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- [00:08]
Kate
Hello and happy Thursday listeners. If it's Thursday, it is time for the bookcase with Kate and Charlie. So book nerds, I'll introduce myself. I am the Kate part of that duo. And I will allow my co host to introduce himself because I'm so, so giving like that.
- [00:25]
Charlie
I see. Book nerds. Do you take that as a pejorative term or do you take that as a complimen?
- [00:33]
Kate
I do not take it. As a matter of fact, yes I do. I do. I'm very proud of being a book nerd. I really am. There are more unhealthy habits to have. And if that's the area in which you are nerdy, then thumbs up to you. You are my friend. You are part of my community. Okay.
- [00:51]
Charlie
You know, if you go back to the high school playground and you call somebody a nerd, I think that's taken as something of an insult, isn't it? Now it's been a long time since I've been in high school. Been a long time since I've been anywhere.
- [01:03]
Kate
But then you, then you get older and you realize one, that educated people are cool. Two, and that nerds do pretty well from themselves in adulthood. So I don't know, maybe we, we, we then sort of desire to join the, the nerd group. At least I do. I, I don't mind it anymore. Maybe it bothered me on the playground, but I embrace it now.
- [01:23]
Charlie
I will leave that to the judgment of all who are listening. You can decide for yourself. The book this week is so Far Gone. That's the title of the book. It's not a characterization of it. So Far Gone is the title. The author is Jess Walter. W A L T E R. It's just out. And it is very, very good. Both Kate and I would agree. Let me give you a little precis of the book. The central character is named Reese Kinnick. He is an elderly gentleman, but a few years ago he, he was at a Thanksgiving dinner. We've all had difficult Thanksgiving dinners. And his son in law, who is a right wing zealot and deeply, deeply involved in religion, says a bunch of what he considers to be stupid things. And he punches his son in law in the face. And he is so appalled by what he's done that he drives away, he throws his cell phone into the water. There's a lovely feeling about cell phones that he has because I agree with it. And he goes into sort of Henry Thoreau seclusion for seven years and just divorces himself from society, runs away and then he's Brought back into society a re emergence by the necessity of taking care of his grandchildren. For a while anyway, that's the story. But the right wing religious militia are very much a part of this. And I suppose, Kate, you could worry that the book's going to get very political about this and it is hard on this group. But I didn't take it so much as a political polemic. I took it as a, something of a commentary on these groups that tend to congregate in the eastern Washington, eastern Oregon, northern Idaho area where Jess Walter lives.
- [03:06]
Kate
Yeah, but I think also this book is about isolationism. And can you be a successful humanist and be an isolationist? And, and, and man, I understand the temptation of being an isolationist right now. You know, the left doesn't trust the government and it doesn't trust private industry and the right doesn't, you know, doesn't trust the medical profession and it doesn't trust libraries. And I feel like all of us have lost faith in.
- [03:32]
Charlie
And doesn't trust the media, I would say.
- [03:34]
Kate
Exactly. And doesn't trust the media. Yes. So I think there's a lot of distrust and division in today's society. It is unavoidable. You can't open a newspaper, a magazine, a book without facing how divided this country is. And there have been moments where I've thought, why don't we all just go into the woods and get a wood stove and just live off the land? Because I don't know that I want to be a part of this crazy society that can't seem to stop arguing. And I think Jess Walters basic question in this book is, can you do that and still be a successful human? Whether you're an isolationist right wing, you know, take our country back? Or are you a Henry David Thoreau saying we need to erase our footprint on the land? I'm not sure either one of those. I mean, do you miss out on basic human connection, on family, on relying upon each other, on loving each other? And I think that's the question in this book. And I also want to say that it brings up all these serious issues. But this book is also very funny.
- [04:34]
Charlie
Oh, it's very funny. Very funny.
- [04:36]
Kate
Yeah.
