Hello. Im Dylan Skolnick from the Cinema Arts Centre delighted to see you all here on this very, very special evening. A rare program, around to ask for their guest so i dont think need enormous introduction. Want to mention cspan is here covering this event so we are all being videotaped and will be able to see it on cspan which is i always find really fascinating. So this program is presented in cooperation with lit fest, Great Organization that you should check them out online and see all the other Great Programs if you havent already been going to it. The organizer, the founder with that has been doing this for a while but it seemed new part of our cinema family has already presented some great, Great Program chair looking forward to a bunch of more in the future. So to get the show on the road it gives me great pleasure to introduce the founder of lit fest, claudia copquin. [applause] hi, everyone. Im claudia copquin. You have a safe slippery when wet . Turns out its true. Thank you for being here tonight. I am super excited for this evening. This is a long island litfest presents event featuring Nelson Demille in conversation with representative steve israel. Its really exciting. Just to tell you a little bit of who i am, im the founder of long island litfest, the first Literary Festival now entering our fourth year. We usually hold our fullday program in the spring and its a full day of author readings and workshops and talks and book signings, and really fun and exciting so please come to our website for information and author events that we do as well. I also want to thank the wonderful people at Cinema Arts Centre for allowing us to be here and for hosting events. We hope to produce more of these like this within the next months. So again please go to our website, sign in, you would get an ibo last with information and find out whats going on and what we are doing. Our website is on the bookmark that she should all have received in a copy of your book. Before we begin if you check and your seat and you fight an extra bookmark we have a special surprise tonight, a cuban affair tshirt to give weight to whoever is the bookmark under e seat. Take a look. Whos got it . All right, crate, congratulations. Please see me afterwards and we will give you your tshirt. Just an extra little bit of housekeeping for those tonight. We are going to have a conversation followed by audience q a. You get to ask all all the ques youd like in the following that there will be a book signed by mr. Demille. All of those who want your book signed not personalize please go to the front of the line and youll you will be taken care of really quickly. And now its my pleasure to introduce tonight to moderator, former United States congressman steve israel currently serves as chairman of the Long Island UniversityGlobal Institute and University Writer in residence. In 2014 he published a critically acclaimed satire of washington called the global war on mars come partly based on national moods during his tenure in congress. His second novel big guns will be published in 2018 by simon schuster. He was a member of congress for 16 years and president clinton called in one of the most thoughtful members of congress. He served as as a regular polil commentator on cnn. He graduated from George Washington university with a ba in Political Science and his home is in oyster bay. Nelson demille is in your times bestselling author of 20 novels, six of which were number one New York Times bestsellers. His novels include tonight the cuban affair, rating angel, the charm school, the generals daughter which is made into a major Motion Picture starring john travolta. He has written short stories and articles for magazines and newspapers. He is a combat decorated u. S. Army veteran, a member of mensa, poets and writers and Authors Guild and a member and past president of the mystery writers of america. Hes a member of the International Thriller writers who honored him in 2015 as the real master of the year and he also lived on long island with his family. Ladies and gentlemen, it is my honor to introduce to you representative steve israel and Nelson Demille. [applause] [inaudible conversations] can you hear . Hello . Thank you, claudia, i always say what i want to retest on that. But thank you for that. Thank you all for being here. And. Lets give a big hand for Nelson Demille. [applause] extraordinary writing. Also on the issue of mensa, not wanting to be retested, you heard claudia kind repeat bill clintons line about me, what is most thoughtful members of the nicest congress. Have you been watching the United States congress . The bar is pretty damn low. Nelson steve, first of all i want to thank you for being here. I hardly ever [inaudible] steve such a generous man. We had a little lunch party for the book. My tenyearold son said congressman israel would speak at his class and congressman israel said yes, all if your homework that night. [inaudible] something that not doing homework tonight, congressman israel speaks to the class. Thank you for being here tonight. Happy to do. Before we get into the 2500 or so conversation and then q a with ask a very important question. How many of you have already read the cuban affair . Nobody. Okay. We dont want to give anything away this evening. Let me get right to the first question. This is but what an extraordinary book. Heres whats going to happen. Im going to predict you will get it tonight. Nelson will sign it and then youre going to ask yourself around christmas and hanukkah why didnt i get another five sign for all my relatives . After this get your book and go to the book review and buy more. Because this this is a book yod your family and your friends wont want to miss. This is not just a book about risk. Its actually i thought i risky book because you basically retired the character of john. John cory corey was making monr you as