i think all of that forms the basis of this important policy views -- foreign policy views but you can't separate the two but in fact you have to see the two in dialogue. in forming the theodore roosevelt we came to know and love. >> now once c-span2's booktv, more television for serious readers. good evening and welcome to this online event at greenlight book store. currie arsenault will be presenting her book "mill town." i just want to say a huge thangs to kerri and ben for making this happen and to all of you for showing up. so we're not able to host events in our store space at the moment our community of authors and readers still here remember we incredibly grateful for your

court and the chance to make the conversation and connection. a couple of housekeeping things before we get started. in your zoom webinar you can see and hear the speakers but they can't see or hear you. you can -- you're welcome to post your comments and your thoughts in the chat as we get going am great way to show your appreciation for the author and interact with fellow attendees. you have specific wees you want answered post the questions in the q & a module at the bottom of the screen by clicking on the icon that looks like two speech balloons. we will be pulling question from the q & a so we ask that's where you put them. other comments are welcome in the chat. love and praise nor authors. we are recording the event to look for the video or audio version on our social media channels later on. and importantly tonight's book is available for sale from

greenlight, and it's a great way to show your support for both independent book stores leak greenlight and for authors like kerri. you can ordinary online from greenlight book stores.com or -- so we appreciate your support of book stores and our author. so our interviewer this evening is ben, the author of the movie halftime walk, a short story collection, and a nonfiction work, beautiful country burn again, democracy rebellion and revolution. his work received the national book critic circle away, the. hemingway award and it's been a footballist in the national book award. he lives in dallas. he'll be speaking with kerri

arsenault. she is a mentor in the christian and justice operating program and appeared on the stage as an interviewer and this is the first time we have chance to host her. so, ben and kerri, take it away. >> all right. thank you, jackie. i am really excited to be doing this event with kerri. i read this book in bound manuscript around the beginning of the year. i thought it was -- i think it's -- there cannot be a more relevant book right now for our times politically, environmentally, just in terms of class and economics and i just think it's one of the big books of the year and probably

one of the big books of the decade. so it's a real pleasure and an honor to be presenting this book and it's beautifully written book, too, and we'll get into that as well, and just -- it gets down into the real stuff of life as it's actually lived. [loss of audio] -- one of two things in this book but she went after everything. and it's a complex book in all the right ways. so kerri can't -- would you just tell us a little bit about the book and how you came to write it. >> so happy to be here, going to make me cry. mill town is a narrative nonfiction book about small paper town, paper mill town in

mexico, maine, where hi family work forward three generations and the unbuilding of the american dream and in the working class but the hazard or and the nature of toxic disease. and how i started this book was -- began with a false document and ends with a false document. i had been doing genealogy research back in 2001, and saw my grandfather's obituary and his death certificate and found all kind of information i never knew because he died when i was two or three, and i wanted to find out a little more but him. so i started -- i wanted to find out where he lived, first of all. in this little town, and i couldn't find the town so i decided to go to this town. so my father and i drove up to rhode island and come to find out there was no town with that name. the document was wrong and so i

thought, what else is wrong? my family tree and what else is wrong in documents that we think are supposed to be stable and true and real. >> and why don't be -- let me frame it this way. this is a mystery book and not just one mystery but three mysteries going on here. there's the scientific mystery of why so many people in the community of mexico and rums forward maine became six with all these exotic types of cancer it and became known as cancer valley. what was going on there in one?

number two is a human mystery and that is once people started realizing what was going on, why did they stay? why did people continue to work at the mill? and then number three is the mystery of your family. where do you come from? and what is it bowed your family and -- about your family and the aokayedan community that makes you the way you are and makes your family the way you are? and any one of these could have been enough for a book but you get all three in this book and they all compliment each other in this very genuine and wonderful way. so let's start with this. what is smokestack money? >> the largest smokestack in our

town was a big giant middle finger in our town really. that's how i always thought. it was -- that's where -- every time the smokestack was operate that means the mill was working, and the mill was operated 24 hours a day, seven days a week, except for shutdowns, and i was talking about this with my son the other day. it doesn't shut town. you can't shut down something. it's all very connected which was an interesting part of the structure her to book, too, the mill is connected to itself. you can't just stop one pace. so the mill was operating 24-7 and what our town orbited around for income and also at the beginning for everything, the owner of the mill built houses, banks and the libraries, built roads, railroads, he did everything.

