Cox, along with these Television Companies support cspan2 as a public service. The uptodate and the latest in publishing with book tv podcast about books. With current Nonfiction Book releases. Plus bestseller list as well as Industry News and trends through insider interviews. You can find about books on cspan now our free mobile app or were ever you get your podcast. I been waiting for this for quite a while since last june went the wonderful book came out. We were in d. C. Together i knew i could bring her out to madison. To lure her out here and lure her back because she was here once before i think 2004 went of the many amazing fabulous stories dan has written for the Washington Post over it many years. And summer is over and my wife and i are readyin for bill for washington its a ritual i will stay around for the book festival. Thats one of my favorite events for those of you who do not know she is ae legend in the newspar world. Run a Pulitzer Prize in 2007 for her Amazing Stories on the mistreatment of veterans of the iraq and Afghanistan War at Walter Reed Medical Center where she basically embedded herself with the soldiers and documented how they were being so shabbily treated. That story was wonderful. But she wrote probably 10 or 12r other stories or series that were equally great many were finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. So that one story gave her the honor she deserved so many times before that. When ever and would walk through the news from the other writers would circle around her because she had such an aura of great writing to her. Im part of it is her of the ability to insinuate herself into the extraordinary lives of ordinary people. Nobody can quite capture that the real sensibility, the humor, everything of real life when you read anns story you say yes, this is that she captures it in way most writers cant. This memoir does that. It is a memoir of her growing up as a tomboy in the orange groves of florida. The last gasp as disney is approaching and pesticides and infamily dysfunction, love, humr and questions of sexuality were all whirling around her. So ana, welcome to madison. [laughter] thank you david. I just want to tell everyone i love madison but its the greatest town ever. Everyone is super nice. I love cheese kurds for critics who went to the oldfashioned last night. Are really thankful to be here so thanks for having me. F lets start with a portrait of that time and place when she capture it when you are like six years old and the orange groves of florida. What was the feeling of that . Florida is really three different states or as north florida, Central Florida and south florida. People also forget it was a confederate state during the civil war. The north part of florida is smart leading towards the confederacy the middle part has leanings also. As a very twotone society there were whites and there were blacks. Everyone had their roles. It was a cracker society they call its oldan floridians who ce in they call themselves white settlers but they werent settlers because the indians had settled it tens of thousands of years previously until the land was taken from them and they were shipped off to oklahoma. The government was desperate for people to settle this wild place and so my family came there and 1870s, 1860s and started citrus groves and thats kind wf where i grew up was in the orange grove. People dont believe that could have been there at this time because florida is so over belts. So trashy. Its a florida that is not recognizable. I had a freeing childhood it was barefoot mosquito trucks, lakesr and it was it untouched part of florida at that time. And then this book touches on when aow theme park was in progress and growing up under the shadow of the theme park what it did to florida and the people who live there. Onoo page five of this book, right at the beginning there is a fabulous summary paragraph a. Its not the sort of paragraph that and usually rights but it isre terrific. Following that are several more sentences. Why dont you read that to give people the flavor of it protects one paragraph . Know all of o it for. Its a history of Central Florida were traded out on a graph it would start with the primordial sledge in an curve toward the paleo indians, the colusa indians, the talk about indians, ponce de leon, runaway slaves, white settlers the u. S. Army, the great seminole warrior malaria, cattle, citrus and a dull heat that left it undesirable for much the sides or just until the 1960s when walt disney took a plane ride over the vast emptiness, looked down and said they are. The interior of Central Florida was so desolate my father kept the gallon of water in a box of saltines in his car. He said you could eat all the oranges you wanted but good luck if you do flush toilet or payphone. He also said is no place for child. But disney was betting otherwise. Floors otherer citrus growing region was much smaller east of the ridge along the coast it was called the indian river. The indian river people did a better job marketing fruit, rhapsodizes about title indian races that ran like poetry in the yankee era. Oo the fruit was prettier to look at because each piece of fruit was bust out buffed out to the shine of the cadillac put on the ridge we did not mind if an orange lecture hands dirty as august juice dripped on your chin. Plus we had more groves walltowall. Looking out my fathers wind chill i was seeing things i would never see again. Places that were not even on maps the sky disappeared and a radio went dead. Whole towns were entombed with gnarled branches of live oaks and blackjacks strangling each other in the darkness. We rumbled past old