the author, making money for a publisher. And now you invent an entirely new character, decidedly different i think from corey and put him in a new setting. How much of a a risk was it for you to depart from john corey . Youre in Publishing Company how they operate. They want you to do the same thing every time with the same thing. After 35 years with my prior publisher, i finally left at a store with the new publisher, simon schuster. This is my first book with simon schuster. I thought theyre buying john corey, this series because it was doing so well but they were actually buying me and they said no, do Something Different. It took me aback but account like the idea because i got a little tired of john. John was getting on my nerves a little bit. I always remember [inaudible] charlotte kills, finally killed him in switzerland but the outrage was so much from fans that they had to bring this guy back from the dead. [inaudible] you dont survive that fall. But anyway, the risk was, i dont know if i would taken it myself but the publisher was very much behind me going to a new character. [inaudible] it became a series. I went back to my roots, a new character, and this is a standalone book. Dan mccormick is the main character. Having read every one of your books, and dont give me a quiz on them having read i read every one of yours. [laughing] congressman peter king had a great line whenever together he says between, peter has written a three novels, ive written one and have another one coming back and he says between Nelson Demille, peter king and steve israel weve sold 45 million books. You dont want to know how the equation breaks down. So mack maccormick i found him to be a departure from john corey character. He seemed more restless than corey, less granted. How difficult was it for you to divorce yourself from this character and create a new character . The character of Mac Maccormick, you have to build those guys bio from the beginning and mac, one of the reasons by the way, one of the reasons i think the publisher, i think i know why the publish one me to come up with a new character, a lot of my older characters were ready for Social Security and medicare and interim chronology of the book if you look at it you realize even john corey was getting on in years. So he asked me to come up with somebody, the only requirement of the sky should be about 35 which is the sweet spot i think in hollywood and literature. So 35 years old, too young from vietnam, too young for iraq, a bit of an afghan war veteran here grew up in portland, good family, new england side of family. Went to second tour in afghanistan, got injured. Came from a solid background but the washington. On page when we see Mac Maccormick in the green parrot bar in key west. Thats the opening scene and now hes been there three or four years and hes, he bought himself a charter fishing boat, 42foot and is got a quarter of nine dollars bank loan on them, things are going quite well. Hes waiting at the green parrot for a customer, a man named carlos. I cubanamerican miami lawyer and carlos [inaudible] mac turned it down but then the book would only be three pages long. He eventually does turn it down. I will give away the whole in fact, the first three chapters are published online at my website. Does anybody go on Nelson Demille. Net . Its free. Three chapters for free. Then i to come up with romantic history, his parents, the whole thing. The problem with creating a 35yearold, i did know any 35yearold, except my son who was 36 when i started writing writing the book. I called them. Much of it you didnt want to know. Because reminded you of you at 36. By the way, sunday was an important day. On sunday this book was the number one bestseller of the New York Times. [applause] how about that . Lets talk about cuba. Ive been to cuba several years ago. You were there. Why cuba . Did you had the idea for the book . Tell us about your trip and how it informed the book. Good question. Again, new publisher, the sp o come up with not only a new character but a plot that would be interesting. You have ideas, you had to sit and write them. The Obama Administration opened up cuba. Im a Political Science history major, a a political junkie soi was following this cuban trail. I knew a lot of cubanamericans in south florida, in miami and i have cubanamerican who lives down the block from me who escaped from the revolution and lost everything. It was at the kind the back of my mind. So im thinking about it and there was, only 2015, and then one day in the mail i get this brochure from an educational group. My son went to yale. [inaudible] he doesnt live there but they have my address so i said why not . I should really go to cuba. So i said to my wife do want to go to the Cayman Islands . So she said yeah, sure, sounds good. I called a classmate of john kerry. They graduate together in 66. He said he want to go . This will be fun. It sounded like it could be fun. He said let me call bundy, a nephew of georgia bundy. An assistant to john kennedy. He was very involved with the bay of pigs invasion and the cuban missile crisis. He wanted to go because it never seen cuba and you wanted to see where his uncle screwed up i guess, i dont know. The trip was until october but it will had to start the book, i could wait until october. I begin the book then but the book, you know, kind of took shape but didnt really come to life until i went to cuba, spent 13 or 14 days there. And because of john, they spoke to john kerry and forgot what would of amounted to a get out of jail free card in case we were busted for something. We carried it with us wherever we went. We did get a chance to see the acting ambassador. It was kind of interesting to go to the american industry which as you know, the tectonic ways released at the time. I think anybodys going to write a novel needs to go to the place because thats what