- [04:37]
Charlie
And his grandchildren, the need to take care of his grandchildren is what brings him back into society. And he has to take care of his grandchildren because his daughter has disappeared. There's just one little passage I would read that I think sums it up pretty well. His daughter says, I get it too. The urge to run. I can't tell you how many times I just go leave everything behind. I think we all have that feeling at times. Wouldn't it be nice just to chuck it and take off and you know, put all our cares behind? And he does that for seven years and then comes back, as I say, into. Into society. There social commentary in the book. There is, as Kate mentions, laugh out loud humor. There is endearing characters I think in the book and there's a really good plot. There's one character, nine year old Asher, who is one of the grandchildren. I have Asher as a grandchildren. Katie's oldest child, Charlie asks as many questions as Asher does.
- [05:39]
Kate
Asher asks question no question that will not be asked. There is no piece of information that will not be shared. There is no. She is a narrator and a town crier all wrapped up into one. And I think Asher, I loved Asher and I love. I think one of the things Jess Walter does so beautifully in this book is he. He writes from different perspectives, but they're distinct. He is sympathetic to all of them, including some of the white nationalists and the leaders of this group and who've sort of all gotten themselves in over their own heads. I think he's very. I think he writes all of these characters with great humanity, but again, great humor. It's a terrific book.
- [06:24]
Charlie
Yeah, it really is. It's just I couldn't recommend it more highly and as I say, it's got all of those things in it makes it very readable. Both of us, as you'll hear when we talk to Jess Walter, that it's a gooder. It's a gooder. And this theme of whether you can absent yourself from society or not and whether it can be productive, it's a continuing theme in the book. So you'll hear it when we talk to Jess Walter. Our conversation about so Far Gone. Jess Walter, the book is so far gone and it is a pleasure to have you not gone, but here in the bookcase. We really thank you for joining us. You explore in this book what I think is a very human trait to escape it all, to put it down. There was a brilliantly named Broadway show a number of years ago called Stop the World I Want to get off. And you seem to ask whether that can really be done. Does the need for human connection make it impossible in the long run? Does it?
- [07:29]
Jess Walter
I certainly hope so. That was the original thing that sparked this, the, the idea for this book. I, I'll tend to work on one or two or three novels at the same time. And in 23 and 24. I've just felt Myself being both compelled to read the news seven hours a day on whatever device I had, and then also to just run away. And I happened to see a New Yorker cartoon. It had a car driving down the highway, and the highway said, can't look away. And then there was a little off ramp that said, had enough? And. And I remember thinking, I think I've had enough. And there's a moment in the book where the protagonist, Rhys Kinnick, remembers just throwing his cell phone out a car window. His smartphone, this tether to about as. As dismal a world as we can imagine sometimes. And a machine built, by the way, to increase our anxiety so that we keep, you know, looking at it and feeding it. And so that idea of throwing your cell phone out the window, of just retreating to someplace wild and free, you know, the Walden pond. Is there a Walden pond out there for any of us where we can go and just meditate and live and be away from all this noise?
- [08:46]
Charlie
You, you described the cell phone as a $600 pop tart of modern science. And I, I always feel that when I hold the phone up, I feel you're talking to a pop tart.
- [08:56]
Jess Walter
Remember how an old telephone fits your hand and your ear and your mouth? So much of technology has not improved our lives. You know, I mean, ask, ask any parent. Are you glad that we have social media, that we have, that our kids have? You know, almost everyone, I think, would say, no, I'm not. And yet we are chained to these advancements that I think in many ways used improperly, which most of us do, don't make our lives better.
- [09:25]
Charlie
There's a whole discussion to be had about that, and maybe we'll get to it. But there's an interesting series of parallels in your book. There are individuals and there's a right wing militia group that try to do the same thing. Rhys, your protagonist, goes off the grid for seven years. Bethany, his daughter, runs away from her family for a time. And then there's a group, and I think it's fair to characterize it as a. As a right wing militia group, but they want isolation from society and they construct a rampart, or a redoubt, as you call it. Is your theme really that. That these things don't work as well? They may be well intentioned, but they don't work as well as they start out to be.
