mcconnell of kentucky is stepping down from his leadership position this week. watch c-span tonight at 8 p.m. eastern as we explore the life and career of senator mcconnell. he shares his views on the importance of the senate, his 17 years of leading his fellow republicans and mans for his remaining 2 years in office as well as other topics. our guest is the deputy washington, d.c. bureau chief for the associated press and author of the new mcconnell biography, "the price of power." join us for the career and legacy of senate leader mitch mcconnell tonight at 8 p.m. eastern on can c-span. ♪♪ >> the house will be in order. >> this year c-span celebrates 45 years of covering congress like no other. since 1979 we've been your primary source for capitol hill providing balanced, unfiltered coverage of government, taking you to where the policy's

debated and decided all with the support of america's cable companies. c-span, 45 years and counting. powered by cable. >> goodno afternoon, everyone. welcome to to midtown cinema. my name is stuart landon, i am the director of community engagement at the cinema. i'll be your host and moderator for this afternoon's program. we're so happy that we're here, and we hope that you enjoy this event with new york times' best selling author abbott kahler at the 12th annual harrisburg book festival. much for making your way here to midtown cinema. for those who are in the know, a couple of months ago we took some water in here at the cinema and had to take that moment not only do some renovations to for that flooding damage but also reinvent the lobby. so this friday, october 18th,

we're going to have our grand, which is really bright. it's a little exciting. yay! an actual lobby with actual bathrooms. all the actual. so it's been it's been a journey and we're really appreciative the hard work that the contractors are doing and our employees are doing here to get ready for that big grand. so for those who are members of the midtown cinema, you actually will get free movies on friday to celebrate the grand opening is really great for those of you who aren't yet members you got a chance to join which is great and you of course can come flick that night as well. we'll have live music on our new stage that is in the front as well, which is really exciting. lastly, we encourage you to come away with a signed copy of eden undone after the event, abbott will be sticking around afterwards for a book signing here at the and then she'll be at the bookstore from 4 to 5 p.m. as well for us signing. so book sales of course provided by midtown scholar bookstore who a great partner of the cinema

now it's my honor to introduce our author today abbott kahler is the new york times bestselling author of sin in the second city american rose liar liar, temptress, soldier, spy, the ghosts of eden park and edward edgar award finalist, best fact, crime and a novel where you end. native of philadelphia. she lives in new york city and in greenport, new york. she formerly wrote as karen abbott and her new book, which we are here for today, is titled eden a true story of sex, murder and utopia. at the dawn of world war, two hampton sides writes, there's a dash of conrad a bit of hitchcock notes of melville, darwin and robinson crusoe, and certainly more than a whiff of lord of the flies, but really eden, london completely its own thing. bizarre, mesmerize and completely tragic. compellingly tragic. kaler confronts an essential

truth about those who ditched civilization. try as we might. humans cannot elude the tyranny of our own nature. now, hollywood has got this caught the eye of hollywood and ron howard is adapting the same to the big screen in a movie called eden, starring jude law, which will be coming out, we believe, at end of the year or maybe in 2025. so it's an honor to host abbott here at the harrisburg book festival here at midtown cinema. so without further ado, please join me in giving a warm round of applause. yeah, yeah. thank you everybody for coming out. thank you, stewart. for that introduction and i really appreciate your enthusiasm for jude law and for this story in general. oh, yes. but i can't even tell you how many movies we played here with jude in it. so he's definitely been a lot of wonderful independent movies. so let's just jump right into it. in eden undone, you focus this

group of eccentric ex, i guess. i think that's a kind word for these people very word. and i find them fascinating. well, unpack them in a second. and of course, they take a pilgrimage to the galapagos. now, what first sparked your interest in their stories? so i've been wanting to write the story for a very long time. i think about 12 years now. and i one day scrolling through newspaper archives dot com as writers and maybe some of you do and i was looking for something else and i happened this tabloid passage a headline that was so bizarre that i had to read it about two or three times to just like that i read that or my hallucinating. so i'm going to read that passage you just so you can sort of appreciate what was thinking in that moment. oh, a 1941 passage from the san francisco examiner, quote was dr. ritter with his steel teeth