pioneer settlements rotting in the humidity. Black creeks wound like snakes, birds spread their skeletal wings but never flew off. Just when it seemed we may never see daylight again sunlight. The next author can probably answer this question it. Its not a fair question. But what makes florida so weird . [laughter] there are many theories debit academic papers and some say there is too much skin. Youma go into Publix Grocery ste a woman is in a thong bikini it is a freeforall. Its our people cant let their hair down that is for good and for bad. It is a casual place and that adds to a lack of decorum. It is a good time place. Er i can explain the weirdness ofa it. Theres a florida man theres a florida woman its all built on that big boxers also repression. Yes. Thats a true story. The total story cliche all happy families are alike in every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. Reading the book you seem to carve out a fairly happy childhood out of a dysfunctional family. That wasnt really happy. So much of the book is defined by your father and your mother presents her with your dads struggles and frustrations and how he works through my father was a fourthgeneration floridian of the citrus growing family not even at church. Thats with the background my dad came from. He was a reader he loved steinbeck. He was really too gentle for the business. Its a very hard business. The stress is always there. Hit losses on that in high school. He wanted to go into citrus and carry the line forward. Theres something he should not have done first he was a pesticide. Ou he went around and sold a pesticide and then he became a fruit buyer and climbed up and up and up. It is just too gentle for the era he lived in and for the job that he found himself in. I love someone called her comparator to Elizabeth Taylor on cat on a hot tin roof reports my mother was from brooklyn. She also kind of reminded me of bill clintons mother, virginia kelly and the weight she would spend hours with her makeup at all of that. How did she end up in florida and the life of the orange groves . My mother and my grandmother actuallyly was kind of a rich person from providence, rhode island and they lived on a trust fund. My grandmother was married to it near to go irishman he didnt work and lift upe the trust fund wasnt an enormous because they were spreading the prince without every lock he p was a psychic he did not want to devote his time to psychometrics. So anyway their oldest boy at 16 becameme sick, he had cancer. It was clear he had surgeries and it was clear he was going to die. And so my grandmother who never drives never drove packed three kids in a car, my mom and cleared and the other brother they spent their time going from monterrey, pella 44 they went to cuba, they would attend mexico, wherever the fish were they went because percy, the oldest both cancer could fish. The last how they ended up in, where he died was st. Petersburg, florida. You would be surprised how many people end up in Central Florida or st. Petersburg with those kinds of stories. Is my mother was a spanish teacher. She did summers in mexico and guatemala. She was a very dramatic pictures very heavily in high school she was on every committee, Student Council president , one debate contest, all of that stuff but she could never get a date because she was so heavy. And so her third year at Florida State i think she lived on grapefruit, cigarettes, coffee became a beautiful woman. And that is on my dad met her but they got married a year later. Shed walk into the Grocery Store was like a broadway entry. She wore a lot of makeup she never pressured i me but i felt the subtle pressure of and my going to have to do all of that . Knowing your father and your mother, what characteristics do you have that come from either one of them . Insecurity come from both. [laughter] watching love to watch people rather than interact with people there is a murder trial in sebring, florida a son of a citrus, von maxey junior was murdered in his home all these new newspaper men were in town. To watch them do their thing. Theyre smoking putting thingspe out in the ashtray for these are amazing people that felt so important and my data should have been a newspaper report of some sort, which is watch them atfor hours. And i think thats really what i got from my dad. Greats. Every memoir in some sense relies on a memory its a archaeological dig we can have documents but so much of it is from memory. What was the process to put this book together . As a journalist was extremely difficult to accept the fact that i would make mistakes and not everything will be true. That was really difficult i didnt embrace it but i had to live with it. En or i know i how to do that i spend out one tenement multi librarys in Central Florida. Looking at bound newspapers. Imy could research my family really well. I had a lot of tapes of my parents talking they wrote everything down. But still a 6yearold could no remember everything thats in this book. So i have a quote for my dad in chapter one when i am sick said something he said in his last year of life when i was recording him. No one can or member what people say. It was difficult to know i would make some mistakes. Some things would not be true and it is my memory so its bound to be a little warped. I would argue memoir has a larger truth that whether the quote is quite said when youre six years old. You also had there so many colorful characters in the book. Especially your two grandmothers who were quite different. Tell us about those stupid. On was incredibly southerner she was a daughter of the confederate she goes to prompt at, 865. She was a fine