- [10:06]
Jess Walter
You've hit on something there that in some ways they're both doing the same thing. You know, Rhys has turned away from the world he can't bear. You know, the, the way the election has turned out and the way the culture is going and the cruelty within the world and, and I think Shane, his son in law, I think they're more alike than they would like to admit because he has turned away from the world into this idea of conspiracy thinking. You know, a fifth of Americans believe that COVID vaccine was used to implant microchips. The number of people who believe that the US government was behind 9, 11, that the 2020 election was stolen. We've lost to reality. And I don't think that's left or right. I think that sort of is for everyone. We've broken down these institutions that we used to believe in and trust. And what's left is a sort of fractured sense of reality that I think all the characters are dealing with.
- [11:02]
Kate
I come back to a line in the book though, where you say technology has finally succeeded in shrinking the world. Is that new love that we seem to have for conspiracy theories on the left and the right, is that maybe an inevitability from technology shrinking the world?
- [11:18]
Jess Walter
I think that is one big part of it, the it. Because it hasn't it. It. It. While it's shrunk the world, we don't get access to all of it. Especially the way technology companies work. They feed you the thing that originally many of the tech companies thought that they would feed you what you loved, but then they realized you respond more to what scares you, what makes you anxious. And so we are given a constant stream that both reaffirms what we think we know, but also terrifies us in some way. I think that's a big part of it. I do think another big part of it is this erosion of trust in institutions. Look, how many people have lost trust in the media, of course, but also in medicine, in doctors, after the pandemic, in libraries. You know, people are challenging their libraries, trying to take things out. Who didn't trust libraries, schools, you know, all of these institutions have lost trust. And, and I think you can't fracture society that way. You can't, you can't break it apart without sending people sort of scurrying off to their little places. And the Rampart is a place where people have scurried out of fear, out of the belief in these conspiracy theories. And Rhys Kinnick to, in his own way, has found a place where he can sort of hide out from the world, I guess. You know, I don't know that a novel, especially one that is written as a road trip and a sort of wild story, and Rhys trying to get his family back together can have a lesson, but if it does, it's that we can't turn our back on things, no matter how difficult they are.
- [12:59]
Kate
Well, then that leads me to a question for Jess Walter, which is, how much of this novel was written from your own anxiety and dread?
- [13:07]
Jess Walter
I haven't exactly crunched the numbers, but I would say a good 81%. Yeah, I. It's funny, I was writing the novel in the late 20th, 2023 and 2024, and I remember telling my editor at some point, I sure hope this is historical fiction by the time it comes out. You've never had someone root so hard for their work to no longer be relevant when it comes out.
- [13:35]
Charlie
Well.
- [13:36]
Jess Walter
And its relevance, I think, is in many ways one of the hardest things for me to take. Rhys runs away in 2016 and imagine running away in 2016, coming back in 2024 and finding out not only has this difficult period not passed, but it's gotten worse.
- [13:53]
Charlie
Yeah, you're very hard in the book on your fictitious right wing Christian group, or at least a couple members of it, who, who turn violent. You live in that area, the part of the world where these groups tend to congregate. Eastern Washington, eastern Oregon, northern, northern Idaho. What don't we understand about these groups? And should we try to understand them or should we tend to write them off as nuts?
- [14:23]
Jess Walter
There's an interesting moment in the novel. Rhys returns to an old girlfriend and says, who's covering the radical right now? And she says, the government reporter. That's one of the reasons we cannot overlook these beliefs and these sets of feelings. They also come, I think, from a place we would recognize, which is fear and the desire to protect our families and the desire to protect our country. We have a different gap now. It's not based. Then young people challenged institutions. Older people were sort of trying to keep what felt to them like the fabric from fraying. We have a gap now that is more about reality. We are being given at all times different sets of reality, of. Of what the danger is, of what the world holds, what. What's out there that can threaten us. One side is being told it's immigrants, that it's communists. The other side is being told that it's fascism, that it's the cruelty of. Of. And I. And I think when you're being given those two different worlds, you can. You can demonize the other side and say, as Rhys does. Rhys goes on a rant that I may have felt in my bones at some point where he talks about the fact that, you know, that the, the greedy constituency has melded with the ignorant constituency and somewhere along the line they found the asshole constituency and that it's an unbeatable constituency to have those three groups together. And that's, you know, and have I had that opinion, I could say no comment, but it would not be true.