poisoned paradise was baroness louise known as crazy panties, who ruled the island with gun in love, murdered by one of her love slaves after. she had driven the other to his death. and why is fraud or going back to what she once called hell's volcano? the mystery of the galapagos island germany covets to be solved at last. so it was sort of a record scratch moment where i everything stopped around me and i abandoned any other idea i was thinking about and i this is the book i wanted to write, but my publisher at the time said, no, we want american history with american characters i wrote other books, years passed, but my heart mind always stayed on the story. and finally i took out the publisher who actually published this book, the head of crown, and just said, you know, this isn't a european, this isn't an american story. this is a human story. who among us hasn't wanted to ditch our lives and go somewhere, start anew and and try something simpler? who has it wanted to get away from while mistakes they made and just go where nobody knows

them and they could just start over. so to me, it was this sort of timeless human impulse. yeah. i mean, okay, so that that headline introduces a lot of the characters. this is a crazy cast of characters that you are. if haven't read the book, you're in for a treat. it is they are absolutely bizarre. humans i mean all i would say they're all very human. they're not they're not character chairs or anything like that. but so tell me a little bit about this cast of characters and who's who, the story centered on? well, we start with a doctor, frederick ritter. he was war one veteran. he was very scarred by that. after the war, he went to work in a berlin hydrotherapy therapeutic institute where they actually had some progressive ideas the healing powers, powers of water, raw food, diet. but he took his ideas to an extreme. he believed that gums become -- enough to substitute for teeth. didn't think he needed teeth.

he decided was going to live to be 150 years old. probably not surprisingly, he was a big devotee of frederick beecher, and he did not civilization. he wanted to abandon and go somewhere and sort of hone his philosophical ideas and become a world renowned philosopher and. before he did this, of course, he extracted all of his teeth and, had them replaced with a set of steel dentures which which you is kind of i want to see do go on a steel ventures but you know in a sign of all the adversaries to come he did not account for the fact that his gums were going to shrink and the steel dentures wouldn't stay in any way at hospital he meets dorie starch. who is this woman? she's 26 years old. she is suffering from multiple sclerosis and every other doctor tells her that her condition is incurable except for frederick. he kind of, you know, says, of course, can cure this. it's all in the power of mind. if you just think your multiple

sclerosis away, you will be healed. you know, of course. and she's intrigued by this, i think partly because she was trapped in this marriage with a man she didn't love. in her memoir, which is remarkable, was published in 1935. she actually talks how the sex was boring. and she's very intrigued by this doctor. and she begged him, let her accompany him to the galapagos so they can sort of do this together. and writes in her memoir that she thinks that she is the only whom frederick did not truly despise. so quite a ringing endorsement for their relationship. it's off to a good start. yeah. okay. so that's the books. you introduce those characters first? yes. and then the cast of characters just gets more and more intriguing. and i want to ask a little bit about the baroness, which is probably favorite character crazy panties. yeah, crazy panties. and, and her role in this kind of bizarre narrative, you know, what, what fascinates you about

her character. well, i that she you know what happens is frederick dorie are down there another family things are calm but it's but it's still the attention is building and you're like well passive boy what could possibly go wrong next and the baroness is the answer to that question when the story starts. she is a venus woman. she's living in paris. and if you've ever heard anything about this story, which is known kind of as the galapagos affair for people who have heard about it before, she's always described a self-proclaimed baroness. so baroness, i actually did the research into her lineage, and she is a true authentic baroness. granted the title through her grandfather who got it during the suppression war and was quite a she knew eight languages. she was this sort of paris socialite who seduced men and women alike. she was married to a french hero. she partied. he didn't really care. i think he wanted it rid of it. get rid of her at some point and

she heard a voice telling her that she had to go to the galapagos island and conquer it. and the voice was god. she believed god was telling her to go to the islands and become the galapagos. and she had heard about frederic and dory and the other people who were starting to go to this island, floriana and just decided to bump her way there. so, you know, each one of these folks heads to floriana. but the idea building a utopia and i think each one of those individuals seems to have different idea of what that means. but how do you think seeking paradise can lead to such outcomes as your title indicates with eden coming undone? yeah, i mean. well, exactly what you utopia such a subjective term everybody has a different idea of what it is and i think it also is constantly in flux, depending on what's happening to you. right. and the shows up and her idea of a utopia as she announces to