even gave people cookies for christmasun year. the mill and town were so intertwined it was impossible to extract them and still and is when the mill was operating the town was doing well but as the town was doing well it was also being polluted when the smokestack was operating. i say this in the beginning of he become you can see the smokestack from anywhere in town and was a constant reminder of that presence in our daily lives. it was like air but it was like the opposite of air. it was both -- it's like you had to have it to exist. >> yeah. i grew up in eastern north carolina and my mother's family were farmers, and there was a

warehouse sir pup mill and enwhen the wind was right you so smell the pulp mill. would you describe that smell? >> it's so funny because -- first -- well, we used to all say it smelled like money for one thing. and it weirdly to me -- this will sound horrible but smells like home mitchell father would come home from work every night and smell like that, or every day. this just mixture of eggs and -- rotten eggs and rotten cauliflower and that acid wood smell because of the wood chips going through. it was a constant -- that constant smell, and when i'd drive into town and still smell it. i'm home. it's not -- its unpleasant but at the same time a smell is so

intrinsic memorialry. kids would come to town for sports and say it smells like farts in your town. >> tell us but the bleach room in the mill. >> i have never been there my grandfather worked there, and what happens in the bleach room where is the magic happens, we the pulp turns white, and to do that at the beginning from -- our paper bill -- mill openin' 1901 and until 19967 the process was the same. that would use elemental chlorine to believe it and what happened in the combustion process of that creates a dangerous byproduct, a family of

dioxins, and dioxins are one of the most dangerous toxics known to humankind, the thing that was used in agent orange and was toxic in love canal in new york. so in that bleach room until 1997 they used this elemental chlorine and it created tons of dioxins that were all over the u.s. and the world they put regular layings to the mills had to change their breaching express they changed to its elemental chlorine free bleaching so it's a trick of language, and so that created remarkably less dioxins but still -- still creates dioxins. >> and when your grandfather and

your -- actually as far as i cantle all through the's operation, they would only put the old guys to work in the bleach room. >> this what i was told, yes. >> and either you or your father thought for a long time it was because, well, you needed the most experienced people to work in the bleach room but actual live that wasn't why they put these older guys in the bleach room. >> right. that was dot bernard. she told me that. she's a woman who worked in human resources there at the time. she found out -- she said i figured it out. it was because they were closing in on retirement so that when they retired, they only would have like so many years left after because they -- most of them would get sick after working there and only have a few years and they wouldn't have to pay for their pensions in retirement because they just

tied and that's what happened to my grandfather. he said she figured it out. if you look back -- i look at that thing was in the death records that was correct. the died of cancer. >> in other words the bleach room was to poisonous and hazardous those men were cannon fodder. >> they were recycle unit for industry, the river or the soil, they were treat like that. >> if you think about -- okay, mill management knew what they were doing. >> they did. >> putting the old guys in the bleach room. i mean, i've got to believe -- we'll get into that later. flash forward to 2012, and we're coming out of the great

recession of 2008-2009 and a newspaper in maine has a story in the headline is, some label toxin spike as positive pulp and paper industry says increase is a good sign. state officials not alarmed. in other words, the fact that toxins are going -- toxics are going up, that's a great sign. i means the economy is coming back and, well, probably people will get sick and die, but -- >> smokestack is generating stuff. >> so also remind me of the response either tacit or overt of a lot of elected officials with covid, and the lieutenant governor here in texas, dan patrick, says, well, we should

all go back to work, it's mostly the older people and if we get sick and die, there's no great loss. we are going going to die anywa. and but basically it's this -- human beings are cannon fodder for capitalism. >> right. >> and one of the militias oft the back is why did people go along with it? >> -- the dan bury shake in this book and that was the mercury poisoning that hatters would get in danbury connecticut from work with hats. deadly conditions, and people would folic take the jobs and go in and work the jobs knowing it would kill them, and in fact in new jersey bureau of statistics and labors said in one of their

reports that the surprise is that men can be induced to work at all and such death, producing closures. it's hard to believe that men of ordinary intelligence could be so indifferent to the ordinary laws of health. your book does a deep dive into this question in this mystery. and one of the parts -- well, you do quote a study about organizational silence. in the workplace. both in the u.s. and another study in europe. talk but that a little bit. >> yeah. the first thing look at was the actual silence. why didn't anybody say anything? why didn't i say anything? i was 45 years old before i even started really thinking about this. the actual silence. that study said that something like 80% of people that work in the workplace no matter matter

