>> charlie: welcome to the broadcast. tonight we continue our vacation schedule by looking at some of the people who come to this program in 2009 to talk about their life and their passion and their work. tonight something we call the written word. people who make a living by the words they write. they are author gay talese. >> to be in our trade you have to be curious. the second thing is important because after you finally met the person you think you want to write about, you might not be that interesting. and you have to be willing to spend a lot of time with not very interesting people than to get into what it is that you

find worthy of writing about. >> charlie: and author joseph o'neal. >> i think it's because it has a built in drama. it has the drama of the beginning, the middle and the end. and it has a big trajectory. >> charlie: and also acceptance and searching for connections. >> identity. >> charlie: right. >> economic striving, uncertainty, all things that go into the classic ingredients. >> charlie: the written word, talese and o'neal, coming up.

captioning sponsored by rose communications from our studios in new york city, thiss charlie rose. >> charlie: gay talese is hear. david ham stamp called him the most important nonfiction writer. i knew something about nonfiction writing. talese began at "the new york times." from then he went to pen several magazine pieces which would define a brand of writing known as the newournalism. two of his 11 books are now back in print. arne thy father is the that 1971 study of the crime family. looking at the sexual revolution. i am pleased to have gay talese

back at this table. >> they were the two out of print. i don't know why it was out of print so long but it was the necessarily a welcome book when it was first published in 1980. pretty nice looking lady on the cover, a good friend of mine, diane weber, she's still alive. she's my age 77, and still in beautiful southern california. there she is. and her young flowering age. >> charlie: this obviously the -- >> a joseph bonanno. i'm name dropping here but i knew him of course. he was one of the great stylish mafia men. he dressed as well as i do. in fact we could have gone to the same tailor but we do not. >> charlie: there is also this the paris review. gay talese on the art of nonfiction. tell me about the art of nonfiction. >> well, i grew up reading fiction. i think the fiction writers when i was growing up in the 1940's, 50's were the real good writers,

the nonfiction writers of that period were more into writing about well-known people and using the public characteristic of well-known people as the means for writing. journalists tend to write about nose worthy people and who is newsworthy, people who you might relate toovment i want to write like the fiction writers but i wanted to write about real people. the short story writers i was enamored of were people like john sheath, john o'hara, a man who was a write greater, irwin shaw. he was one of my favorite. he wrote about girls in their summer dresses. and if you ever want to read a great piece,. at adriak run. i won't tl you what it's about, it's a great story, irwin shaw. i wanted to write like them but i wanted to change the name. when i went to "the new york times," first job was in the

sports department and i was able to do a lot of that, writing about some guy that spent his time in a boxing arena ringing the bell. how does this guy who got this job talks about career achieve. here he is ringing the bell and fighters are coming in and going out and getting knocked out at the bell. those are odd characters. i wrote short stories about them. >> charlie: what's the most famous piece you ever wrote. >> the names piece i'm alleged to have written using that phrase is frank sinatra has a cold, mohammed ali, meeting castro i like that meese. but the sinatra case became known because it got an thought gized -- an tawlgized a great deal. >> charlie: how do you go about that. a guy who doesn't want publicity

of a kind of probing. >> actually it wasn't my idea. we used to have a great north carolina editor harold haze. he was the editor of esquire. when i left in 1965 i left with no ill will, i left with sadness. i told my boss, i want to write large pieces and new york times had more than now, in those days, you were really restricted in space. i wanted to spend more time and the daily deadline was killing me when i was working on the daily papers of the times. so i went to es squire, with the same amount of money and i don't want to tell you how much money i was making. inhose days in the 60's three or four hundred bucks a week, 2450e9sz what journalists were making. that was top. i went to esquire and they said they would give me the same amount of money. >> charlie: that's harold haze. >> he was head of es squire

then. he said we have to do six pieces. i should could i choose my subjects. i wanted to write about my times pals which i later did, i got to write this book. he said you can do one or two. first i'm an obituary writer. i liked the guy spending his whole day thinking about the death of people, well-known character. >> charlie: who is about to die and how it's called. >> yes. that's the six per yr contract with harold haze. second piece i want to write about clifton danielle the managing editor. no no no, you can do that later. i want you to do sinatra. i'm like oh, everybody's done sinatra, he's so well known, nobody wants to hear about him. yes, it's a cover story, it's all set up. all you have to do is fly out to la. the press agent will meet you, you can see sinatra and you can come home. i did fly out to la. the press agent wasn't there to meet me but i went to the befer well -- beverly wilshire.