classical piano player. She was not self realized. That is kind of this theme in the book everyone is not realize their potential. She would come to my house as a kid and take over my bedroom. She would have the sole hairbrushes and comb sets and a big a bottle of shalimar so she was just a lady in my other grandmother was on the trust fund from providence, rhode island. She was just wacky. She never, never learned to drive. She loved tarot cards. She went to a buddhist temple. She worked at the library, very, very, very eccentric. She was one of the girls that went to finishing school in the early 1920s. So everything she said was like darling, tomato, it was really exotic. She was faking it but i didnt see it as faking it. These two women were really important figures in my life when i did not want to be and when i was cool with being parkers janet was when you were quipping and she loved youtube regret she did the grandmother thing, she was greats. She rode buses on saint pete all the time, not driving. Did go shopping downtown every day with a parasol. [laughter] and she was just kind of magical. She also took you to see michael jackson. Yes that is an interesting story and i will share this with you and sees. Bit i guess. [laughter] when my mom and dad split up my mom left my father and a quick way. We gottu all of our stuff out ad were gone in the matter of the day. We went to my grandmothers and so for about a year things were really, really tight we did not have any money. My mom did not have any money. We had used close, Public Health clinics. I love the jackson five. They jackson five are coming to tampa which is just across the bay from st. Petersburg. My grandmother knew how much i love them. She spent the money for our electric bill on a concert. She would always say chicken today, feathers tomorrow. We went to the concert. Because of Michael Jacksons legacy now. I push to keep that in its veryo important to my childhood. Raised the question . Of editors at the publishing house. I checked the girl scouts of america they are saying we shouldnt say it anymore either. Computer been afraid of saying things. Its true in journalism two. The very difficult. Especially when you want to talk about the past. Its very difficult in journalism as well. So my next question going to use that word which i now cannot say. I dont think this audience cares. Whats the better word . I would be happy for suggestions. I mean it implies i guess a girl who is athletic is not in her hair. Or a 6yearold who doesnt wear a short break. Yes a sexual that doesnt wear short i will be boy behavior. And no we should not let it gender ithi that way. We better stop this right now. I want to get there. [laughter] whatever that was tell them what you love to do. He played the creek, you play with the boys. I was fixated on spite for paraphernalia. Ill be spying on people with my telescope hanging out with the boys. With a poor mans koolaid it back in the 60s, funny facean soft drink or whatever. Ited was a powdered drink youd mix with water. They had a contest the boys would win this tent and the girls when some doll collection. So i entered as andrew hall and i got intensive. [laughter]rt and it was heartbreaking while my mother said i had to wear short because i was six years old. I was 11 i could see that. What did you start to see the connection between t that impule and sexuality . That is hard to say. They did not become lesbian. I dont know. Im not sure if theres a tie between that behavior that approached childhood and becoming a lesbian. But i did not notice it. I thought it was aware that when i was 12 i go to the store theyo had fake mermaids that would talk to, topless mermaids. And i think wow thats weird i keep going back here. And then carly simons album came out no secrets if anyone ever you remember that she is looking great, right . And i will go to the record store and keep looking at that record cover. That is when i knew. Rex. To remember the whip cream . Little hints like that. Laugh at. How hard was it for you to come out and how that process go . What client i didnt come out per se. I didnt tell people for a while my first job. Maybe three or four years. I think i grew up in a really safe atmosphere in a newsroom. Which really allows her characters in different people to be accepted. That is where he became comfortable enough to be who i am. Now i never in the job ever told anyone i was gay and that was because if it had to do with these wrote about gay kids in the bible belt coming out. I spent months reported i did not tell the mom and the son that i was gay. Because i did not want to kent this is different from where journalism is going for it just did not want to still to the ways they sell me or the way i would see their story faster than they would. It is a weird thing. I say to my straight reported friends they could be going to the prison to interview some on death row and to have a established report to emulate my kids on the school bus this morning or my wife is or whether i guess i could say that out too. But for your sake couldnt. It is hard. Leave a big blanket from your life. The need tous gymnastics which e so ridiculous now that i see it. Like what . Not at least talking a little bit about my life. I was one of the old school is it just did not share anything. Partially because i was hiding my gayness. I dont know any reporter who is better at insinuating themselves and ingratiating themselves but in an honest way for people to justt talk to you but you get anybody to talk too. Theyre asking in some of these stories visited a lot of stories on people who support abortion. Anti gay people but how could you