it the right tool for this job or not?

if it's the right tool for the story or not. so my most purely, is the noble hustle and i surely had a lot of fun writing. the first line is you know, i have a good poker face because i'm half dead inside and either you find that line on the or you don't. either you're the kind of weird miserable humor or not but i think that kind of sums up where it's coming from in that book . >> host: anita, madison wisconsin. >> caller: thanks for taking my call. i've got a question. i'm a librarian albeit a required one but never quite retired. i want to know the booksthat he loved or that were important to him in high school . >> middle school and high school, thank you .

hundred years of solitude, a high school senior i was that was really great. i had a cool english teacher who taught a class on federalism. that's what you call the fantastic when you're being high polluting you read pilgrim's progress. that's old british story about going through a series of allegorical adventures and a sort of template for. >> one is self-contained allegorical adventure, the famous one so pilgrim's progress, the odyssey, that kind of structure and then in that last hundred years of solitude and obviously the introduction to magic realism . in this book. earlier i think stephen king. i remember reading carrie and seventh grade and have it has

a very interesting structure. there's a linear story of carrie in her high school and her town and then interspersed with that narrative our newspaper accounts of the carnage that carry unleashes so it's or shadowing also an extra, it's a text outside of the main text that's being inserted. and i remember reading that going you can actually whatever seventh-grade phrasing of that is, you can play with structure in that way . play with how you tell a story. i hope i didn't use that phrase back then, i remember thinking that by reading stephen kingcarry . >> did you ever have any trouble naming your main character . >> mark spitz, >> that came early, mark spitz of course 18 or nine or 10old metals . in the 70s olympics for swimming.

mark spitz in my book cannot swim. so i like name. for mark spitz. >> all right barbara in virginia beach. virginia high. >> you for taking my call. assassinating interview. i'm enjoying so much. i'd like to ask a colson whitehead if he admires or likes the work of walter mosley, a writer i very much enjoy. a writer whose versatile like himself in terms of genre . and also, as someone who can talk about being a black man in modern america, i thank you for taking my call. >> guest: thanks for calling in. walter mosley is great.

as i talked about trying to find a model for a book with plot, i finally learned how to become a better writer. i learned about structure and i was reading a lot of detective books and i read elroy leonard and alter mosley who had a great couple of months of my life studying the conventions ofsis suspense , how do you bring in the race in terms of james walter mosley and i was very fortunate when the intuition is was finished. they sent it out to people with blurbs, those little endorsements in the back of the book and walter mosley was kind and gave me three sentences endorsing the book and i've met him since then and it was great to see him and when the bookcame out , people with readings would say i bought your book because walter mosley is on the back and i love walter mosley soit was great that he took the time . and he's a good individual.

>> host: walter mosley will be sitting in that chair in april during our special year of fiction authors. he'll be there in 2 months. it's time i think for this last call from nancy in bremen georgia area nancy, go ahead. >> caller: good afternoon. mister whitehead you are a real refreshing breath of fresh air and i want to ask if you know of the work of charles chestnut from the 1890s and he was an attorney and an african-american attorney in chicago who wrote the conjure woman. i was an attorney but i'm wondering if you know about his fiction . >> guest: i do indeed. i told you my english department was conservative so i took a lot of classes in african-american literature and that's where i first came across slave narratives and when i first came across charles chestnut , a very

early black fiction writer. the conjure woman, is great and has a great word, gruber. gruber was southern slang for magic so some of her dust in your eyes and you'dbe with bewitched . as well as crazy words that as a writer, i'm trying to use and i'm lucky i was able to use the word gooper in underground railroad, there was a slave master who would conjure people, which is to make a sort of text around their plantation that would prevent slaves from running away. a sort of binding spell so people would be afraid to run away because they would cross this magical line and be goopered, the second by the sort of bad magic.

and of course i assume the magic didn't work but once 20th century person doesn't believe in conjuring, goopering or voodoo. >> host: macarthur grant genius winner, colson whitehead. colson whitehead.com is the website and he's been our guest on in-depth. here's his books, the intuition is, henry days following, the colossus of new york. 2003, apex eyes that occurred in 2006, sag harbor 2009 , stone january 20, 2011, the noble hustle about playing poker came out in 2014 and finally the pulitzer prize winner the underground railroad in 2016.

new book out when? >> guest: the first of this year or next year, hopefully. >> host: thanks for spending three hours without audience. >> guest: thank you for tuning in, america. >> when you read the things said about thomas jefferson. that he was an infidel and an agent of the french government, it sounds a little reminiscent, doesn't it? the things that were said about abraham lincoln, the things that were said about fdr that he wanted to be a dictator does kind of come with the territory but i think in trump's case at least in the modern political era post-world war ii, i've never seen anything like it. >> sunday at noon eastern on in-depth, our life to our author conversation with freedom found coalition

founder ralph reed whose works include act of faith and his most recent, for god and country. join in the conversation with yourphone calls, comments, texts and tweets. watch in-depth on the noon eastern on c-span2 . >> we book tv programs as a preview of what's available every weekend on c-span2. the night beginning at eight eastern book tv features several programs with the late author andcolumnist william f buckley junior. enjoy book tv on c-span2 . >> you're watching book tv on c-span2. every weekend with the latest nonfiction booksand authors . c-span2: created by america's cable television companies as a public serviceand brought to you today by your television provider . >> my na i