mr. mahoney i'm ready to see sinatra and he said i don't think so, he's not feeling well. he has a cold. another thing that bothered me, he said walter cronkite is doing a show for cbs but the mafia and frank sinatra and we're worried -- i said i'm not going to write about the sinatra. mickey was the lawyer and he said he wants to check it out, what you do. i said i can't do that. the times wouldn't do that, nobody would do that. well then maybe you want to go back to new york. mahoney says i thought it was all set up. no, it's not set up, you just think about it. so we hung elm, i'm in the beverly wilshire hotel. in the days, it was pretty

famous. nicole simpson would be at the gates but we're getting ahead of ourselves. i called this guy and i said who do you know that knows sinatra. his wife sally had a line of clothing stores called jax, a pretty famous line of clothing. they had this supper club on rodeo drive. so i was told there's this guy that plays in the band and sinatra knew him and there's another guy that used to be a butler of sinatra, he doesn't work anymore. so the restaurant people always have a lot of phone numbers, they know a lot of people. i started seeing these people that were, i mean, on the outskirts in the shadow of sinatra land. i was in a lot of minor charact. minor characters and journalists are major characters. it depends on how you use your technique to describe and to focus on what it is that makes

them relevant to an interview. it was four or five days out there, the phone things in the morning. mr. jim mahoney says you're still in town. yes, i am. what are you doing. i said talking to people. you're talking to frank's friends. i don't want their friends but i'm just trying. how is frank's cold. well, still mickey ruden the lawyer still wants to z i told you it's a deal, a deal breaker you can't do it. he hangs up again. another week, i don't want to go out there. but anyway, i went and then i followed them around. hanging is the art of nonfiction. it begins with reporting, hanging out kind of reporting. they don't have to be a great charlie rose to do this kind of work. we do q&a, q&a. but in the print world, especially magazine writing in those days we had a lot of room. you got expense accounts, a make like the beverly wilshire, i'm

not sure if you can do that today in magazines. you could talk to people who were on the fringe of the famous. and sometimes you get a more interesting perspective and that's how i wrote frank sinatra had a cold. he never got over the coal toward me. he never talked to me. >> charlie: did anybody tell you he liked the piece. >> no. times you do famous people but when you're and ending a lot of time with them and you finally, your story appears in print, you don't usually get -- oh sometimes you do but sinatra was different. after he died, years ago, i was in queens college, i met tina sinatra, there was a little event. tina the younger of the two daughters, nancy the older. i said did frank like that piece. she said probably he did but he would never tell you anything like that. that's my big award for frank. >> charlie: why do you like the other two better than this one. >> i thought that the

description of castro meeting moaned ali was a wonderful scene. this was in 1996, 30 years after sinatra. mohammed ali because of par kinsons, couldn't see me. it was the first time in the history of their career that they met. the i thought these are two major figures in american history in terms of adversarial relationship for the u.s. government. castro was a cuban for 50 years. evenal had his problems, the vietnam war. great story, great scene. i liked the story about the obituary writer. all the whitman. >> charlie: yes. tell me about writing for you. >> well, i get up in the

morning. i dress up for the story. there's something ceremonial about reporting. hey i'm alive today. i have a set of keys and i go on the sidewalk and i make a left and i go down further steps, i open the door and enter what used to be, it's like a basement, a wine cellar back in the 1880's. i turned it into an office. i had no phone, no e-mail. i don't even have e-mail now. they had styrofoam wall, and you put your notes there. they are all around my desk. i had my coffee there and it becomes my retreat. no telephone, no disturbing, it's quiet stood. i write in lang hand.

