colson whitehead is its only member.vel, "the nickel boys," about the jim crow south. in 2017, he won for the "underground railroad." through historical fiction, he has illuminated the past to tell us something about our present. but, his work does not stay in one place. he has written about elevator inspectors, zombie hunters, and the world series of poker. his next book is a heist novel. one of the other four members of the double-pulitzer club, john updike, said of whitehead's style, "his writing does what writing should do. it refreshes our sense of the world." can i ask you about your first lines? "even in death, the boys were in trouble." "the first time caesar approached cora about running north, she said, 'no'." "it's a new elevator, freshly pressed to the rails, and it's not built to fall this fast." "i have a good poker face because i'm half-dead inside." those first lines, they're all crackling. tell me about the process of the first line. >> colson whitehead: i'm very fond of them. ( laughs ) and i think, you

possible still to come of things which today i can't stop planned possibles be quite honest with colson was. born a half decades in the results of the study are striking as a group gaddis and his former classmates are healthier they're better educated they make more money and they're less likely to have committed a crime and then a group of similar kids the study also tracked who didn't attend the program mom she had she shifting somewhat grandparents raised me from birth neither one of them had a 3rd grade education couldn't read or write and so from my own experience here's a child grow up with limited resources good was able to attain but level playing field in the classroom if i don't know that i was surnamed program probably one i have a chance. we have a chance of being intergenerational poverty today in this country you're born into poverty odds are you're going to end up as an adult up with high quality early childhood education that's a strong possibility breaking that cycle i would suggest he and is one of several long term studies that show when it comes to children their ear

and the way i kind of found that little bit of business out was i looked at hank colson's book and he basically wrote it in diary form so he said i briefed this senator this time that the us economy was going to crater and the senator hosted his stock trades but we posted the brokerage accounts so you have time stamped when the stock trade was . i matched up when the meeting was with when the stock trade was and it was within 30 minutes. and the senator cleared30,000 or something in a short tranny time . 30,000 is a lot of money for 25 percent of what they make in a year or something atthat time . and they given themselvessome racist sense . so at the time there was a corrective legislation to make this illegal call the stock and it only had 13 sponsors so after we did the story, it got 185 sponsors within a week. senators were fighting over who's going to sponsorit in the senate . president obama talk about it in the state of the union and within three or four months it ended up passing and i was in the white house, invited to the white house to watch the signing and that was enormou