High school at the 2016 Chicago Tribune printers role printers row lit fest. Welcome to the 32nd annual Chicago Tribune, printers row lit fest. I want to give a special thank you to our sponsors. The theme of this years festival is whats your story . And we encourage you to share the stories that you here this weekend on twitter, instagram or facebook using the prlf1. You can download the printers row app. It has content for subscribers and a complete printers role that schedule. Downloads and get five dollars off of printers row lit fest merchandise. Today we will broadcast live on cspan2 booktv. If there is time at the end for the q a session with the author we ask you to use the microphone located to the right so the home viewing audience can hear your questions. Before we begin today we ask that you send your cell phone and turn off your camera flashes. Please welcome Senior Writer and columnist from the Chicago Tribune and todays interviewer, rick kogan. [applause] thank you. This, if you do not know is Sebastian Junger. I think [applause] is simply not my place to do this but i really think in light of the events of early this morning and this morning that we all do need to, if you pray, pray. But lets have a moment to consider those poor people in orlando. Okay before we get in deeply into this book, i need to know that something about him. I just learned that he fashions himself a rather more than capable harmonica player. That is only because of chicago. When i was a young man in the 80s, i lived near amazing blues player. He grew up in chicago and is one of the best in the world. I was lucky enough right out of college, i was working in an italian dinner where i just all i remember is that there were three generations that worked there and they all screamed at each other all the time. [laughter] i would take all of the loose change and there was a big next with the dentist. I would trade in a pocket full of change for a 20 bill and i would get a lesson from jerry. He was an amazing teacher and i started playing in blues bands in and around boston. And i still play. And you said if you had when i would play it. If you have a harp i would be happy to play. Wouldnt that be fabulous . I am always going to carry one. You grew up sebastian without much there is one. Saved until the q a. We do not want to start that way. You grew up, his father was an immigrant and your mom was related to the graham family of grimms fairy tale but you write in here, i find this fascinating. Id hardly ever do most of the hudson river after you graduate in the fall of 86. In my mind, what waited for me in dakota and wyoming and montana would not only comment was not only the real america but the real me as well. Elaborate. What do you mean . I grew up in an affluent suburb. I was not tested and any physical way. I think a situation like that, it tests people psychologically but i wasnt really tested physically. And i felt, i just had this feeling. I dont know if it is a male thing or not. But certainly is young man i felt like i had not proved myself. I had not sorted turned my identity. And that i needed to have i needed to go through some stuff. The thing i can think of to go through was to travel across this country sort of putting myself at its mercy in a sense that i was just a young kid with a backpack out in this great land. You were at the time and never went out with the intention of becoming i dont think, a journalist. He studied anthropology in college. When did journalism into your life and why . I was a pretty good distance runner in college. I ran mile, two miles across country and i end up writing a thesis, doing research with a thesis on the navajo longdistance runners. I trained with their best as peter came back to college and wrote the thesis. And in the act of taking this information and turning it into prose was, it was the first thing in college that truly truly excited me. And i got out of college and did construction for a while. And i started thinking was probably pretty close to journalism maybe i should try to be a journalist. Yband it was a nacve thought process but it started me stumbling towards the career. This book how many of you have bought this book already . Its pretty many but less than half so lets have a full house by the time this thing is over. How does that sound . Its not very long either. And it is astonishingly provocative. We are talking about stage about the fact that most reviews, you hear people talk about this in the media and its like it is a soldier story. It is anything but. Soldier play a part in this. But, here is some of the Sebastian Junger sebastian writes the word tribe is hard to define. But the people who feel compelled to share with the last of their food with. He also writes humans do not mind duress. In fact they thrive on it. What they mind, is not feeling necessary. That is what the book is about and it is told in an anecdotal way in the beginning. He said, this book is about a lot of people who have affected your life and many of whom we have never met. Talk talk to me about some of the early american settlers. I found that beginning portion fascinating. Yes but i mean first i started the book with an active but when i was hitchhiking in wyoming a diocese to give him his lunch because it was not needed, he was not needed that that the coal mine so no one was sick so he would not need his lunch and he really forced it on me. And he kept that lesson my whole life. That i realize he thought we were in the same tribe because we were both, he thought homeless. I was just having an adventure but he did not know that. At any rate, i had a friend when i was young when i was that age a mentor. An uncle figure named ellis. And he was half apache and have sioux. He was the best red man ive ever met. He said all throughout the history of the country throughout the frontier white people were always running off to join the indians. And the indians never ran off to join the white people. And i realized later, we do have this phrase to grenada. There is no ways to go civilized. And i thought about that my whole life. It was a matter of the socalled civilized world, being not boring to people at least, they were confronted with an alternative. Where the indian lifestyle and the indian kind of, is communal the right word . You cannot use it often