>> charlie: still. >> i still start that way. i have an old computer that's 30 years old. into do anything. i'm not on the internet. >> charlie: there's a term some people use called core competence. what do you think your core skills are. what do you think you do best. >> patience i think mostly. the curiosity is necessary to be in the art trade you have to be curious. the second thing is important because after you finally met the person that you think you want to write about, you might not be that interesting. and you have to be willing to spend a lot of time with not very interesting people until you get into what it is that you find worthy of writing about. it's wonderful when you have articulate people and good looking people and intelligent people, brilliant. but when you have people that are rather hoard and -- ordinary, like the ma fa, doing

honor thy father, they're sitting around the living room watching game shows or soap up rods because they had nothing to do in the afternoon, they always had their television on. they assume their rooms are bucked by the fbi. they assume the justice department was watching them. so the television muted the sound. they would talk under the sound of the ever playing television. so boring. they're watching stupid television. in the after noon television. it's not like being with cooks, you know, you're with very boring people. maybe they at night wake up and shoot somebody that's sort of interesting. but in the day time ... >> charlie: if you were a screen writer would you be better at dialogue or observation? >> well probably dialogue because observation is much in the realm of the director. his eye, the director's eye, his or her eye. what i do is i write --

>> charlie: but you see things. >> i see it in terms of scenes and i even, i write visually. i want to bring the reader into a kind of a vantage moment at which the reader will see what i saw. and i do see, i do see pictures. when i was writing about frank sinatra he rehearsed and his voice cracked. but the whole scene in the burbank's nbc studio where he was rehearsing was wonderful. >> charlie: how did your parents shape all this. >> my father is from italy, a tailor. he's a good tailor. he didn't make any money but he's a good tailor. i learned my craft from him in a sense of caring about things that last. button holes that didn't mop -p and the seams didn't come apart.

my mother wasn't a craftsman, she was a good seller of december. she had a dress shop. she liked to call it a boutique. a little pretension here and there. she was great because she used to have customers people who weren't easily dressed, middle aged people, overweight mainly, women of the town who had the money but maybe not the body to do anything with it but wear fine clothes. my mother was very good talking to emthis. she was born with brooklyn of italian parentage and she went down to the anglo saxson community, sturdy american stock from the main line of philadelphia. these matrons from the main lane of philadelphia spend their summers in ocean city and had nothing to do in the afternoon but stroll up and down the one street. as bury avenue was the one in this town. my mother was interested in these women and these women liked to talk, he they they std

around the shop and my mother pound them for information. a little of charlie rose there, she knew when to keep her mouth shut and she knew that was a source of information she wouldn't get anywhere else. i was packing the boxes you put the shirts in and the tissue papers and dusting the down of counters and sweeping. i was eavesdropping. this is where my journalism started. the stories women told weren't stories that would get in the newspaper but they were stories about the town. the stories that the fiction writers, the aforemention irwin shaw or people who were writing about private life. the willie lowman's perhaps, the ordinary characters in the hands of a creative genius like an author miller in terms of the may i mentioned, death of a salesman, ordinary people brought to international stature as willie lowman is an internationally known character to play. around the world china has

willie lowman. i wanted to as a little nonfiction writer, a promising journalist is what i was but i wanted to bring ordinary people and my mother's ordinary people were the regular customers in her dress shop i thought worth writing about. seeing these relatively obscure ordinary main street people, are significant. because they talked about the town, they talked about their time. they talked about women's issue before the term issue was even in the language, you follow me. >> charlie: when has writing been the hardest for you. >> it's always hard. even when i was a boy in my mother's dress shop, i did have a sense of craftsmanship. i got it from my mother i told you but -- father, i told you so. when i had my first job i would read these wonderful store sheers, f. scott fitzgerald short stories, hemingway short stories. i as spired to be. >> charlie: if you were doing it all over, would you do it differently. >> i don't think so because i

don't come from anything approximating a literary background. there weren't books in my home. i know you have many guests who are literary people. and there are people like martin amos, those people have a different world than i know. so journalism, my father read "the new york times" every day during the war. every day avidly because italy was at war with the united states and his whole village was being attacked at certain times in the southern part of italy. i was aware of foreign news. i was aware of the newspaper without comics. it was coming in every day to my father's dress shop, i mean my father's tailor shop. so i became aware of the big names in the new york times and those names are drew middleton and harrison salisbury, they were the big names of the world war ii period and post world war ii period as well. i never are want to be a foreign