everybody is at great dismay is that she wants to turn floriana this tiny island in the southern part of the galapagos into miami she wants to make a miami resort to lure american tourist. and of course fredrik ritter who just wants to study his philosophy. and margaret hines and hines wittmer, who was other quiet family living there, are appalled and terrified about what she's going to do. and she's sort made no bones about the fact that she's not afraid to use violence to get to get which carries a gun she does carry she carries gun she carries a knife she carries a whip. she throws soup at people, various things in the book. but but she shows up and that's her intention is that's her idea of of a utopia is miami on floreana so you know when she makes those plans and announces that intention, things really start getting dicey for. everybody. yeah. so, okay, so one of the first things i read about the book before i read the book was that

some folks have compared it to agatha christie and i have to admit, i'm a huge christie fan. and i was like, i don't know, you did it this a awesome mystery. and for me, what was so fascinating because i have not read a ton of, you know, historical narrative nonfiction, which and you had to take these primary resources and weave it into this. so here's my question. you have the scandalous elements, the sex, the murder, the mystery, and then you have at these sensational details, i guess, and then you have the history, the facts. how do you balance that as a as a writer? well, what are you writing? nonfiction. this i'm not allowed to make up. you know, i can't make up, which is often we often nonfiction people lament that we're beholden to the historical. we can't make up dialog. we can't make up well in this book. all of the dead, people did exactly what i wanted to do. fortunately, does always work

out that way. but but you know, luckily i had the kind of primary source material i needed to write it like a when you have that kind of detail, when you have dialog, when people write memoirs and you have access to they were thinking what their facial expressions were, what their responses were to. and luckily the people in this book did write memoirs that were very, very intimate. and so i had wonderful access to their most interior when i was writing the book. so you had access to a lot of primary resources. so obviously you started with this headline online and then you went and you and you were telling me actually about how you got to touch these archives, these these writings of these individuals from from so long ago. and i guess what was the most surprising thing that you uncovered in those archival things without giving anything away in the book? yeah. oh, god. there are so many surprising things, i think when the depth

of fear that people started feeling the baroness was escalate and her antics and her or her, i should say unbalanced behavior. frederick gritter and. hines witmer the two sort of men of the island who didn't really like other banded together and we need to take some action here. and they would send letters. the american explorers, who were also kind of a fascinating part of the book and say, this is what's happening. if you hear of anything bad, floreana, it's this woman's responsibility. we don't know what we're doing. are you going to come back? are you going to help us? they wrote to the governor of the galapagos and said, would you please come and examine this woman? she needs a psychiatric examination. she should be placed a sanatorium and know, of course, the governor of the galapagos does, and she seduces the governor of a galapagos. so there was kind of no winning them. and just the fear could really feel the fear. in one case. i remember frederick ritter

wrote a lot of his letters by hand, and you could just see the pencil breaking where he he was just sort of emotion was coming through and physically, you know, affecting him. well. so the okay so i read you you took a pilgrimage yourself to the galapagos. yeah how was that for you? i mean, it was it was oh, god, poor me. you know, i had had to go to a golf course islands for research and but it was wonderful. i mean, it takes two full days from new york city planes, trains automobiles, ferries to get there first place and floreana is at the time when these people live there in the 1930s it was uninhabited people had tried to settle there and failed which sort of was a daunting experience for them to know like, oh, we're to try to do something that literally everybody else has doing. it's, it's still primitive today, about 150 people live there. there's spotty wi-fi.

it's very rugged terrain. it's not a very lush island. floriana only has one freshwater spring, which was also a challenge back then. there were only two bars, which was also a challenge. i did visit both of them, but but, but, but it really me an appreciation for how difficult it for these people in the 1930s to go there without any modern conveniences and not only no monarch convenience, but no pathways were cleared. they were hacking away their own paths to make any living situation for themselves. and especially dory, who's suffering from sclerosis with fredric, who's basically like, hey, your mind, what's wrong with your mind? you're not healed yet, you know, very to her and it just really gave me a newfound appreciation for how these people were so determined to do as well as they did, which course not everybody does. well, there's there are some murder, but really it just really, you know, wow you know, these people were very brave.