- [16:01]
Kate
I'd love to talk to you a little bit about your process of writing a book because I've gotta go back to something you said. You're working on multiple novels at the same time.
- [16:11]
Jess Walter
I am, yeah.
- [16:12]
Kate
Now, now is there a time where you shove the other novels aside and say, this is my novel. Is that what happened with this? And how did you know you were ready to jump off the diving board?
- [16:22]
Jess Walter
Yeah, probably my biggest novel was called Beautiful Ruins, which came out in 2012. And I had worked on that for 15 years. And, and I, and when I say that it wasn't like for 15 years, I said, oh, this is going to be a work of, you know, staggering genius. I failed at it for 14 years, I guess. And so as a, as a former journalist, you know, when Charles Portis used to be asked about his career, he would say he was a newspaperman. And I very much relate to that. And so I try and I try to keep working even if I hit walls. And so in the 15 years that took me to write Beautiful Ruins, I published three other novels. And similarly, I was at work on a big sort of character driven thing. And as this feeling started coming into me, this desire to either to get off the freeway and stop obsessing about the news and the state of the country and the election, this book just came to me in a kind of fever and I thought, I set the other book aside and I wrote. I, I sometimes, like, there's a part of me that sort of turns into a spot news novelist, you know, and, and it was like, I've got to cover this, this story is happening right now. I can work on my, on my big project later, but I've got to cover this fissure that I think is affecting families more than any political situation since the 1960s. You know, this felt to me like something that, you know, that I, that I couldn't kind of couldn't have ignore once the story came to me. I think because I was thinking of a writer like Portis, I very much set out to write a Charles Portis like novel, fast and funny, with digressions, a road trip that, that hopefully illustrates these larger things that I want to say about the political state about families, about trying to reconnect and pull ourselves together in some way.
- [18:20]
Kate
Well, it's interesting because my father and I talk a lot about when we're enjoying a novel. We call each other sometimes and go, but does he stick the landing? You write towards a very. I mean, there's a very sobering ending. Not to give, too. Not to give any spoilers. Do you, do you. How. How much of a planner are you? Did you know you were writing towards that ending?
- [18:40]
Jess Walter
I did. I. I had a few things in mind. One was what would bring these two characters who have an entirely different view of. Of the world back together? And it was family. It was protecting family. I knew I was writing to that point. I also knew that this is as. As comic as. As this situation is. I, I am a. I'm a comic writer. Not as. Because I like to tell jokes, but because it's the philosophy with which I approach the world. I believe we are all walking around with our hubris out in front of us and our folly and we're tripping on banana peels all day long. And so it's just the way I look at the world. But I didn't want that humor to take away from the fact that this is really dangerous, that we are in times that will try us in ways that we have to be really prepared for. And I'm not afraid to balance pathos with humor or suspense with humor or anything with humor. Like I said, it's really philosophically the way I look at the world. And so I almost always find myself blending those things if I can.
- [19:54]
Charlie
And it's why Katie and I both came away loving this book, because you, you do a wonderful job of. Of. Of blending that theme of isolation and connection with social commentary bound up in a really wonderful story, but is downright funny at times. I found myself laughing at a wonderfully, perhaps overly inquisitive young boy named Asher, a wonderfully profane, delightfully profane character. In Lucy, there's a phone conversation where people are trying to repeat what the others are saying. And we've been. We've all been a part of that. Is that a tricky balance? To take a story like this that does have some profound political and social implications and use humor in it?
- [20:41]
Jess Walter
I had a really good writer friend say you write stand up tragedy. And I thought that was kind of the most brilliant phrase to describe not only how I write, but sort of how I think and how the world appears to me. And so at the time, I don't feel like I'm Balancing and to me, humor must come out of humanity. The roots of those words are the same. And, and that human quality of fallibility of trying and failing is what connects us.