what. paper mill or office or whatever, 80% of the people if something was wrong at work they would not say thing and that was repeated in europe. the silence was this -- it was actually a mystery because to researchers because when the silence happens they couldn't figure out why it kept happening. it just kept repeating itself over and over and over. i can't remember if they ever got to the bottom of that. they started looking at the silence and then i thought, well, okay, studies can only tell you so much. i'll good to this town, go back home and repeatedly and try to understand it, and at the same time trying to understand my own sort of complicity in it, too. why am i just -- we joked about it, cancer valley, ha-ha-ha. why didn't we take that seriously. i mean, that's basically the whole thing of the book so complex, people do it every day.

you go and work at a place that could be dangerous and make compromises, and i think people are mistaken to think this is a choice. had people ask me over the years working on this, why didn't they just leave or go get a job someplace else? but it's so complex. first of all, there's -- this is what they do. three generations of my family worked there it's connected deeply to their identities. it's like people don't think but a personmaker as an identity but a lob at theman, that's -- lobsterman, fisherman or fireman. the same thing. it's wrapped into your identity. secondly, if you grew up working there, your father worked there and you didn't get an education in an isolated town. so there weren't a lot of job opportunities. you taught school or worked in

the hospitals but the only thing you could do is work in the mill. and i think i also talked but this in that same chapter, too. a great job. made a lot of money there did well for isolated rural, no higher education, did really well, and sent me and my siblings, five of us to college. that was just my father on one income could do that. and clothe us and feed us and have a decent childhood. we had happy childhood. so a lot of reasons, and my mother repeatedly would say that. it's a great life. it's been a great life. so -- complicated when people say was it worth it? i had people ask me is it worth it? that's -- my father dies in the middle of me writing this book, gets canner and dies. not like a giveaway or anything,

but is it worth it for him to guy? i don't know if that's answerable. i try to think of it, did he have a choice, too? it's easy for us to sit in more privilege evidence place to say they had c-span. they didn't have a choice. a hobson's choice, old man hobson -- this dismiss myth, maybe it's true, but hobson had this stable of horses horses and everybody would come and always choose the best horse to use and that horse would get worn out and finally he's like, okay you have to choose this horse in the guy ago the row. you can't pick. because if you -- you would have to take that or leave it, and it's like a take it or leave it and leaving it was really hard. your family lived there people

and ancestors or bury thread. some people say because of love. some said that in the become. i stay bus of love. you can leave but that's a very powerful thing. >> i think one of the great strengths of this book is it's kind of like our town, the classic in that you get so many voices and so many stories in this book. you go around and you talk to people, and you must be a very good interviewer, you're engaging and sweet and you listen but you get great stuff from these people and that alone would have been an oral history of this mill town, would have been a fine book. that's only one aspect of your book ump think it's a really strong aspect and again you're trying to get to the bottom of

why would you stay in cancer valley? why would a family choose to. let's tabling another aspect of that and that is the arcadian community and the fact that you're of acadean ancestry and that cohort of people went through so much hardship, so much displacement and dispersing, starting in the 1750s, that do you think that had something to do with stub bornness or determination of your family and other families to stay in mexico? >> yes. first connected with talking about me interviewing these

people but it was like trying to -- [loss of audio] -- just be there and people i knew, i think every main character in the book is somebody i knew so i one trying to have some objective -- i wanted to sit and understand and if i understood them i would understand me and i think that was very similar to the acadean situation. we never learned but our history even though more than half of our town is acadean or franco american descent. now never learn about it. so here i am 45 years old. find this accidental error in the history of my before what is naturalized? i of american. and i also wanted to find out about this people too and

understand what brought them to maine and what is the link of the past. hough is that past connected to the present day? my present day life or the present day life of this town. accomplish i do think that there are -- there's some very nascent studies about -- there's a study in the dutch 1940s and they look at -- silence and the silence -- caused health effects in people who suffered in the famine and trying to look at how trauma can actually aspect generations. some people will say that's hokeypokey but i don't know. feel like there's something to that. and then they're dish talked to -- joan, a wonderful resource for me and she is acknowledgeable but the history and the talked but the emotional