correspondent. >> charlie: why not. >> i'll tell you why later, i might same sage on your show seeing how smart i am. i'm not northern born but i'm not far removed from it, you see america as kind of a foreign land because you don't feel secure here especially me italian in world war ii and my mother fighting for mussolini. those are the war years for he malt i'm sort of taking the view of america as an uncertain citizen i felt then. and i felt that all the way through my journalism career. i think it helps you be an outsider. you never feel that secure with powerful people. as a journalist especially in those days.

david haverstant were like me, the first of our family to go to college. some of us were italians, jewish, some are irish but we were not people who belonged in the clubs or who went to the colleges where the x secretary of state would go. we were not elite college people. we were outsiders and i think that helped as journalists. we were skeptical. we had skepticism toward powerful people because they sort of looked down on us. we thought there's this class thing. not bad for a journalist to feel an outsider, it's not true today for sure. today i think particularly in washington are socially on the same level of the people running the government and whether it's republican or democrat makes it a little different. they go to the same school, same parties, you know. >> and they are in some way arbitrators of power.

>> they love it too much, journalists. they love power. i would take that washington bureau, knock down 40 people and sprinkle them around the capitol of the united states. maybe 20 people coming to the state court or the supreme court, okay fine pentagon but cover america more. send those reporters, get away from that whole clique in washington, get the people in my mother's dress shop, get their steers in the newspaper more. >> charlie: what do you think of "the new york times" today? >> i like the paper today. >> charlie: better than the paper five years ago? you have to think about the potential. >> it's better than the paper i work for. i love abe rosenthaul was my favorite person. he was a great reporter.

that's how i knew him. he was a foreign correspondent, he made those stories alive. he was great. >> charlie: do great reporters make good editors. >> usually do not. rosenthaul did not want to be an editor. he was forced into it. >> charlie: one of my heroes. >> mine two. rosenthaul gave up being a reporter. i was one of the few people who loved it. >> charlie: because. >> he wanted people to write well. the new york time wasn't the new yorker. it was a reporters paper not a writer's paper. the herald tribute when tom was president in the 60's was a writer's paper. those guys could write and be published in the tribune. they allowed writers to flourish more than rosenthal my dear pal

in the 1960's when i was my final years there. >> charlie: are you worried about what's happening on-line killing newspapers. >> i do worry. i hope it's not killing, i hope it's a temporary fear. >> charlie: or distribution of the same content. >> i don't know what happened. i sometimes think there's a graded -- great story to be written at "the new york times" with some meeting of thinkers over there to sell itself for nothing. i think it was a major decision. a major mistake. it was a major mistake because i ink they under rated -- >> charlie: what do you mean for nothing. >> to give the news away. >> charlie: oh, i see. in other words not charge for the content on-line. as the wall street journal does. >> how great what they did and how unique what they did and to have the idea sending people to afghanistan even when there was not a war, they had people in afghanistan before. all around the world, that kind of leg work. that's great and irreplaceable. >> charlie: you're writing a book about your marriage.

>> i am. >> charlie: are you insane? >> well, i hope i'm not because i like to finish this book. and but what i'm doing is we started talking in the beginning of this program about nonfiction, and i said the difference between fiction and nonfiction is fiction but the short story writers playwrights do write about private life. much is about person life between men and women, marion, divorce, adultery, etcetera etcetera. the nonfiction writers, journalists, biographers, current affairs writers, essayists usually deal with public life, people who are publicly known. notoriously known or celibatary in private life. the life i prepared for that

i've remained married with one person in the same building for 50 years and not only remained married but kept every letter, over note and hardware bill in the course of our marriage. i've a saver. there are people who throw stuff away, i throw nothing away. not only do i not throw it away, i keep it and file it. i know where it is. i have these metal cabinets over my work stations and i date things 19. , 1959, married nan talese. i have a kind of novel but it's not, it's dated. >> charlie: is there a model for what you're attempting to do? is there a book. >> to the best of my knowledge -- >> charlie: it's a scenes of a great marriage, the film. >> no, it's not. it's a story, a nonfiction story about two people who had 50 years in the same house more or less. >> charlie: but you went through hell too. >> that's part of it.