not be your true self and tell them they were so wrong . I am here to hear what they say. You are the best at that and wouldat rather you have journals who brag about their expense accounts going to rome or somewhere. She once wrote about how happy she was in aig motel eight eatig cheaters in kansas or somewhere. Thats heaven for me being out in the country like that and have the privilege to report i just love it. That is great. Another important thread in my opinion is southern in a sense. Your dad worked with a manager in the groves. How did that affect you and restaurant. Be a five or six truncated were not thinking in those terms. Working women up until the late 60s were schoolteachers of which my mother was one. Those of the women in town who worked in the rest were at home. We did have someone come in to watch my brother and i after school. Her name was theo low. It was not extravagant like a maid is a bad word in every way. But it suggests so it has a lot we were just a middleclass family. Probably way more maternal than my own mother. And i loved it, i left her to pieces. She was super super important person to me. And at that time picking oranges, citrus and at that t te was predominately black a little white and just started with hispanics. We didnt really think about it. Which was second grade in plant city, florida sebring was developed by midwesterners. There i really felt the racial divide, the racism and the comments. It was blatantly differentnt there. The daughters of the confederacy cookbooks there integrate they were made fun of it. Just terrible. As i got older and lived in that environment i really, reallyy didnt like it and my favorite show time is ahmaud squad. Link and peggy and their thighs were touching in the car. No one would allow their kid to watch a body squad is a black detective. The jackson five and the bod squad correctly because everything there is a pattern. Quickset is great. All books, especially memoirs are based on choices. What you believe in. Where you stop, where you start. How did you decide to limit the book to a certain part of your life and then the end of the rest of it . I intend to stop at age 13 or something but that woman who represents me, tina bennett is the reason this became finished. She went along with this for a little while. How do you write about your eventual gayness withoutca addressing it before that time . Because you really do kind of know or at least i did. And so to be honest about it tina said we have to how did you turn out . An address that. When my father died, and this is in the book, i have a one brother we are really close. My dad died in plant city is an outside grave imperial saying we are all Holding Hands they beat 30 people under the tent, live oaks and tons of moss. Anyway it we are all Holding Hands in that preacher says dear lord we would like to pray for johns daughters homosexuality. It i looked at my brother what the . That wasnt too long ago you guys. But because i dont to cause a fuss so much thank you for your service pastor. [laughter] your father was distant for part of your life. What was out like for you and how did you finally come back together . Its one of those righteousness of use. I was mad at my dad for a long time for leaving my mother. So really in a bad way financially. I wasth probably really upset tt my father left. But it took it at all my father. We did not talk for years. And then we started to have contact again. And he was kind of out of the picture working in fruit factories in texas and then wait finally came together. When we started coming closer in my mid 20s i was chicken to tell him i was gay but i would try to get my car and okay dad now is the time. But i never could. Says more about me than it says about him. Would need you to limit how did that go . I think i i wrote it and then he wrote Something Back saying the people as they age become more conservative. Some become more tolerant. Not one of my favorite words by the way. I am growing more mellow and gentle and i think that was his way to set you can tell me. Wouldd bite your mother, how did she respond how did you tell her . Lets just put it this way, there is some abc movie of the r week on she was a schoolteachr and they said its a gate movie, youve got to watch this. She said i have lived that. She was fine she was of course worried as most parents are that their child might live a hard life. It is a harderou life and thats what she was concerned. The rest of it wasnt a problem for drag queens love my mother because she is so made out. She was fired but. Not just drag queens, from the book and everything youve told mee your mother was beloved she waspe beloved. One of usne in prayer people everyone says they love my mom. They really did she was unusual force of life. She was the school principal. Very funny, such a good friend to people. Am i supposed to sail these things . The things that happen . Yes. Dont worry about it. You are supposed to tell them for that makes him want to buy it even more. [laughter] yes my mother is very close. Showed a massive aneurysm on her school lunch break and died when she was 56. In that was really, really tough. And you are not. There when it happened . Is living in cambridge, massachusetts on a fellowship. And so i had to go and it was really hard. My first xanax i ever took. It was a huge hole i think is especially when you dont have kids it means you are the last of it so it is extra hard. You use the word realization earlier about people and that was true of your mother too, right . She was a school principal. She had realized the lot yet there were several frustrations in her life versus what she was pre i was