yeah. so so floriana. it seems to me that the island is a character in this in this story. and that and i guess that that as you were reading these primary resources, reading and and and i guess stitching together this this initial that the narrative here. tell me about how what kind of what kind of character is floriana florin is a dark beast. she's a witchy no floriana is a very mysterious wouldn't say i would say floriana is a bit of a witch you know it's everybody native ecuadorians today. i think floriana is haunted back then they wouldn't go there after dark. it has incredible history. it was the galapagos first penal colony. so there are all kinds of nefarious characters. its very first inhabitant was a pirate by the name of patrick watkins and. anybody who encountered him would be like this, guy has

vermin, literally dripping from his body. like the vermin were hanging off the hairs on him. he was not a pleasant sight. he eventually murdered some captives that they had come the island and he fled. and and so there was all this lore about him. and when and dorie first arrived there, they in the pirate caves where frederick excuse me, where patrick had lived. and he was the rest of her time in floriana, i think that she was going to be murdered by the spirit of this pirate. so sort this haunting opening and a pervasive, pervasive of fear that just follows people around wherever. they go on this island. yeah. so this is set in an interesting period of world history and the great depression and lead up to the to the second world war. how do those how did those historical markers affect the events in this new society that these folks are building? yeah. so i mean, we start in 1929,

right, when the stock market crashed. so the global economy is collapsing, hitler is ascending the power. we're at the fall. the weimer republic, one of the characters, hines wittmer, had been a high official in the republic and was was really desperate to flee germany partly of that he had many political enemies and the rising nazi party and so would they arrive on an floriana. you know all these external factors are happening around them and it really to with the american explorers these very wealthy american explorers who were untouched by the great you know, they got their stock down in time. they were fine and it became a pastime for wealthy americans during period to build these yachts kind of like scientific floating laboratories and chartered these expeditions down to the galapagos island to gather exotic flora and fauna and when this happened, first one who came down was a man by the name eugene macdonald was the founder of zenith radio, had

no idea that floriana was inhabited into frederick and dorie. it runs, and when he goes back, the united states speaks about his discover of a modern day adam and eve, which of course sets the stage for other people to start coming to floreana for the entire world to start paying attention to these really interesting centric that are on the island. i have a question about your i have a question about your process again. you know, having access to these primary resources and the narrative nonfiction, i mean, it reads like a novel. >> thank you. >> and it's so cool. how do you structure a story without kind of leaning too far? fictionalizing? >> yeah. >> like, how do you build that? >> well, first, for the structure i'm kind of a psychotic outliner. [laughter] i don't know if there's another word for it. this outlinene was about 140,000 words.is the book itself is 80,000 words.

don't worry, you're not getting a "war and peace if" tome, but i basically carve a book out of an outline. and the outline allows you to see where you can use fictionalize toed techniques without breaking the barriers of nonfiction. so as i said, i'm not allowed to make up any dialogue, i'm not to allowed the change chronology or change events. you can use foreshadowing. today didn't yet know this was going to happen. you can use cliffhangers -- >> which you use beautifully. [laughter] >> thank you. the bare with necessary -- bareness shows up at your -- baron's show ises up at your door. it's wonderful when you find a bit of history that lends itselfs to the a novel's treatment. >> so if somebody were to be interested in writing in this way, what wouldt be a piece of advice you would give them.