- [21:18]
Kate
I think of this book a little bit like a tree, like Rhys is our trunk. And the book begins thoroughly in Rhys's perspective. And then it branches out into all of these distinct voices. Did you know you were gonna have to tell this story from Lucy's perspective, Asher's perspective, that everybody was gonna have to get a voice when you started writing?
- [21:37]
Jess Walter
One of the great things about writing a novel is you don't know anything. You know, really. You start out with a guy opening a door and there are his grandchildren. And then you say, who are they? What's happening? I think, but, but that's what often what happens is the thing you don't know is the thing you end up enjoying the most about that novel. One of the one thing I love about, liked about the title was that it could be read many different ways. Is America so far gone? Is Kinnick so far gone? Is his son in law so far gone? Are they only gone so far? Can they come back? And I quickly came up with this idea for the chapter titles that they would also be statements and questions. So what's the first chapter? What happened to Kinnick? But also could be what happened to Kinnick? You know, and through. And through each of the chapters, you're both posing the question, which is what I think fiction does, and then also in a very straightforward way telling what happens to those characters. And each time I got to bring a character in, to me, it just opened up the novel more. My novels have always tended to be more polyphonic with many different characters.
- [22:51]
Charlie
To come back to this theme of isolation versus connection. You have a therapist in the book, Betsy, I think her name is. Ask a question of Bethany. Is it possible? Is it possible in this age with the urge to escape relationships? Is it possible to escape relationships? What's your answer to that question?
- [23:15]
Jess Walter
Oh boy, it is. Sadly. You know, the other thing that this device does is divide us in a way. We are, we have a. We now have a handheld device that should connect us to everyone in our lives. We all have. You know, my son would play video games with his best friend and they were never in the same room. They would be in different places. I don't mean to. I sound like the worst Luddite in America, but. But I, I was reading a book called Stolen Focus, which is about how, you know, this whole. The way in which our, Our, Our, Our Attention spans have been fractured by this technology. And I'm, I love coming on a podcast that talks about books because this is the antidote to losing that sense of attention that we used to have. Being able to focus on something, being able to be there in the moment. That old book, Bowling Alone, that talked about what happened to the bowling leagues, what happened to the service clubs, it may seem arcane and quaint, but, I mean, I think the more we're out in the world, meeting each other, talking, sharing our fears, you know, hopefully not at a school board meeting where we're punching each other. The more we do that, I think the more we have a chance to reconnect, and I think it starts with families, and I think that's the real catharsis is coming back to the people that we care about. And that's the reason that our fear of the world is so deeply embedded in us. Both sides say the same thing. We want our children to inherit what, you know, and, and weirdly, we have this thing in common. You know, on their side, they say, I want it to be the place of my childhood when America meant this. On the other side, it's. I want a place that, you know, that tackles climate change and that is, you know, that has a, a root kindness. And it, it's amazing. We, we have the same aim, almost pointed in exactly opposite directions.
- [25:12]
Charlie
Jess Walter, I, I. So far gone, I'm delighted to say, reflects your sense of optimism. And while it starts with so many people being isolated, their need for connection in the end will out. So we, we thank you for taking the time to talk to us. And I would like you to stand by, if you would, for some rapid fire questions.
- [25:32]
Jess Walter
Oh, I'm terrified of this part, but I'll, I'll be.
- [25:48]
Kate
Rapid fire questions for Jess Walter, lesser known book you recommend to everyone.
- [25:54]
Jess Walter
Wow. I have just been reading the works of Natalia Ginsberg, who's an amazing Italian writer who was writing during World War II, and boy, talk about the effect of your time, of the world and of politics on your time. Her books are incredible. So I would, I would go to any one of Natalia Ginsburg's books, and.
- [26:16]
Charlie
If you were going to a friend's house and wanted to take them, a present of a book, not one of your own, what would you take them? What would you take them to?