true especially early on. As she went on in that middle school they put her in the stoughest middle schools, really tough. Bad neighborhoods because she could turn schools around. That was her broadway stage when she went to school in the morning. She made the announcement, the kids really liked her that was her stage. I think she was at peace with that at the end. A couple of stories about your mother and her friends. I love the went well they pile into the car and drive up to go shopping. Sebring, florida it was mike it was really in the middle of nowhere. And all of the school teachers, in the mid 60s, would pile into the car on saturdays and go to tampa. It was about a 65mile drive. They would go shopping because you couldnt buy much in sebring. And i would go a couple times this is before i started first grade. And these women were talking about bras and their holding up bras and they just loved shopping the went to chinese prestaurants. They were just different people i knew them as his wildcard ladies. With the pedicuresan and thongs and then i went to first grade mrs. Carlton, joan was right here and i was like hi joan. She said its mrs. Carlton. I did have a sense these women had separate lives from the hub summons and there children and the roles of schoolteachers. And my mother, being from brooklyn she would pile w us in the car would go to lakeland which iss another hour drive so she could get chunking frozen eggrolls at 10 00 p. M. At night if she had a craving. She felt ways. So she wondered to be a cook . Which is a wonderful wonderful cookbooks. Especially exotic foods in florida would have been chinese. Yes she was one of the people made for it thanks it cant you please make a turkey . Shes a fabulous cook yes. Everyrt book has a certain aftereffect w of people who have read the book. Who you have not heard from ever before perhaps for a long time ago. What was that like for you . This is such a personal story people in florida could connect too. Its really hard because im someone whos written maybe one or two with the word i. So it was very hard for me in some ways to get the voice and say all of these things. Its also very weird for me too do social media for the first time ive lived on social media as a reporter i know how to get around that that way but as for posting things you have to do it these days and that is been a really uncomfortable. But, all these people who knew my mom. I am getting pictures from people just all sorts of people come out of the woodwork. It has been a really, really fun, a beautiful experience for you keep waiting for a lawyer that is not happened yet. Become of of . Rex you never know, you never know progress are going to take some questions from the audience. So get ready for that. And while you do that and i would love for you to talk a little bit about your reporting philosophy. I know you talk to younger reporters about how you do it. Tell us a little bit about that. I did not go to journalism school. I did not go to college at budget really much any i just started working in a newsroom at the st. Petersburg times when i was 19 as a copy kid. I happen to work at the times when it was just an incredible newspaper. The word out little town st. Petersburg and i did what they did. Its documentary style. Its saying very little and watching a watch and watch and watch. You dont interrupt a something. Youre interrupting whatever dialogue your hearing. They hear a fly on the wall butk that is a way i go about ron my reporting. The more time you spend with some of the more stuff you get. If you have questions and keeping a list of questions on the side. That is kind of how it goes. This is my dream as a reporter. I was doing a story on a part of this gay series. There is a young black lesbian from newark, new jersey. She was stabbed to death a bus stop in newark because hemant came onto her she said no thank you whatever. And she was killed. So i did a story on what it is like what its like to be gay they are very butch girls in the old terms. They were boy close they look like boys. They could teach her dress like that. Which i just thought that is so brave, that so much more braver than i could ever drum up at that age. I hung around these kids they lived in newark which is a tough town this no money. At tenet gate club it was mostly black kids black lesbians. So it was winter and elliot is shaking the nightclub. I walk in and felicia is a girl i am portraying. All of the kidss say who is tha . What is a white lady doing here at that age . Thats nobody, that is and. That is the kind of things you want to be as a reporter that is heaven, that is a sweet spot when they do not even Pay Attention to you. For walter reed story is it true you slept overnight with that guy and his wife . Questioned. Not together but yes big. We. I didnt mean that. You can go from these tough and gay girls in newark to a wounded soldier and convince them all al that stress and pray. I did that story with dana was the most National Security porters of her generation she is asked me too do it. And because my thing is like watching people. So the whole thing about walter reed is and heit went there without the permission of the army. And the department of defense the branches of the service we still obey their roles there arent many things left for we say okay i go to the Public Information officer we just always do that. And if you dont do it they get really mad but we circumvented them and thats how we got into walter reed. Yes and he went out hip is the privacy law . At the guard shack at walter reed they cant ask you who are you going to see . They ask you where are you going . And so there was no