>> i would say if you are a fiction reader, you know, i'm sure who's going to to -- anybody who's going the attempt to read a -- write a book is a reader of all genres. make sure it has a begin, a middlee? and an end, is there conflict to your characters, have enough primary source material to really make them come to life. and i would just sort of see one of my favorite writers, pete dexter, always says, you know, with writers they keep playing the same record overover, but the needle lands in a different place each time. so you find what your niche is and what your interest is, and it's probably never going to vary too much. but you'll find different angles and different ways into that. i would just say explore that. > yeah, absolutely. so what do you think readers, i mean, aside from, you know, we're not going to give away the who dun it here, but what do you think readers would find most surprise or shocking about the

story without giving -- >> sure. i mean, one of the things, it's a fun book. i will say it's fun. it's -- and what i want people to really come away from it is to have a discussion about what they think happened. it's not often in nonfiction that you get to write a legitimate if murder mystery, an' there's so many suspects, there's so many conflicting stories. in fact, one of the challenges of the book was reconciling the two main characters' memoirs. they, lie, you know, they withhold truth, they lie, they contradict each other. and, you know, to me, i always think what you choose to lie about and what to you choose to omit says as much about your and your intentions as the truth. so figuring out who was lying when and why was a fascinating puzzle piece, and i want readers to say here's my theory, here's my theory if and sort of have a debate about that. it's a murder mystery whose lowers has e endured more --

lore has endure canned for almost a a hundred years. >> you said it was a fun book, i wouldd say it's an absolute joyride, frank ifly. [laughter] it's really just wonderful. the upcoming film corrected by ron howard called eden, and it's based on the same historical story. how to do you feel about the story making its way to the big screen? >> well, i wish it were based on my book, i can say that. [laughter] i wish ron howard and i were very close personal friends. [laughter] but what happened was, you know, i had wanted to write book for a very long time. apparently, ron howard has also been to on to accessed with this story for a very long time -- obsessed. i had just finished touring for my novel and got the news that ron howard was filming in australia for the s story starrg judede law, sydney sweeney and vanessa kirby. it was a moment where i think the i resemble the scream --

[laughter] and i had to quickly finish my draft,, edit, rewrite, copy edt if times, compile 700 pages of end notes -- 7 to 0 pages, and do it within a period of months. my initial date was may of 2025, so i lost eight months of work on this book to try to coincide and meet the movie, which just premieredded at the toronto film festival. unfortunately, there's no trailer yet,, there's no theocrt yachtly call or -- theatrical or streaming are release are date yet, but i hope people are will read it first -- >> don't get me wrong, i love a movie, i work here. [laughter] but this is such -- it's a movie already. >> yeah. >> you can't --. i don't know if it got, i was telling you earlier, these people are so strange. these characters are is awesome. fully realized weirdoes, but --

i guess if you had to pick a favorite character -- >> oh, god. >> the -- is there one that you would choose out of this cast of, of crazies? [laughter] >> izi mean, i'd have to go with the bare necessary -- bare -- bare oness. shell called her hoe hotel the spanish. [speaking spanish] and one american tourist visited and declared it was the, quote, a festering sex complex. so maybe that was in the trip adviser -- [laughter] report. but, no, she, she's absolutely, you know, one of my things i enjoy doing about history is digging up stories of women who are forgotten or written out of historically or just never if came to to light. and she's possibly one of the most complicated ones. i would actually love to to pay

a real psychiatrist to read this book and be, like, can you please diagnose this woman? she's fascinating to me. in a way she was this strange feminist. she went after what she wanted and really did not gaf at all. >> not at all. these characters face some pretty extreme circumstances. okay. so i have a background in theater. >> right. >> and i think that one of the things when you're acting is that you're really, you don't judge the character that you are playing because they're not -- they don't the they're the villain, they don't think that -- >> right. >> or even, everyone probably thinks they're the good guy, right? if i guess for me, when you're writing -- when it comes to sympathy for a character especially in these extreme circumstances and maybe with the delusion that some of them had, i guess that do you feel sympathy for your characters that are, you know, even though

there's violent outcome toes and strange choices? if. >> yeah, absolutely. i mean, when you spend this much time with characters, and i worked on this book for a very hong time, and also let me just point out the obvious writing is a very solitary profession. often i will spend the entire day literally not speaking a word out loud, and the only people i'm talking to are the dead foam that -- people that i'm writing about. so you become very close to them. >> yeah. >> they just become very dear to you in a way even if they are eccentric and p obviously, have their flaws. but it's -- when you have a chance to really read people's writings and get access the their thoughts and to imagine how you might behave in a situation where it's so education treatment concern.tr >> yeah. >> -- it really sort or humanized them for maine i did feel w empathy -- well, i should say sympathy for all of them at one time or another. >> yeah. the, i guess that, for me, i