that book you have over there, thy neighbor's wife is one reason i went through hell. how i justify as a reporter, dealing in the flesh pots of america. >> charlie: hanging out in the massage room. >> hanging out in sand stone sexual funland out there on the west coast. >> charlie: and being a participant. >> being a participant, not in the press box not saying well this is the way it looks up here, no, i was right in there with the actors and performers. i wrote about, i kept notes, i keep notes. >> charlie: it is said somehow that shook you that the aftermath of that. >> well a lot of things happened after but what happened perhaps i had these two daughters in school in new york. they were like 12 and nine at the time. i'm speaking about the 1970's. i've got a wife who is a private person. she's a public person in the sense she's a publishing business and all her authors and colleagues in random house and suomi and -- -- simon and

schuster. >> charlie: did you ever consider what you were doing to her. this is what i'm doing and it's total openness or not. >> no. >> charlie: it was totally transparent. >> since you brought it up i wish she had come and met some of the masseuse and the customers. i wanted her to be there. i wasn't ashamed what i was doing. it was shameful as perceived in the outside world and the media was disgusting was the word for me. but i didn't think it was gusting. i thought it was really trying to understand human nature. and also as an old fallen catholic, both of us were in the church when we met. and both of us, we're married yowrlt side the church. we married in 59 outside the church. my mother was curious and didn't talk to me for 40 years.

but i didn't think i was disgusting. i thought i was really going to do -- >> charlie: what did she think. >> my wife? >> charlie: yes. >> at first i said if you don't want me to do this, i won't do it. oh no i want you to do. she encouraged writers she has writers, margaret at wood, conroy and antonia frazier and ian mcqwen. go ahead and do what you want to do. >> charlie: is she a participant in this book? >> i have people, i have a person, a woman who assisted in my life. she works with me not on serious research but on sort of organizing and helping me. and she's a journalist. she's a graduate of the journalist school at nyu. she talked to nan. i had already done this. i don't use a tape recorder but there are things i want to have

on tape because i want to, i don't know, i just wanted to have a little record. not that i don't trust nan but she's an editor and sometimes they censor. >> charlie: as much as i think you're crazy to do this simply because it's catharsis and a lot of other things. >> it's a good story. >> charlie: i would like to have nan sitting here with a conversation for the two of you. >> when i finished the book. >> charlie: when will it be finished. >> next year. >> charlie: that's a date. you know how much i like her. honor thy father's out, huron thy neighbor is out. how much are you now. >> 47. >> charlie: the story is as simple as getting on a boat and

going around manhattan. there is david hammerstand going out on the new york times. >> i felt young again. >> charlie: thank you. gay talese, what more can i say. back in a moment, stay with us. >> joseph o"neill is here. his third novel went the ken faulkner award. it made dos of year end best list. new yorker critic james wood called it a large fictional achievement and one of the most remarkable post colonial novels i have ever read. it is now on paperback. it is the story of two american immigrants, one dutch and one west indian who bond over the game of cricket. i am pleased to have joseph

o"neill here. >> it's good to be at the receiving even. >> charlie: more for your admiration for him. >> i actually by coincidence, i was actually a big fan right from the beginning. i became an american citizen and that coincided with the primaries and it's very exciting to immediately hit the ground running as an american by taking part and having this candidate there. >> charlie: you know the story of president kennedy and ian flemming. >> no, i don't, actually. >> charlie: president kennedy when he was asked what was he reading he mentioned ian flemming and you could not find a james bond novel anywhere after that.