really inspires you and you feel youre not a fraud. You have done this and thats what i felt whenever my book about vietnam. I had been in 6768 but i went back there in leningrad, i went there. Good resources as a writer. Finished a book, i dont know when, but when i got back and they published it in september 19. Here we are. The total elapsed time from inception to publication was almost two years . A year and a half i guess. What i thought was remarkable was, you spent 12 days in cuba but two years. Twelve days in cuba but your descriptions of places in cuba, your description of the hemingway house, your description of old havana was his if you grew up in these places. How do you pull that off . This was by the way in addition to being intriguing and spellbinding it is a a tour through cuba with its totalitarianism and disclose the side and everybody you talk to, maybe a spy or spying on spies or spy spying on spies buying another spies. Your description of extraordinary. How you do that . You have to make some of it up. Literary license. Most of it is accurate. But i am known in the business of being a tick killer a stickler for accuracy. Thats what my books come out every two years as a post every year or some authors i wont name, every three months. I just called Jim Patterson the other day. [laughing] his wife said im sorry come hes writing a book. I said thats okay, ill hold. [laughing] i didnt even realize he writes his own books. What in cuba did you learn that you would say affected the trajectory of the book . I did a lot of Book Research before i got there. It was about april what i propose the book and october before i went. What are the things that really surprised me, and you were there, a nightlife, vibrant nightlife was in a country thats very poor and with a totalitarian regime. Ive been to moscow, Eastern Europe and the grimness about the people. But the cuban people, a lot of life, the music, the art and the dance was absolutely fabulous. This has not changed since 1959 when the communists took over. The poverty was, the poverty was almost comprehensible. Everybody in cuba, you probably know this, everybody makes 20 a month. Thats the official salary 20 a month and is not even food available. They have fallen back to a barter system its very primitive, a barter system and a system of black market which is the sadiq khan which is your thing that keeps people going. Poverty was, you know, you hear about poverty but when you see it its kind of jarring. As an american you feel guilty. It doesnt have the appearance of a police state. I think it mightve felt the same thing. What are my characters in the book said this looks like any other tropical paradise and the police state is not always apparent but you must be careful. This this is a way we felt whene were there, that we just knew we needed to be careful. Did you ever feel threatened . Youre a bestselling author, the government and authorities had to know, did you feel you are being watched . Not watched, no, but we felt we could be the victim of a scam at any point. A lot of scams going on. Or when the political winds blow some way for some reason, we were talking backstage, you might know who allen gross was. He was arrested in cuba back in 2008. He was with working for an ngog some telecommunication working cuba. He had done this all over the world. He was arrested and charged with espionage by the cuban government, spent a year in solitary confinement before the trial. Was tried and sentenced to 15 years and spent five years in a cuban jail with nothing. He was totally innocent. The reason i knew, we heard the story, read about it but when he came out of jail he was very nice and he said something to the effect publicly that when he was able to get books, Nelson Demille books kept them going which i thought was very nice of them. I met him and he said i met him in washington a couple of weeks ago and we did something in atlanta together. But knowing that story, but thats what i mean about the get out of jail free. You dont think its going to work. The fact i am with two guys who were roommates of the secretary of state, you know, i thought maybe they would keep us out of jail or it might get essential. You dont know whats going on behind the scenes and what theyre trying to do at the moment. It could make relations better or make relations worse. Its a crapshoot when you go to place like that. Theres a fascinating character in the book who is eerily familiar to fans of Nelson Demille. He is a bestselling author who is doing research on cuba. Easy based on anybody we know . For some reason, i cant, i i talked to think about this, what i put myself in the book, i have no idea. It just seemed, you know,. [inaudible] i thought for sure she was going to take a step it goes me putting myself in the book and she thought it was funny, left it in. I said maybe i should take it out. One of the reasons i did is because part of the book has to do with the group i went with. I put them in the book as a kind of way for mac and is wilmot he is with to get into cuba, kind of undercover. It was a group tour. Im afraid i made fun of him because i was still this tuition for my son. Multiple things i said about them. Make fun of myself a little bit, too. On the topic of humor and having fun, the first novel i did when i sent it to my agent, she sent it back and said, its too funny. She said youve got to learn how to, where wit belongs and what doesnt. Shes of every paragraph is a punchline. The marvel of your books i think is you are able to maintain that pace of with without distracting from the story. How much of a challenge is that . I had the same criticism. A little too much, send it back, it was a great joke but do i need it here . Americans are funny so we can to make fun of things, you know, that are not funny because this is how we get through it. G. I. Humor which i havent some of my