really enjoyed the mystery of it all. i mean, that's really what when it comes down to. and ii think that what, what makes a good mystery? if that's -- because this was great for me, but what for you makes a good mystery? >> i think you want a cast of characters where everybody's guilty of something, you know? if you look at one of the comparisons was made to and then there wereno none, agatha christie's famous island mystery. even if none of them were guilty of murder, they were all guilty of something. >>gu yeah. >> and i think that, you know, it just sort of, when the playing field is that open and and it could go any way, it really just makes for a rich discussion. and if that's -- and an allure. i think that's what you want. >> that's great. so i just wanted to go ahead and turn this to the awed wednesday and see if anybody -- audience and see if anybody has any questions for abbott.

there's a microphone right there if you wanted to utilize that, it would be probably great for the crowd. anybody have any questions for abbott? yeah. >> [inaudible] >> i'll repeat it. >> it sort of has to do with -- [inaudible] when you've got a story like and soma many primary resources, does -- it must be overwhelming, right? does thet o storyline just sorf show upping or do you have to sort of mold if it, and if you do mold it, was there one, like, really juice juicy piece of information that you really wanted to get in there and it just didn't fit the stirline in. >> anything left on the editing room floor? >> that's a very good question. no. [laughter] in this one, because it was, you know, it's eight people living on this tiny island. so you're going to get pet ifty squabbles. and -- petty squabbles. and what i did leave on the cutting room floor were a bunch ofo those petty squabbles. i kept all the big, dramatic, you know, murderous mystery. but we kind of got to the point where it's, like, i let you

borrowy my donkey, know, yo -- no, you didn't. and you expect that kind of thing. i did a little bit of that just to show the escalation and and how the seeds began of the animosity that developed. but as far as leaving the juicy stuff, it's all in there. [laughter] >> anybody if else have any if questions? yes. if. >> actually, two. the b bare bareness, you said tt the main characters, does the barebarron's have a memoir? >> have there been other books about her or ore articles that you -- other articles that that you used besides the letters themselves? >> anyic newspaper article i cod

find was very helpful to me. ii employed researchers in pari, vienna, german researchers. so -- who all scour toed all of the papers large and small to see if there wasma any if mentin of these characters including the bare's and, of course, has somebody go deep into her genealogy for me. all of that was helpful in terms of piecing together this character. she was a wonderful self-mythologizer and loved to invent stories about herself. so it was great fun to say was this true, was this true, was this true and fact check her just a little bit. not having her memoir, i used every other piece of information i could possibly find about her. grandfather and the second half was how did the two main characters come to find the galapagos islands? meaning, why did they go there? >> yeah. no, it's a very good question especially because if anybody knows anything about the gap goes, it's not this lush,

tropical, sandy shore, vegetation, palm trees -- yeah, exactly. it's no miami. right. it is this volcanic island covered in lava rock, very unappealing, in the very fertile. you know? a lot of people who had been there before talked about one -- i think it was the first director of the new york so logical -- zoological society said it looks as though lucifer heaved up a bunch of rock from hell, and that was the galapagos islands. why would they pick this? ino think frederick wanted the challenge. can i become the uber-mensch that i'm meant to be. and they did pick near january that because with it at least had one source of fresh water. and they thought there'd we'll have an attempt at making a garden and sustaining yourselved having drinking water. they picked the one island they

could have possibly sustained themselves on. they worked it out for a while, though it was a challenge. yeah. >> and the infamous stories that came from the island beforehand also made it -- >> yeah. >> -- i think, possibly part of the alluree of going there? >> yeah. right before frederick and dory showed up, there was a group of norwegians when with had tried to settle there, and they had even built a little house on the bay. but, of course, by the final frederick and dory showed up, they had fled. >> and that starts, i mean, honestly, it's a great kind of gothic way to start the book. yes. >> so you read a headline and you become entranced with this story. how do you go about the process of efficiently determining is there enough material out there -- >> yeah. >> -- to r write a story and and then i'm curious if you've ever followed up with something and you just frustratingly found there'sou just not enough? >> yes. i'llll answer the second part of question first. absolutely, it happens all the time.