>> well, i'm afraid to say this book is still widely available. >> charlie: in paperback. >> in paperback. >> charlie: what's it about? >> it's about a person who is living in london and hears an old friend of him in new york has been found dead in the canal and that triggers his memory of years he spent in new york which is post 911 and the unlikely friendship he made from the trinidad history wanting to build a cricket stadium in new york. >> charlie: but really his dream was to the american experience of going from rags and riches. >> yes. i mean this emigrant, i mean it comes to america with pretty much nothing at all. he realizes there is this american life, there is this story of rags to riches and he believes it and he goes for it. >> charlie: and hans was the banker. >> yes. >> charlie: 911 comes, he's

in new york. his wife decides to go back to london with their child. he lives then because of the aftermath of 911 in the chelsea hotel. >> that's right. >> charlie: why was cricket sort of the binding place for the characters to find each other? >> well you know, when you're a writer or novelist, you try to identify the story that only you can tell. and in this case, when i came to new york in 9 just like my anyway narrator i started playing cricket and joined a cricket club. >> charlie: this is something i've been looking for and here it is. >> until that moment, i was just this boring focused person. and then i thought there is something going on here. the most obvious thing right

from the beginning is cricket. this was my experience is something that americans can't see. when i arrived, cricket was something nobody knew. >> charlie: there are cricket clubs in new york. >> in fact, once you tune into them, it's like becoming a naturalist. once you're aware of what the greatest spotty greed looks like you s them everywhere. in fact, new york is full of crickets. >> charlie: are they connected somehow so you go from one cricket club to another cricket club and they play each other and playoffs and finals. >> oh yes. they do have leagues but i mean the game, the sport is fragmented into little immigrant community in bangladesh leagues and pakistani leagues and indian leagues in jury e city. and new york city itself is a league i play in -- >> charlie: and you started playing because you loved the sport. >> yes. every summer i would play cricket. i said why break a habit just because i'm in new york. >> charlie: and now you play

golf. >> yes. >> charlie: you still have time for cricket? >> i do. one of the great benefits of being a writer, you have flexible hours. >> charlie: you can play cricket and golf. >> yes. although my, i'm a much more, i'm not as passionate as i am as a cricket employer because it ties up with my childhood. >> charlie: we didn't talk much much about cricket. what is it about correct et that makes in my case the people i know english men love it. >> well i mean now that you mentioned how interesting it was, just before i answer your question i should say i actually played cricket once and he got what's known as a duck meaning it was a straight away and rather unfortunate. >> charlie: like flying out to center or something. >> it's like being a pitcher and being taken off of the pitches.

>> charlie: because everybody was hitting your pitches. >> it's a very crude way to mention all that but he knows how to play a game of cricket. i think the sort of obsession with cricket, you know, is very much rooted in the fact that the game is synonymous with summer and recurrence and with childhood. so that every summer brings the fresh season with it. it's like baseball and a fresh opportunity to measure your sell against who you were the previous year. and it's a fresh opportunity to experience the illusions actually that time has not passed and that you're still here. you're still playing the game and you could be, you could be on the field 15 years ago with a

very recurrent retrospective almost experience. >> charlie: how does hans find chuck. >> he meets him on the cricket field. he plays cricket for stan ton island and there's an incident involving a gun. new york cricket is pretty calmative. he runs into this guy who is the empire and decides to latch on to this dutch banker and he tries to make him an ally in this dream of building a stadium in new york. >> charlie: and you learn about new york from that friendship. >> you do. through the eyes of hans, you learn about, you know, what will be seen as the invisible part of new york and cricket's part of the world. >> charlie: did you think about the great gatsby when you wrote this. >> the great gatsby is a book about love and i think it was

halfway through the book that i realized that there was something familiar about the plot. i realized it's the same as the great gatsby. and then of course i became slightly more conscious of the conversation this book was having with gatsby in the sense that it concerns the slightly gangsterish drama who is remembered by fleeingmatic outsider to new york city. >> charlie: you quote whitman in the beginning i dreamed a dream and saw a city invincible to be attached to the whole of the rest of the earth. i dreamed that was the new city of friends. >> well when i read that quote from whitman, i was slightly, i meanhe hairs stood up in the back of my neck. i hadn't understood that new

york city, how the modern idea of new york city is this kind of rendezvous for dreamers and strivers. that's a pretty ancient identity and it's so modern and constantly being rreshed. then of course you have this e pressed reference to the impresent traitability from the safety of new york to the outside world. well of course that came to an end. charlie: this is what's interesting about the experience too is many people come here and don't intend to stay but go back and a year later year later and year later. i think it happens other ways too people go to paris and they said to me i had to come back because i was becoming an expatriate. >> right. >> charlie: did you go through that. >> well i think the funny thing is, like my main character came here with the intention of sticking around for a couple years exactly as you've said.