lying involved in the whole thing. And we worked the outside and the inside. Some of the wise are really mad their husbands were in a hotel on the walter reed based for two years. Lost. Paperwork was it was a horrible situation for the medical care is okay, it was pretty good such as these guys were hanging around two years lost in limbo. So yes, spend the night hotel rooms because most of them have very bad ptsd. The usually wake up in the morning often with a start or violently. I was with this guy who was an older guard member and was from south carolina. He had bad ptsd and his wife was living in a hotel birth him at walter reed. M she told him she would never go wake him up in the morning with her hands she would throw a shoe at him because you just did not know what would happen. I could have written that but i really need to see that. Thats how we uncover that story but we had to see everything with her own eyes which is what you hope for it every story but its not always possible. They may could say with one 100 clarity she is a shoe to wake it up and i sought a few times per. And she let you do it . They did. We start our walter reed reporting of 2007 and that was a time when the war had dragged out a lot longer than it was supposedpe to. This was before the surge so it was at a point when is this going to end . That really neglected at walter reed and taking care of the Wounded Soldiers there. And so the base mike walter reed would lose their paperwork what sounds like a small thing but its not in the system youre pretty well screwed if they lose your paperwork. If the start back over. And so the wives went to office depot and they bought a copy m machine for the roux but they. Start making copies of the records so they would always have the records. They were so mad the army was mistreating their husbands its mostly wives and husbands, they are like we will talk to you. He does not deserve this kind of treatment, he lost and i pretty hasy. A traumatic brain injury. We were helped in the timing of the reporting and that the wires were ready to talk. I can tell you editing and which is really easy its one of the great joys of my career at the post. But lets get back to thehean bk and take some questions with the audience. No, over there. Thank you. You can see you. I am curious in what was your experience when you went back . No iav havent thats a great question. [laughter] that iss really a great questio. I dont know why havent done it. You must know. I could kind of picture it. I saw the pictures on facebook for one. There also old which means i am old. I dont know why havent done that. Was or someone please . She told us a little bit about desh regularly wrote two stories with an eye on them before. As a journalist you are so used to being the observer, pulling yourself out of it. Making beautiful stories about other peoples lives. I want to learn more about how you decided to write this book about yourself . Might not be your mom died like a thing you and hang it on. That is such a beautiful personal moment. And in this way. It was her moment you set i want to do this . It was hard. It took a long time. Such a terrible reason but i wanted to leave something in a time machine or a time bottle about this time inn florida. It is a time thats vanished. Its almost gone now that was my family for a while i also the heimpetus because i cut my fathr offer so many years. I wanted to remember him and know him. I think it was a way to reach back and away. S i did feel sorry for my parents and he felt sorry for myself that theyre both gone. It is a dialect. I wanted to preserve that. In with it is the family thatrk did not work either. This was it another he worked for the new yorker about the strawberry festival. How is that . Plant city is that winter capitol or that winter strawberry capitol of the world. Is where i was born. My dad was super vast baptist southern very strict i got put in tap dance lessons when i was a kidut there. But the place unnerved me and i could barely go back there as an adult as a person with a job in a car i was so intimidated by those women. They were just made up all the time and bless your heart. And so i basically, i could not go back there by myself. So i did a story for the new yorker on this ritual that has hung on at 70 years old is it agricultural to insist strawberry queen and her Court Members in a place like plant city you are literally royalty it you are still given a fur coat in florida. [laughter] a free car you are just royalty. I wanted to go back to that town its like going to the belly of the beast but i had to have a notebook in front of me i could not have done it by myself. And so that was kind of the start of all of this. And seeing those goals with the big care of those fibrils really sweet girls but seeing them is like ghost of the pass of the people who had haunted me. And here they are they are nice kids. Anyway that is why i decided to do it. After that i started thinking i need to go back and look further on this and i now have the courage to do it. I think so many of us from the north traveling to florida, one ofof the Lasting Impressions are the fruit stands. The indian river orangesnd and your description of your family and your relatives fruit stand is just glorious. Tell us about what that was like a big. We had it hurts and my aunt dot ran it. My family only owned 90 acres which is nothing compared to corporate citrus growing. But it was enough to send your kid to college. It was good. My aunt dot was another unrealized woman she fancied herself an artist it was a pretty good folk ark painter. So she opened up a fruit stand on the highway at theof edge of our