transfer and i think whats to that mean? i love that term put the said you knew your great-grandmother and i did and there's a story she tells me, and i knew her and she was born in 1886, and she knew her great-grandmother who was born in 1865 or something, maybe even earlier. so that's like almost 200 years of those emotional transfers. does that make sense? >> 1765. >> yes, that would make sense. she would be two years old when she had a baby. so almost 200 years of -- which almost brings us back to ethnic cleansing of the aca denans, back to 1765. so that trauma immigration not that distant -- trauma is not that distant. knew any great-grandmother me and knew her great-grandmother and those stories traveled down and i don't mean stores but the

emotional transfer can travel through and i definitely felt that in my family. there was very strong feeling but i didn't understand what it meant. where they were from or what this is about. >> i depends understand the acadian history until i wrote the book. >> talk put your family a little bit. in tough broads in your family. so your grandmother -- >> you wanted me to say that? maybe. i'm a lot like my grandmother maybe. >> you're grandmother bridget. one day she is sitting there and a bunch of you grandkids are around, and this is a quote, i'm quoting from the book, she says to you guys love you all very much but if i had it all to do over again, none of you would be here, she said as a virginia

slim seesawed on her lip. that is information. it is emotional information. yes, of course she loves you but it's been a hard life. >> yeah. she went through the depression, world war ii and she was the same woman who taught me how to swim by pushing me off the wharf. swim. that's hough it was in our family, literally and metaphorically, pushing you out there and going, go, don't drown. >> now, there are -- as i said at the beginning this is -- there's wonderful writing in this book, it's wonderfully written throughout, but if i can i want to read a fairly long paragraph about your mother. and talk about tough women. it's about both your parents but she has the starring role in

this, my parents shaped their own well-worn path while my fare walk bang and for across a food bridge to work, my mother lined laundry up and down the stairs day after day, one skinny arm cradling the laundry basket, her free hand grabbing a cigarette packet who had a bull dog graphic. screen door would slam back and the would dump clean laundry on the custom table, snap the clothing, fold them into fabric and stack them like the reames of white paper my father brawling home. when the screen door wore out she replaced it with a new one that came with a squeaky spring. his hearing long dull by the hum of paper machines was the

perfect match to her perpetual clamor mitchell mother let her vantage inspire with finishing it and send know fetch a new pack from the corner store i.'ll time you, she aid say. no go, and off i went. she depends need to tell me twice. that's damn good writing. right there. >> thank you for reading it. that was interesting to hear. >> it's a lovely passage. >> says a lot about her. she was an elbowy person. and she still is. she's out at all the main book stores making sure they have my book inside, and she e-mails me every day. >> good for her. well, she comes across very vividly as a very strong person. you talk but sacrifices in the book, and these are -- it's a term of art, designated areas in

the u.s. that are next to, close by environmentally dangerous facilities, and people live in these zones, sacrifice zones and just aside from the health effect, when you know you live in a sacrifice zone, when you know that you are cannon fodder, it's got to be number one a source of shame, and then the defensive reaction to that will be pride. will be this kind of stubborn -- i'm that tough. this is me, this is my community, this is my identity. talk but that a little bit. >> yeah. that's really good point. i think that pride is one thing,

laughter is another. a lot of humor in this town, everybody is pretty damn funny. >> gallows humor. trench warfare humor. >> and i don't know. it is interesting. i was on an event the other day, my cousin was there and we grew up like brother and sister and somebody asked him about that. how did you -- why did you not question it? sort of just this unasked question and unanswered thing is you just -- you just do it, you show up. and at some point they knew there was some people that said, there's a lot of cancer here, we have to do something, but the studies would come out, indefinite or government would be like, oh, the toxic spike is good or whatever it was. it's a slow turnstile of

resignation. after a while you kind of, okay, this is what it is and you just sort -- it's like the dioxin right now. everybody thing thinks that's gauze. but a it was carefully and quietly put on the shelf and that's why. and that's what happens with these sacrifice zones. there's all of -- some people are shouting about it and certain, kerri martin and doc mort continue and put butty get bate up -- beat up by it. i barely had time for it and i worked on it for ten years, and things i encountered, the material rained on my head. i have boxes even when i was in texas, i got 80-pounds of documents the last day i was there. that was -- my book was due the next day and i had to look through it.

so how does an ordinary person living in a sacrifice zone have the capacity, the time, the energy, especially of you're trying to feed your kids or maybe find a stove or go to work in this kind of maine, transportation and you don't have a car and you have to walk and what job can you get where you can walk to work, and your kids need clothing. i could go on and on. four to five kids in my home are food insecure. so, who the hell has time to worry about that? el specially when your getting a good paycheck. >> one of the agree lines in your book is who has the time to fight a mega corporation when you're making minimum wage? >> yeah. >> and even if you aren't making minimum wage,. >> not just the millworkers.