- [26:23]
Jess Walter
Me, I mean, if I wasn't allowed to bring mine, I'd probably fake being sick and not go to my friend's house, but if I had to, it would honestly depend on the person I mean you can't give the same book to everyone. I've yet to give John Williams stoner to any man over 40 who didn't just burst into tears upon finishing it. So I might start there. I'm a big fan of Ann Patchett's books, not knowing who the person is. I think most people would love to read Ann Patchett and I've always sworn by Percival Everett and I'm like one of those people who was listening to this band when it first came out and now the whole world has discovered it. So I would BRINGGING probably those three books and hand them out at will.
- [27:10]
Charlie
Where do you write?
- [27:11]
Jess Walter
I write mostly in this office where I'm sitting right now, which is in a 110 year old rock building about 40 yards behind my house. And so I commute to work at 5:30 in the morning most days and my right staring out windows. And then I immediately take a journal and I go to second breakfast after having my coffee and a cookie and I write some more ideas in my journal at second breakfast, either a crepe or bacon and eggs. And then I write home, come back and work a little bit here.
- [27:46]
Charlie
So what's the most idiosyncratic thing that you have on your writing desk or nearby?
- [27:52]
Jess Walter
Wow, the most idiosyncratic thing on my writing desk. I'm looking now. I think most of it is pretty straightforward. I do have about six different pairs of glasses which strangely all have the exact same prescription. But some days the world just looks better through a different pair than and so and I never throw glasses away. My prescription hasn't changed and so I have way too many pairs of glasses, I suppose.
- [28:22]
Kate
When you finish a book, how do you celebrate? Do you have a finishing ritual if.
- [28:27]
Jess Walter
You, if you've ever been to Vegas? I do what blackjack dealers do. I do this which just when they leave the table, it just shows the camera that they're not stealing any chips, that they've left everything they have on the table. And I do that. The problem with finishing a book is any author will tell you There are 8,000 false finishes. So by the time I'm done doing this, my hands are chapped from clapping them and standing up. And I write in my journal all the time. Finish the novel today and then the very next day I write back in the novel. So every finish is a false finish for me.
- [29:04]
Kate
Do you lend out your books?
- [29:06]
Jess Walter
I do share books. There are. I have a couple of shelves of signed hardcovers from my heroes, some of whom have been on here. Richard Russo, for instance. And so I have a signed shelf that everyone knows to stay away from and of classics and hardcovers that I love. But everything else is, yeah, it goes in and out like the tide.
- [29:26]
Charlie
Do you read your reviews?
- [29:27]
Jess Walter
I do. And the funny thing is I tend to agree with the negative ones almost completely. Like they somehow, they're like a little plug and play right into my insecurities. And I don't get that many negative reviews, which is very lucky. And the amazing thing is even someone who maybe didn't agree with what happened in the book or doesn't love the style, I think of how much time they put into it. And you know, you write a book, it's like writing a piece of music that other people are going to play and, and you know, and maybe it comes out discordant the way they play it. But, but yeah, I, I, I do read reviews.
- [30:10]
Kate
And then the last question I have for you, it's, it's sort of a cliche question, but the best piece of advice you've ever received about writing, boy.
- [30:18]
Jess Walter
The best piece, you know, I had an old newspaper editor who, when I was writing in newspapers back in the 1980s and early 90s, I had these high literary aspirations, much like I do now. And I, and sometimes that would bleed into my news writing a little bit. And the copy desk, back in the day, you'd write a short a story and it would be measured in column inches. That's when you print it out in a column. How long would it be? And a good sized News story is 30, 40 inches. And the copy desk at one point nicknamed me old triple digit because you would send me out to cover a house fire and I would come back with a 300 inch story, you know, a Steinbeckian story about this family suffering under the, under the weight of late stage capitalism or something. And this editor was reading one of my stories and she said, you write great descriptions now. Pick one. And it was a great lesson not only in brevity and in, but, but also that most readers are gonna pick up one really sharp detail and it, and you can create an entire world like an impressionist painting by just focusing on the thing that really matters.