grove that was to broadway stage. She was a very strict baptist but she wore red lipstick to the fruit stand for it she loved him with the tourists. Lucille ball came in one day. It was this picture into a wider world because that is how florida is. Wherever they are from they are bringing it with them and we get to see that. That is how they live. I was in berlin, germany for a while and i was asked to lunch by a woman of a wife who is like a count or a king or something. Really amazing how so i go to her house. She was from ohio and she had married a german guy. I walked into this house, it is incredible. We had for lunch broiled grapefruit. Like all the food from florida first of all its so beautiful. She had so many memories of being a kid in ohio and elder brothers and sisters packing up into the Station Wagon with pillows and pajamas and driving to florida. And i always forget how for art generation it is a really important place in the story of peoples childhood. Out of theirg drive from wisconsin or michigan. You know, so dazed with their. I love that. Yeah, it was it was i mean, in the springtime, i dont know if anyones ever smelled real blossoms, but when are, you know, hundreds of miles trees. Its its just intoxicating. You know, i think i say in the book its literally the smell burned into my hair and to the dogs fur. It was so fragrant. You. And theyre also processing oranges. So its kind of a you know, when theyre cooking them down, its like a brown sugar smell. So its its an unusual place. And there arent those groves there anymore, you know, that there are. I dont know how many are left, but in the last 15 years, theres been a virus called. Citrus greening trust asia. Its a borne virus that, kills trees. And if one has it all, the large perimeter around them have to be has it the perimeter around it has to be bulldozed because it spread. They are working seriously to figure out how to beat this. Thereth wont be any citrus gros left in 20 years. Theres a figure in your book over the course of the book theres two different names. An annoying 3yearold, always injuring himself, sticking things in his ears. Alwaysys in the emergency room. He was very tall, very awkward and when my parents, when my mom left mymo father, my mother thought my brother should be called something else. We sat around at my grandmothers house. Mmom, me, my grandmother and my brother and we are all suggesting names and so jim is his name. His memory is much sharper than mine. Siblings never have the same name. Did you disagree this is the way it happened . It drives the family apart and my father was drunk and we were in the car and he pulled out a gun. My brother doesnt remember the gun. I was in the front seat and i remember him being scary scared and crying but he doesnt remember. I remember, so we talked about that and she kind of did a more detailed explanation how she got information and how certain siblings disagreed with her version of things. I decided not to do that but i had to stick with of the scene even though he doesnt remember it the way that i do. What do we take out of that and what was your father going to do . He was drunk but he had driven us. He always went to the grove on saturday. He pulled up the gun from the gun box. It was loaded. He was just bringing it out. Im like what are you doing. My brother is crying and my brother said because we were never supposed to touch the gun he said is there a bad man because you only bring it out for the bad man. And my dad said no and that kind of broke my father. Speaking of that kind of spookiness again youre giving away something in theng book bui love the way you and it running away from something or towards something. My family is groves are hardly there anymore. The family rents out of the land for strawberry growing. To see this place i look at it after i havent seen it for a while its bright sunshine and they were always cool and full of shadows and magical. I can see in the distance you could never see that. As much as i didnt want to be from that place, i was sad to not see those orange groves. It implied i wouldnt be there or my family wouldnt be there or my memories or my families would cease to exist one day. Any more questions for the audience . Why dont you lineup over here to make it easier. It sounds like youve got some great settings and characters throughout the book. When you decided to write a memoir, is there something about your life some lessons you learned that he wanted to share or experiences that shaped you and looking back on your life now you see how youve changed. Is there Something Like that you want to share . I just wanted to write it. I cant explain it. It wasnt calculated. Its funny my partner is german so when we were in berlin, to tell a german that you are writing a memoir it isnt as common there by any stretch. Like what did you do, like i should be an astronaut to be writing a memoir. My parents divorced . [laughter] i dont know. Just something i had to write and i hope maybe if other girls like me read it they will feel less alone and they can refuse but its about home i guess how it disappears and its transitory. Theres a deeper lesson that has to do with the sensibilities of you feel it when youre reading it which is more powerful than just a cliche saying on a wall of what your life should be. So thank you very much. [applause] the world has changed. Today a fast reliable Internet Connection is something no one can live without so we are there for our customers with speed, reliability, value and choice. Now more than ever it starts with great internet. Wow along with these Companies Supporting cspan2 as a public service. Joining us now