this is people living there besides the mill. >> in an industrial capitalist society or post industrial, where everything is so big and so complex,... ... >> there charged with relations into and ultimately coming kind of come to the realization that the males usually follows the regulations. ben: it is what is in the regulations. and how to get there and who determined it. the way that it got written and

that is really where the smoking gun is. kerri: exactly. trying to understand these regulations is impossible. i worked as a paralegal. it's impossible. it's just part of the same, all better to who is living upstream and he was. if you're downstrea downstream. people making the regulations, their living upstream. they're not touched. ben: another great one. it ties into this. and i am quoting, governments often determine risk for everyone. it should probably be up to the person facing the risk to

determine its level of acceptability. kerri: yes. this whole term body burden. it's what the government publishes. it's toxic exists. what's interesting is that maybe mercury or something my father got sick from asbestos. but this body burden from one chemical. they're all of these chemicals that are toxic to your body . so your body burden, is the burden is there. because our government and the science multivariate. so the body burden is literally that. it is a terrible term. getting believe it exists. but it does. more bearing all of these toxics. even in the book, my father had

this and he has esophagus cancer in 2013 rated and can't get oxygen. and gets it measured all the time. and we were just worried about the fear about the oxygen blowing of the other room. i was terrified but staying with him. so they would measure it and then give him oxygen. that would be that river as well. had bubbler senate. to make it healthy and measure the oxygen and measure the oxygen in the water. the body burden. it's an environmental burden this in mind. sought separate from us. the people who are carrying the burdens as well, not caring this version is much as the people

living in the zones. a lot of them are the working class, i think the thing that is most insidious about it is a very it's a very slow attrition of disaster. not catastrophe in which any get into the news. it's getting out there slowly. it is not what we think of as a disaster. sonny been a canal. it's not that level. ben: 's structural. thviolence is doing to the studt body. and in these community especially. i just had a list here.

so here writing about like . kerri: i know it is all mixed family. is my actual grandmother. ben: it's a woman with a face like a volcano. this is her husband frank . was affectionate in his toothless smile. the way an octopus was embracing his grandchildren with a manic repulsive grip. all right. here's one that is often read, will appreciate this. for the 19th homerun hit in 1970 cannot red sox out . is a one-game playoff. kerri: thus what i thought i met him not long after that.

things 1980 when i first met him. ben: right after your dad died. grief sits on the shoulders like a nervous cast. and then during union strike at the mill, the café vibrated with a rumble of the unemployed. and then the hair salon, something painted up on the mirror with a comb. this the cone, not a magic wand. kerri: that could've been the subtitle of the book. ben: talking about the revere. on the tiled roof tops of the candy colored buildings, the oil

refinery smokestacks has fire in has competition with the sunset. and here's one of your relatives . makes an appearance at the dinner table every night. but even then he seems to be elsewhere. the blank square and is game of scrabble. in the here is your mother. she's on a roll. she's like a blender on high with the cover off. kerri: is about most women in my family. ben: we might get a little political here . one of the other alternative titles that i propose for this book was see, where did i write that down. the subtitle of the book's reckoning with what remains.

it could've just just as easily been this going over of the working class who followed all of the rules and did everything they were supposed to. and so you are writing about how so any of your friends and trump relations in 2016 to be us surprised. a mystery. but to you, the only surprise you experience was your surprise there surprise. in your writing that, your writing about 40 years of broken promises and broken policies. across the political spectrum. and here he write the trump so the working class. and even if he too was riding in a limo. using a goldleaf toilet . even if in the end he did and what we needed, police he stopped, opened his door and said hello.

he lies all the time. but in 2016, he had one powerful truth in that campaign. he kept saying the system is rigged. that's a powerful truth. in a race true for a lot of people. the story of your family, your parents. is the story of the working class. people who did everything right, followed all of the were charted they were thrifty. they took care of their family, their community. then they get to the end of their life. and there like a tetherball. right back where they started. talk about those broken promises is broken policies. why people do what they do when it comes to politics.