- [31:33]
Charlie
So Far Gone is the book. It's been a pleasure, a real pleasure to talk to you.
- [31:37]
Jess Walter
Thank you, thank you, Charlie and Kate. It's been great talking to you and thanks for all you do for books too and for bookstores. That's, that's wonderful.
- [31:48]
Charlie
The book again, so far gone. One of the things I liked about it, Kate is he has a love hate relationship, as he expresses in the book, with the cell phone, as do I. He mentions that the old phones, which probably most of the people listening don't remember, that you held up to your ear and there was a little cup on your ear and there was a mouthpiece and it fits so nicely around your face. I miss that. As he says, you're essentially talking into a pop tart now.
- [32:14]
Kate
See, but I. I'm not sure I agree with you there because as a girl who grew up with parents who kept phones in common areas, the cord was never long enough to get the privacy that you wanted from your parents.
- [32:28]
Charlie
Well, anyway, he describes. I'm going to read it. He describes the old phone fitting so nicely in your hand and covering your ear so perfectly. Now we turn to this hard, unwieldy deck of cards that doubles as a movie camera, a personal assistant, a consumer tracking advice, and an anxiety crack pipe. You don't like them. And I agree with him. But. But I'm. I'm much too much of an old timer.
- [32:53]
Kate
I guess what I love is when you go to the kids concerts. You know, you go to the kids Christmas concerts and the opening day concerts and the closing day concerts of school and all the kids come out and they're so cute and then all the parents do this and they put their hands right in front of them with the. And they start recording. And you think you're missing it. You're missing it. I love the idea that we just talked to Jay Ryan who said that his big breakthrough came through relaxation and meditation. And I get the sense Jess Walter wrote this book out of anxiety, that it was really. That it was really anxiety about society and technology and our divisiveness that really motivated him to get this book done. I hope it was cathartic for him and he feels a little bit better releasing this book out into the world because I say it is a terrific plot and great memorable characters. Very funny. And sticks the landing. We really did love this book. Again, is the plot a little out there? Maybe, but I think its themes are unbelievably common and relatable.
- [33:52]
Charlie
I want to come back to the cell phone for a minute. And I won't drop a name here, but when I was still at Good Morning America, I had an opportunity to interview the man who was at that time President of the United States. And he had just come from a backstage arrival. He arrived at the venue where we were going to talk and he had to go through a line of all of the Police who had accompanied him on their motorcycles to get to the venue. And every single one of them had a cell phone and he had to stop and have his picture taken with the policeman, each one with his arm out, you know, taking a picture of the two of them. He said, if I had it to do over again, I think I would limited cell phones.
- [34:34]
Jess Walter
Well, he said, yeah.
- [34:34]
Kate
I mean, you would eliminate them.
- [34:37]
Charlie
Well, I know I, I, as a matter of fact, I think I overstate what he said. But, but he didn't like it because he couldn't get anywhere without taking, you know, 10 minutes to take pictures with everybody.
- [34:48]
Kate
Listen, I remember thinking when they first came out that there was no more ridiculous invention than the selfie stick. You remember that? When the stick came out and all of us were like, why would you put your phone on a stick? That makes no sense to me. Now you can't go to any major tourist destination, 9 11, memorial included, which I think is really strange. And people are holding their phone out with the stick to get the best angle and oh, I look thin like this. You know, my, my, everything draws back and I look fabulous. I just, I find that odd. I don't know, like, you know, there, there was something sort of depressing when I was a kid though about taking lots of pictures for an amazing occasion, then getting everything back from the developers and going, oh, I see. So you know, we took 30 pictures and I managed to have my eyes closed. Fantastic. So there is that sort of Russian roulette with the old fashioned cameras and I get that. But it really the way that we center our lives around phones and tablets and technology and thinking that it was our goal to make the world a smaller place. And now we have made the world a smaller place and yet we all seem to be more divided and anxious because of it. Another theme in so Far Gone and it is very well explored in this book.