in here. Yeah, where the only world heard today that developed alongside 3000 miles of wilderness populated by stone age peoples. And it did, that interface did actually give both sides a choice of how they wanted to live. Because there was the opposite example right across the tree line. And benjamin franklin, a french writer and a lot of it was a time were quite disturbed by the fact that as i said, white people always ran off to join the indians and not the other way around. This is a quote superior russian culture. Why would people fleeing it . Why would people not coming towards it . What they decided was that there was an inherent and if you are a nomadic people frankly cannot acutely well. You certainly cannot pass it on through to the generations. You cannot really accumulate more than you can carry. Youre really judged on their own merits. And the basis of that, franklin decided was very appealing to settlers. And clearly is not the case in white society. And that was they decided that was the appeal and they incorporated something, components of what was called the iroquois great law of peace. And it was based on an inalienable right of the individual. And again, this really profound transport there were parts of the law and the american constitution. It was completely in sync with enlightenment thought as well. But they deliberately put native american thinking into the constitution because it was so exemplary of a just society. My thought is that your publishers, were probably always eager for you to hey, i want you to get another perfect storm or write about war again. Undoubtedly, this book has made the New York Times bestseller list as of today. I do not think this should be a tough sell. You just figured publishers you want to write something. But what was the catalyst for this book . Was there a moment they said i have a need to write this book . Ive been thinking about what ellis had said to me my whole life. A component of it was that people were kidnapped by the indians and abducted and adopted into native society often when given the chance to come home, refused it. And i thought about that my whole life. And i wondered if it was true. I wasnt sure. Ellis was a good storyteller also. And i always had to wonder. And then when i was with american soldiers many, many years, decades later. They were in a very tough deployment, i was out at a 20 man position on this ridge called my first day out there we got hit four times very hard. It was a brutal, brutal violence, deprived place. When the tour was done, those guys couldnt wait to get back to italy where they based and had all kinds of activities planned i will not go into detail but they were definitely prepared for a good time when they got back to italy. But after a while it were often when i caught up with them a few months afterwards in italy, a lot of them said, you know, if we could go back to restrepo, we would do tomorrow. And all of a sudden i thought, we dont want to go back to america. We want to go back to work. All of a sudden i thought about ellis in the captives. And i thought, what is it about modern society that is so unappealing even to people who have enjoyed the benefits of its date the and its comforts . You saying here, talking about war, when you receive your draft card vietnam had ended and you say that you write and i know problem personally with fighting a war. I just did not trust my government to send me to one that was completely necessary. You then quote your father. And this is a quote i will remember forever. Saying, im sure you know what it is but you asked him about this. And he was very antivietnam and he said, you dont owe your country nothing. You owe it something and depending on what happens, you might await your life. Talk to me little bit more about your dad and that quote. He grew up in france. And he came here during the war as the germans were rolling into paris. Chis father was jewish and he and his family fled. He got to this country tried to join the military but had asthma so he could not. He contributed in other ways actually. But he watched as hundreds of thousands of american soldiers fought. And thousands and thousands died. In his home country of france to liberate europe from fascism. And there were thousands of americans graves on our soil. And he was totally against vietnam and i grew up with that environment. So i got my Selective Service card in the mail. I mean b,18 girls dont know this but mothers know this. But boys, 18yearold boys get a card in the mail from the government. And the cards as we want to know where you live in case we need to draft you. And boys are still getting this card. Girls do not. And so i got this card and every adult and it was against vietnam and i said to my father, im not signing this. This is ridiculous, what is this . And he said no, you are sending it. And he said we said to me. You dont owe your country nothing. And his point was love, if it is an immoral work, is your moral duty to oppose it. But it might be immoral work. It might be necessary war in which case it is your duty to fight it. When he put it that way s and only, this sort of active sort of bureaucratic convergent of signing this card and sending it to my government all of a sudden became something noble. And i was part of something bigger. I realized, people might need me. And i think the real loss in contemporary affluence society, is that you never get the feeling that your people need you. You do not get that ancient human feeling of being needed by your community. Where affluence enough to not need the individuals in our society in order to get by. And this is the first time in Human History that has been true and there is actually a tremendous loss there. You make that point, to that point, you make the point that sometimes we can overcome that burden. That is not self imposed by disaster. You talk very articulate and poignantly about the blitz in london. He also talked about an earthquake. You write, and earthquake achieves with the law promises but not in practice maintain the quality of all men. Crisis and trouble sometimes elicits that, yes . But let me just say it is an amazing quote. I wish i wrote that but i did not. I was courting someone that survived the earthquake. That was in italy in 1916 or something at that. A devastating earthquake. What