i have a folder full of story on my computer that i'm never going to be able to do the a book for because the primary source material's just not there. and maybe they might make a good novel one day where i could actually fill in the blanks with my iff imagination, but i'm not going to be able to do them as a nonfiction book. so everybody out there who with wants to be written about one day, write memoirs. [laughter] start writing them now if so people can write about you in a hundred years and how crazy you are -- [laughter] or wonderful orev whatever. i'm just thinking about write memoirs forgo people who are gog to come after us. for this one i knew that right away, very quickly, that there were two great memoirs from with two of the women. if from there i said, okay, i can -- i did an archival search in world cat which is where you go to find all your archival sources from libraries around the world and discovered that there was aas trover of archives at the university of southern california and another trove at

smithsonian institution that the explores had kept. especially the explorer george allen w hancock who was an oil,n oil mogul. his family owned the la brea tar pitos us -- pits out in los angeles. hancock park, is named after his family, and he was the most important explorer that would come to the galapagos during this time period. i got a sense of, oh, i have this voice and this voice, point of view and this point of view, it started to come together and i could see also reports that their scientists had a made of their impressions. so you've got a bunch of different perspectives, you know that you can make the narrative come together. >> any other questions? yes. >> hi. >> so which of the three exiled groups did you find the most sympathetic or entertaining -- >> yeah. >> -- or shocking to write

about. and and conversely, which one of the three groups did you find the least? >> yeah. you know, they all surprised me at different times for different reasons. lett me just start with the hit her if family who came over -- whitmer if family who had come after dory and frederick are. margaret was five months pregnant when she came over. this woman gave birth, like, all alone at midnight in the dark surrounded by, like, wild animals and, like, on the gap goes islands -- glop goes island where never was around. that act of bravery was astounding to me and really touching, and her strength was incredible. and, of course, dory and frederick. i think what's surprising there is the dynamics of the relationship were constantly shifting. frederick could be cool to dory, probably unsurprisingly, and dory starts to get sick of it, you know? this woman who was, like, please, let me accompany you.

please, i'll do anything, i will spread yourr philosophy, i had been your hand a maiden by your side starts to get sick of him,, and she starts acting in vest being ways. and then -- interesting ways. and if then, of course, the baron h if ess. one of the favorite things about her, according to margaret, she said the baronnen ess inviting both heinz and frederick to her wigwam, and i think maybe one or both might have taken her up on that at some point. they all -- i loved them all at various times and for different reasons. >> any other questions? yes. >>ah yeah. i was surprised about the two guys that were with the baroness, how long they put up with that. [laughter] i am only halfway through the book. did you have letters to support that from them or their memoirs? >> yeah. so one of them, rudolph lawrence, who was -- she had these prolovers that he came

with, rudolphli lawrence and robert phillipson. robert was sort of her preferred lover, the man she called her husband. rudolph lawrence had been her business partner in paris and her lover but got demoted. and, you know, she -- [laughter] she would spend her time pitting these two men against each other. of and rudolph lawrence, at lot of that information comes from dory and mrg rett's memoirs because rudolph lawrence would show up and be, like, i can't take this woman anymore. she did this, he did that. and he'd go to the other place and say, oh, my god, you've got to helpp me, get me away from this woman, i need to get back to germany. both of them, their memoirs were contradictory, but both of them describe the behavior that he wass enduring. and so a lot of that was documented and also with george allen hancock, he had written letters to hancock about that, and he -- and the men of hancock'' entourage also witnessed a lot of it.