but you fall in love with this place. the funny thing about it is although there were one of two things i missed about london which is why i lived for most f my adult life, i didn't feel expatriated. here in new york almost the minute you arrived you were offered this fresh identity, this new york identity and it sort of, it's not in conflict with the previous identity you had. >> charlie: you have said before that americans are sort of less curious as to where you came from in a specific way. >> yes. >> charlie: where as in other places they want to know what town did you come from. >> i'm not sure that true of americans, it's from of on new yorkers. >> charlie: okay. >> i have stepped outside of new york from time to time.

>> charlie: that's the accent. >> where are you from. but here in new york no one sees fit to ask that question. >> charlie: because there are so many. >> we've all got different accents. they want to know what we're doing for lunch. >> charlie: what do you like about new york. >> the whole idea of it. >> charlie: it absorbs you. >> the absorbs you and the longer you live here, obviously the city has its limitations. it's like all american cities. it's the size of social injustice. but what it does have is this remarkable sense of community which is practically unique. i mean, i can't be anywhere else in the world. 40% of new yorkers are born outside of the united states. if you had statistics in london and paris, you would have big trouble on your hands. >> charlie: france has been

criticized because it doesn't absorb muslims as well as they absorb say in new york. and that that's part of conflict. they don't become part of france. >> i mean, it's slightly different in new york. i mean holland is where i was recently going to say has exactly the same problem with its muslim immigrants. and the problem is no matter how liberal they are and of course the american constitution is very similar to the french one. their natural culture is not a limited one as it is in this country. and so they're much less comfortable with sort of changes that immigration represents. and i think that ultimately given the way the world is moving, i think countries will have no option but to adopt a new york model. human movement is going to

increase. bounty really. >> charlie: i agree with you. but new york is such a magnet for all the reasons you and i both know. >> yes. >> charlie: everybody writes about the human experience. not everybody but lots of people. is there a common denominator with all those immigrant problems. >> i think the reason immigration is an attractive story is it has a built in drama, a beginning, middle and end. and it has a big trajectory. >> charlie: and also acceptance and searching for connections? >> identity. >> charlie: right. >> economic striving, uncertainty. all the things that go into, classic ingredients of novels. and also there's a ready-made community at a certain point for these novels because you know, english language readers always hungry for new information. so either let's say you're a korean american and you write a novel which reflects the korean

american immigration experience. you are going to be the american korean community and the larger community which is always hungry for fresh perspectives, fresh information. and immigration represents an injection of novelty. >> charlie: do they primarily become absorbed by being american, but never develop a relationship to other immigrant communities? >> that often happens. i mean look at -- i'm just talking about the communities i'm aware of. african immigrants can spend their spire lives here not essentially talking to african americans. whereas they're lumped together the establishment view point.

it's no longer the faithful view it had to be. if i arrive here from cats stan, i'm still in touch with people at kazakhstan. it's not quite the break it used to be. >> charlie: it's different than getting on aship and arriving three weeks later and not being able to go back next week. >> yes. as a result of this you're getting a much more dynamic and more fluid and new kind of culture. >> charlie: tell me about hans and his mother. and the group he has. >> one of the, i mean it's like what we have here. in fact, it's possible this is, that his melancholy and disorientation is one of the reasons why his life leaves him with the child and goes back to london sneuvment being scared of what might come again. >> yes, it's also 911 shakes

them up. one of the reasons, it's not my opinion, it's in the book, is that his mother has died and as a result he feels unwitnessed. his father died many years before. and one of the questions that the book asks itself is to what extent. what does it mean to witness a life and to what exat any ex--e need that. the odd thing is that this men is actually lost, finds that this immigrant from trinidad is the guy who can bear witness to him in a way which he would never have anticipated. >> charlie: people talk in reviewing your book a lot about the language, a lot about the style, a lot about the power of the words. >> well i mean, it is, it's pretty gratifying i suppose when you spend many years writing a book such as i did. >> charlie: how long did this