kerri: i should say that i put that into an essay in the book. my 86th job. it outlines the 86 jobs ahead. i can stay in started years ago but i think it even maybe started when the mill open. i tried to look at this american dream. an actual truth. was that a myth. i think you said this in your book and i was just reading it tonight. stoves unnecessarily that people were doing better because they were the working class. it was a structural everybody was doing better right. it wasn't just because we were hard-working. they're all doing better but at the same time, that is one

thing. the stuff accumulates just like the dioxin in our bodies. i think i started may be in the 70s when i was born. and reagan's policies. the really verbal strike in our town did and really made more of the workers, not think that their company was loyal to them anymore. and they were not. certain things like that that happened. especially after a recession. our office true. but it seems like it always hit our town first. and sometimes the pieces of it are just lingering.

so run through the 70s the mid-eighties. in the reagan's are not all of the air traffic controllers. then comes along other things. so like you know, nobody carried it anymore. it's just about the bottom line. and i think that it started with a strike. within their loyalties started as well. also i should say, is owned by a man and his son and then his son. in the corporations of a caloric conglomerate. and in the american manufacturing articles. and it's just gotten so much worse. like we were talking about earlier, they were not in the town. they don't even know what is going on in this town.

but he more actually . [inaudible]. at least he was there once in a while. so going through the '90s. you've got the berlin wall coming down. in our town, who cares. it is such a sad time. it was a recession. i try to get a job there . and even know where to work. and just kept getting worse and worse. and my mother went back to work. and the inflation and the incomes. he is to get health insurance. they just kept getting thinner and there and thinner. walnut was there that all of the small businesses went away. and again, a slow disaster maybe

not it slow the geological time but slow for the past hundred years. then when truck showed up. i should say the student in the daily today, talks about when i was here - 1970 was it? [inaudible]. ben: is 1982 . speech of so i was there around the same time. and then there was trump tower. an environment that kind of wealth. even admired it. kerri: there are a lot of complicated reasons. and trump the attraction to that, moneymaking thing. some of the election came up in

2016, he was his master of action say he's a master of anything but, you can say it. ben: the fantasy. kerri: yes. so it's a weird. is that the we are talking about in the country, there are so any things that scared of me. my has been said that to call them right away. in cupping those lines of your book. so in the 2016 election. there was some glimmer of hope. and then in the 2016 election. it worked against obama or anything. it's just about anything. there's a desperate.

there was this guy who they thought would do something. he didn't care what. just something. just part of this slow attrition. ben: towards the end of the book and it may be getting to the point where we stop and take questions. but i really want to get the sand. towards the end of the book. there's this leveling coming up of what you have done with the book. and i'm not sure you're consciously included that way. but this is really what you did with the spoke read i can find no smoking guns, no magic bullet, no conspiracy. no shred of truth to condemn or

equip the mall. my family or the state or the federal government. the truth is seems is not about hard evidence. it is about examining and poking it long held beliefs in history. pushing back on them. like my ancestors pushed back. with the palms of their hands. so lonely passage and it is also, why we write. that's why we go after books like this . that's why we read books like this. the truth is complex. human experiences complex. and i think it is only books like this take deep dives into experience what we can get close to the truth. and often it is not satisfying in the way that and ending will be. but i think there is consolation

a lot of sense a lot of satisfaction in having a story ultimately sold. then reflects the truth is we experiences. and that is what this book is. so that's off to you. it is a lovely book. kerri: i think the comments on that in the closure would be it was a complaint ally. there is no aaron brockovich. it would be untruthful because also everybody you would think would be okay and instance not. definitely not. >> i don't mean to interrupt. but we've gotten questions from the audience. thank you both for the discussion. on asking questions on behalf some of our participants.

the first one said hi carrie, i read experts from your book which were incredible by the way. this refuge but also a memoir and also on environmental issues on a local level that resonates to the lighter world. it's had such an impact in your writing? kerri: no. it's not even that i'm an environmentalist. if i don't what i am. people would think that i would've read some of this but i didn't. the only thing i did read was silent springs. she talks a lot about inactions is just as an dangerous is wrong action. it's how the little things

count. [inaudible]. that was more influential. as far as the environmental work. >> thank you. the structure of the book really came from the material. it's been everywhere. coming at me. people are mailing these random things. so that's why the book is not the normal structure of the book because of the materials. >> i have a question for matt was asking he is from long

island. [inaudible]. are never going to the town in the early 70s and on a mountain of garbage . literally mountain of garbage. do you think every factory town has this kind of thing. kerri: yes. i do because a lot of these toxics are bio cumulative. and everybody has them by now. the stronger they become. i do not think that is in her path at all. and he was fascinated about this program and they asked him about my book. this is before came out. [inaudible]. a note think he knows anything

about the toxics . the body burden. >> i have a couple of other questions. are there any lingering questions. ben: one thing the limited task areas what prompted you with your book in your hometown. kerri: one of the most common responses that i got will couple. one is mostly support. people said to me, it was very moving for me to hear people saying. nothing i am seeing them but in the people are sing them. i was writing and i was thinking like really.