he said was that after the earthquake all of the survivors huddled together for days before help got there and there was no, there was a complete breakdown of social class. These people, poor people, there is no distinction at all in this society and he said this disaster produced equality of all men. Even law cannot produce that. We find in disasters and the often, people get nostalgic because there is a massive societal breakdown. But whats breaking down is not the spirit of cooperation and altruism that humans are often known for. Whats breaking down is the class system. People come together during disasters, there is not mayhem, there is not chaos in the streets. It is the opposite. People act better in catastrophes and social class breaks down. Rich and poor does not matter. And it really brings out the best in people. In london, people strangers were sleeping shoulder to shoulder on the subway platforms and forming bucket brigades to put out fires in buildings. It was 30,000 londoners were killed during this time and people missed that afterwards. And the authorities were shocked. There was they were prepared for psychiatric casualties because of the bombings. And the opposite happened. The admissions to psychiatric wards went down. One official said we have neurotics driving a blintzes. And again, if you fill your people need you, the Community Needs you, it literally is as simple as this. Stop thinking about yourself and your problems. One lady very movingly said, we would have all gone down to the beaches with broken bottles to fight the germans if we had to. We have people thinking like that about themselves, you have a psychologically healthy population even though the society as a whole is under tremendous duress. Isnt that interesting to among the many reasons you should buy this book. Im sorry i took your subjects quote and put into your mouth. Here is you writing. The to the collective good. I love that beauty and tragedy. Thank you very much. I mean, what i dont want to do is write about modern society that doesnt acknowledge the incredible good that comes from it. Sure i mean we have will have to be cognizant of being incredibly lucky to live in an age of modern medicine, the rule of law, philosophy and science. We have, you know, central heating and central air conditioning. Many, most people do in the modern society and this incredible blessing. But the question is, what is the downside . Why is it that as wealth goes up in the society that the suicide rate goes up . Why does depression rate go up . I found a study that compared depression rates in nigeria to north america. For some reason they were focused on women in the study. Urban women in north america have the highest, they were the wealthiest group in the study and they had the highest depression rate. Rural women in nigeria, one of the poorest, most messed up chaotic and violent countries in africa. I had been all over africa, they had the lowest rates of depression. Hardship and property along with all of the stress of that, they actually do those things, those hardships to force people into collaborative communal existence. And that collaboration and that communalism of that life offers people get Mental Illness even though there are other hardships that go along with that. The pressures and struggles and pains and, of war. You have seen on the front lines as they say. There is a very moving portion of the book here where you are writing on the subway getting back from afghanistan a year or so before 9 11. And something has happened. Something happens to you. Yep, this was the fall of 2000. I never even heard of the word ptsd, the country was not at war and i had be, i was on my second trip to afghanistan. I went 96 and again in 2000. And i was with and his Northern Alliance fighting the taliban. Back in the taliban had fighters, jet planes, tanks and everything. And so we really got pounded because we had nothing. A few times. I came home pretty often psychologically but i did not know. I was a young man and i thought nothing affects me. Until one day i went down the subway and i had a massive, massive panic attack. I never had one before. Everything was going to kill me. The lights were too bright, there were too many people, ahmad was going to turn on me. Trains are going too fast, they were going to jump the rails and somehow climb up on the platform and hit me. I mean everything was a threat and i ran out of the station. And the panic attacks kept happening. Eventually they dissipated. I just thought i was going crazy. And i know it sounds weird but i did not get help. Because i thought i was going crazy. I mean i just thought like, well if im going crazy vanilla can help me. So i might as well do this in quiet, with dignity by myself. [laughter] you wrote about there is much in the book about war and veterans and so, so much more. This is just this is an unknown number of veterans in vietnam and onward. This is a sentence that just really haunts me and makes me unbelievably sad. Todays veterans often come home to find that though they are willing to die for their country, they not sure how to live for it. Yeah could i read the next few sentences there . Do you want to hear him read . You do not like my reading . I am a professional reader for god sakes. It is hard to know how to Liberate Country that regularly carries itself apart along every possible boundary. The income gap between rich and poor continue to one. Many people live in racially segregated communities for the elderly mostly sequestered from public life and rampage shootings have been regularly they only remain in the news cycle for a day or two. To make matters worse politicians occasionally accuse rivals of deliberately trying to harm their own country. A charge so destructive to group unity that most societies would probably have just punished it as a form of treason. It is complete madness and the veterans know this. In combat, so does all but ignore the differences of race, religion and politics within their platoon. It is no wonder so many of them get so depressed when they come home. Is coming home to donald trump would be traumatic kind of thing. There is an i think this book to me has kind of if you read it and take it to heart and mind, kind of a real Ripple Effect of contemporary society. Politics especially these days, t