take. >> this took seven years. precisely because you're trying to, you know, focus on the words and on the language in a way that you might not have done before, which i haven't done before. and it's pretty gratifying when people pick up on that. and i appreciate it. i mean, it's just as a matter of person preference when i write i'm thinking in the first instance about voice and sentences and about words. i sort of gather them together for a while and then i sort of see what they generated. so the first instinct is one of language because i'm a novelist. >> charlie: is it for you like a sculpture. you have a marble or material in front of you which is the idea. and you just try to make a form and then for the time you're taking it. >> if i were a sculptor, i would

need to get the human figure out of it. i would be the sculptor who would knock away randomly the rock. >> charlie: just to see what's coming out. >> just to see what's coming out and then follow that. >> charlie: how does it work for literature. >> it takes a long time. >> charlie: where does the 911 stuff come from is it important to this. >> it started before 911 and then 911 occurred. and of course there's a person and there's a human response to all of that because i lived in new york with my family. >> charlie: and you lived in the chelsea hotel. >> and the chelsea hotel but at a certain point you go back to work and you realize as a novelist you have no option but to write about this world that has changed. and then that takes a long time to figure out because there's a war going on in afghanistan and iraq and that all needs into the

book. and you know, i felt basically like i was stuck for years but looking back now i realize what in fact was happening i would like to think was that, you know, i was learning the world but in this book enjoyed what was happening in the real world. >> charlie: it was coming in almost by inescapably osmosis. >> at that time to write about new york city and not write about 911 is to make a very very big decision and one i wouldn't have felt comfortable with at all. >> charlie: you rewrote the second half of it. >> yes. what happened is i wrote it and then i realized that the second half was awful. >> charlie: why was it awful. >> because it was too plotty. i had fallen into the trap which for this book is a trap. if you're writing a different kind of book it's not a trap but

writing towards the plot point. and you get there. you get to the plot points but then you've got something dead. >> charlie: so did you go back and just let it breathe and let it go and unleashed it and it went roaring ahead. >> i did. roaring ahead pretty -- >> charlie: accurate. st being a barrister in the english system making the argument in court and all of that, does that feed your abilities as a novelist? >> i think it helps in the sense of structure. >> charlie: i do too. i think it does. it's a framing question more than anything else. >> i think it does. and there's a sort of inner logic, there's an inner logic to cross examination which is not visible or odd been to the on

looker. if you're writing a novel and trying to understand what issues are being raised by your novel. in other words let's say you write, you know, five chapters and then you write another five chapters, at the end of the second batch of five chapters i think you need to go back and say we'll have all the questions raised in the first five chapters being answered in the first five chapters or not. that's a realistic way of thinking. no loose ends, everything else serves a purpose. >> charlie: how hard is it going to be to find another idea for you that is so encompassing as this. >> i think i found something but. >> charlie: it's about baseball. >> yes, i got the stick. a guy with a terrible slice. >> charlie: i'll only come back when you fix that slide as long as you're miserable, i'm

miserable. >> let me take that down. >> charlie: look at the best ten lists. all the listed best ten novels of the year you're there and therefore that sets a high standard, i mean a high mark. >> i suppose. but people say there's pressure. here's where i think there's pressure. pressure is what i had for the first 20 years of my writing. i'm not being hyperbolic here. i did not meet a single person who outside my, you know, immediate certain family friends that read any of my books in 20 years. so that is more pressure than i think the pressure he'll allegedly under now as a result of the gratifying and i've seen a lucky success of thebook. >> charlie: you don't know anybody outside of your own family that read your book that said you changed my life or gave me a point of recognition, affirmed everything i have always believed in.

>> no, nothing. >> charlie: none of it. >> i'm talking about accidentally met anyone. i haven't met anyone who said hold on i haven't read any of your work. aren't you the guy that wrote something. >> charlie: poor thing. >> that was pressure. this is fine. >> charlie: joseph o'neill, thank you. >> my pleasure. >> charlie: thank you for joining us, see you next time. captioning sponsored by rose communications captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org