[inaudible]. but it was interesting to people. and also the other thing that people thank you so about somebody writing the story. i felt nothing but support so far. although the book just came out so we will see. nobody is a hero or that guy. this is a mill. it is a lot more complex binary. in the truth and untruth. it's complicated. this is about people's lives. i think the only binary really is a readers who constantly make regulations. this really binary. [inaudible]. there is no gray area there.

kerri: everybody on this call to this amazing . >> and i want to look at these issues. thus not have this whole experience works. and i think it is unfortunately timely always . and on to thank you to both of you t for a very enlightening conversation . and you can support carrie and her important important work by buying the book. order it online. recommend to our store. were really deeply grateful for the type of people that it takes to do this light shining work. as a pleasure to host this evening. kerri: i encourage you all. i'm going to mean something.

hang on. if you not read this book. the memory this. then you can all go home. you talk about ten crews in iowa. so my favorite things. the chris :-) looks more like something else. [inaudible]. with his front teeth while the rest of his mouth retracts. it shows words and so it goes the action plan resins the :-), and you find it in a box of cracker jacks. [inaudible]. 's unusual features add up to something else. this borderline of redoubt

valentino. the same truth was met with something else. and he showed up best in the makeup and sharp suit. just so. [inaudible]. the definition in his face. like a quail egg. [inaudible]. when he stopped buttoned in his jacket organic. [laughter]. [inaudible]. ben: thank you. kerri: by this book because it's so relevant from the selection . you just replace it with the dates and it would be the same thing. i think. ben: thank you. thank you for writing the book .

jacky, thank you for hosting . everybody by the book from green light. it's a wonderful store. >> thank you again for sharing. it's been a delightful discussion between the two of you. and enjoy. it's really a wonderful way to end the evening. some blake topics. kerri: but i am smiling the whole time. i don't know what is wrong with me. >> thank you so much everyone prayed. ben: good night everyone. goodbye and thank you. >> you're watching book tv on "c-span2", television for serious readers. there are some programs to watch out for tonight. donald trump jr offers his thoughts on what he calls liberal privilege. under author interview program afterwards. former cia director john brennan talks about his life and career. and former second lady janie

chronicles the leadership of the four of the 51st presidents of all hail from the state of virginia. but a full television schedule online a booktv.org. broken social program guide. during a virtual event hosted by the commonwealth of san francisco. susan discussed in the and leadership of her grandfather. here's a portion . >> is very conscious of what it would be to be diminished president. we have to remember the president wilson, there was really almost a scandal the people in the country did not how ill the president was. it was determined to find himself in a situation. and after he had three illnesses during his presidency, and after each one of them, he would give himself a very arduous test. back around the world trip or a trip to europe the required lots of meetings and also stress.

in any always held an advisory. denise and if i don't perform at the top level, you have to tell them because in all resign. in any case, that never happened. he became actually, rather good at managing his time in managing his stress. then generally. positioning himself to get through his second term. >> to watch the rest of this program, visitor website booktv.org and search for author susan eisenhower the title of our book, how like lead. by using the box at the top of the page. here are some of the best selling nonfiction books according to the boston globe. topping the list is rage, fullerton prize-winning, president trump's national and foreign policy decisions.

the prize-winning author isabel wilkerson exports which he calls a hidden caste system in the united states. it is followed by a collection of essays by artist kelly and solutions and other problems. then how to be 1908 races, they argue that american must choose to be a type racist work towards building more equitable society. rubbing a look at some of the best selling nonfiction books according to the boston globe, is the splendid and the vile rated historian eric larson study of prime minister winston churchill's leadership . during the london blitz . to these authors have on tv and you can watch them online booktv.org. >> thank you for joining us. my name is - on behalf of harvard bookstore, i'm very pleased to introduce tonight's thomas levinson presenting his book, money for nothing. the scientist and t