- [36:00]
Charlie
Before we go, I have a book fact for you. I love these book facts and I will ask you, if I say the word browsing, what comes into your mind?
- [36:09]
Kate
Oh, you know what's really sad? The first thing that popped into my head was the Internet.
- [36:13]
Charlie
Really?
- [36:14]
Kate
Yes. After that conversation we had, I thought Internet browser. Ooh, ooh. That makes me feel terrible given the fact that books are my life. So I apologize, but that was the first thing that popped into my head was Internet browser.
- [36:25]
Charlie
Isn't that interesting? Isn't that interesting? Because the term browsing has only a bookstore connotation to me. Anyway, we asked Evan Friss who wrote a wonderful Book called the Bookshop, which is about the history of bookstores, et cetera, et cetera. It's a good book. We asked him, where does the term browsing come from?
- [36:44]
Jess Walter
Browsing dates to the 15th century, when it was first used to describe how cows and goats and other grazers munched on vegetation. Oliver Wendell Holmes, who frequented the Old Corner Bookstore in Boston, liked to describe his bookstore experience as book tasting, perfectly capturing the sentiment behind the original and evolving definition of browsing, which came to mean leisurely poking around in a bookstore.
- [37:11]
Charlie
CK it goes back to the 15th century, and I don't think, correct me if I'm wrong, I don't think the Internet was around then, was it?
- [37:21]
Kate
No. How no, I don't think that it was. I think I at least knew that. I love the idea of book tasting, although I'm thinking to myself, man, then after a trip to an independent bookstore, I walk out with a very full sort of gluttonous plate every time. I'm really glad that it's not actual book tasting. The only time I ever stop by a bookstore is if I want to pick up something specific. If not, I plan on being in there for an hour or so. I used to work at a bookstore, and there was a guy who would come in who would take his shoes off. Now, I thought that was a bit much, but, you know, he would get a bunch of books and he would sit down at a table and he would figure out which. My problem was I never would sit down to discern which of the 10 books. I just buy the 10 books, which is probably why I was broke a lot. But I love that. I love that browsing goes back all that way to cows and sheep and not the Internet.
- [38:14]
Charlie
The next couple of weeks, we've got some good shows that we should just mention quickly. Number one, people have responded very well to a couple of things that we've done. Number one, we have talked to the owners of independent bookstores, and we're going to do a whole show with two owners of independent bookstores because they were just each one so much fun to talk to. And it became sort of a masterclass, as we keep saying, on owning a bookstore. And the other one, we have done now a few classics. We did the Christmas Carol talking to Dickensians, and we did one on the hundredth anniversary of the Great Gatsby, and we're going to do one To Kill a Mockingbird. And the interesting controversies that surround that book, even though I think it's probably considered to be the book of the 20th century in American literature.
- [39:01]
Kate
It is. And I think it's interesting, too, that we're doing this around Father's Day, because I consider it to be one of the great dad hero books of all time. You know, Scout just looks at him as dad, but by the end of the book she realizes that he is also a great man. And so I think it's a really interesting book to do for Father's Day as well.
- [39:19]
Charlie
So the next couple of weeks, Bookstores, Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird we hope you'll stay tuned. We're gonna make you aware of the folks who are behind this podcast. And then we'll have a final thought from Jess Walter, the author of so Far Gone.
- [39:34]
Kate
The book Case with Pete and Charlie Gibson is a production of ABC Audio and Good Morning America. It is edited by Tom Butler of TKO Productions. Our executive producer is Simone Swink. We want to make mention of Amanda McMaster, Sabrina Kohlberg, Arielle Chester at Good Morning America, and Josh Cohan from ABC Audio. Follow the bookcase wherever you get your podcasts and be sure to listen, rate and review. If you'd like to find any of the books mentioned in this episode, we have them linked in the episode description.
- [40:02]
Jess Walter
I actually have this on my computer. It's from James Baldwin, the Fire Next Time. I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hate so stubbornly is because they sense once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.