so there were a couple sources for that. but i don't know why people put up withh it for so long. i guess that's one of the mysteries. [laughter] >> so there's a recurring theme in the book of surviving in isolation. in different ways. and, but i have a question. do you think these characters were doomed from the start? or do you think they ever had a real chancee of achieving the utopia that that they wanted to desperately? >> that's a very good question. i think that the people who arrived there for the simplest, purist -- purest reasons had the best chance, and they are the ones, without giving any spoilers, they are the ones who you are is strive and sort of endure -- survive and sort of endure. and i thinkthth that dory, you , she -- one of the gate things about dory was that i didn't have to do a lot of foreshadowing as an author. she did it for me. i was, like, okay, i don't have

to be a heavy handed -- in fact, my editor was, like, can you please cut back dory's foreshadowing? she felt danger around every step. she talked frequently about how people weren't there for the rightns reasons. now i sound like a contestant on the bachelor. people there weren't there for thee right -- >> or survivor. >> yeah. and the book has been compared toif survivor. if your nonfiction book is being compared to survivor, you know you found ant interesting piece of history. >> that's true. >> yeah, had to come for the right reasons. >> absolutely. well, i'm so appreciative of your time, abbott -- >> likewise. >> and thank you so much to the harrisburg book festival. midtown cinema was thrilled to be a partner in that this year, and everybody needs to get this book. it's absolutely a page-turner. it's thrilling, it's -- and, honestly, as an agatha christie

fan p i was happy to have -- it was like having a new best friend the read. [laughter] >> thank you very much. and thank you, everybody, for coming. >> give it upev for abbott, everybody. [applause] .. >> my name is jason but the most unknown as general. >> my name is brett favre. >> my name is michael phelps. >> i'm the ceo tiktok. >> have you apologized to the victim? >> which like to do for them?

>> they are here. your national television. would you like to apologize to the victims. >> all eyes are on iowa. >> isis been my campaign. >> the new hampshire primary. >> the time is, to suspend my campaign. >> the events were shameful criminal file it but did not qualify as insurrection. >> this would be my last term as republican leader of the senate. >> that's how old are ideas. >> one reason this is done because it brings people together. >> without presidential immunity from criminal prosecution that can be no presidency as a note. >> the republican but house will not be jammed or forced into passing a foreign aid bill. >> providing legal aid to lethal aid to current is important. >> the bill is passed. >> declaring the office of speaker of the house of representatives to be vacant. [booing]

>> 359-43 with seven edging present. >> hopefully this is the end of the personality politics. >> this event is being televised live on c-span. >> for the next 90 minutes we will be live from a branded expedition. >> welcome to the national book festival. >> what's so great c-span is you hit everything. >> this was a rigged, this disgraceful trial. the real verdict is going to be november 5. >> we would be well served to remember the law and cherished tradition we have in this country of settling our political differences at the ballot box. >> today's decision almost certain means that are virtually no limits on what a president can do. >> look, if we finally beat medicare -- >> it was a bad night. >> i'm staying in the race. >> take a look at what happened.

[shouting] >> i want to speak tonight about the need for us to lower the temperature in our politics. >> significant operational failure, the secret service in decades. ♪ ♪ ♪ >> i prowled except your nomination for president of the united states. >> the best way forward is to pass the torch to the new generation. >> over 100 days before an election, democrat party bosses forced joe biden off about. >> the right to protest but not the right to cause chaos. no place in america for anti-semitism. >> give us the tools faster and we'll finish the job faster. >> we are here today.

>> i accept your nomination. >> you know what that means. >> i'm talking now. if you don't mind, please. does that sound familiar? >> she went out. >> never touched by a human hand. >> certainly falls into the general definition of fascist. >> that's a good looking crew. hello, everybody. >> there is a floating island of garbage in in the middle of e ocean right now. i think it's called puerto rico. ♪ ♪ ♪ >> thanks for being with us on election night. >> look what happened. is this great? >> this will truly be the golden age of america. >> the outcome of this election is not what we wanted.

>> house democrats have fallen a few seats short. >> we're going to raise an american first banner above this place. >> the american people have spoken. >> it's new day in the transcendent company to in america. >> politics is tough and it's, many cases not a very nice world but it is a nice world today at appreciate very much the transition that so smooth, it will be as smooth as it can get. i very much appreciate it. thank you all. >> begins on c-span2 are an intellectual feast. every saturday american history tv documents america stories, and on sundays booktv brings you the latest in nonfiction books and authors. funding for c-span2 comes from these television companies and more including sparklight. >> what is great internet? is it strong? is it fast? is a reliable? at