Transcripts For CSPAN2 James Patterson The House Of Kennedy

CSPAN2 James Patterson The House Of Kennedy July 13, 2024

Yes. So, that was the first one and then it was Aaron Hernandez did that, and then, this one and i have a john lennon coming out later in the year which is really interesting. Actually this house is connect today a house at that john and yoko owned, theres a bridge between these two houses. Who used to live in your house . Nobody famous. But it took its a disgustingly big house as is lennons old his and yokos. They were here for a while and she held onto it for a while after he was killed. Another Famous Family were the kennedys. Why did you choose to write about the kennedys . It seemed to me, this was the Great American family story. Theyre our royalty as it is, and plenty of stories about jfk and robert, et cetera, et cetera. But in the same way that with the crown, they tell the story of that whole era through Queen Elizabeth. I thought, it was great to tell this story through the kid Kennedy Family and in almost all ways, these characters are a lot more interesting than Queen Elizabeth was. Shes a great lady, but especially joe kennedy, sr. The book starts house of kennedy, sets it in my opinion and joe, sr. , hes had a stroke. He cant communicate very well. Cant really speak. Hes in the house in hyannis. Hes really, really cold and finally gets the attention of one of his nieces that hes cold and she goes rummaging around the bedroom and the first thing she finds she can cover show with in bed is a flag so she covers him with this flag and the flag she covers him with is the flag that covered jfks coffin. So to me, its a great scene and thats what this book is scene after scene after scene to tell the kennedy story. Mr. Patterson, we often think of the Kennedy Family beginning with joe, but it really kind of began with the grandfath grandfather, pj . Well, patrick, one of the interest things he tied 105 years to the day, to the day that jfk was assassinated. Patrick and i think that in my story, the story i tell pretty much begins with joe, joe, sr. And then it just going through the whole thing that the boys, and you know, people talk about the kennedy curse and that has to do with all of the tragedies in the family, but on tomorrow level i found the curse was an unintended one and i think that joe and rose to come extent created it in that they pushed all of these kids to be the best they can be. They were all super motivated, including poor rosemary who couldnt live up to that because she had she was a little slow and there had been an accident when she was born, and in trying to deal with that and sort of get here up to speed, they brought her in for an operation which was considered promising back in those days and it was a lobotomy and after that, rosemary wound up institutionalized for the rest of her life. Anyway, in terms of this curse, you have all of these people incredibly motivated, but also, joe was big on take a risk, climb that tree. Dont worry, if you fall and break your arm, climb it again and thats sort of the real kennedy legacy. Go out there, take the risks, go for the, you know, be great. You should be the president and you know, if we have four president s in the family, thats as it should be. What was his motivation . I think he was just driven. You know, my grand mother used to always say the the hungriest dog eats best and you know, i think he was a hungry dog and i think he wanted all the kids to be that way. Was there a desire to rise above the shanty iris to the socalled when he originally got involved with rose that was the first half step because roses father, he was more established in terms of washington society. And still probably a half step down because he was irish. But a higher station than what joe, sr. Came from. Where did his money come from . Well, i mean, a lot of it came from liquor sales, running, you know. So it start you had out with joe, to have a guy running Internal Revenue and at one point fdr, this is really pretty amazing. He was joe was sent over to be ambassador to england, this irish guy, right . And fdr i guess was kind of breaking his chops and was in his office, joe, you want this job, right . Well pull down your pants ive got to look at your legs because you know, your legs are and he knew that joe was knockkneed, but that was a thing in english owe society, youd have to show your legs and he was more than anything else having fun with joe. So were those liquor sales where he made a lot of his money legal or illegal . I think they were illegal for the most part, yeah. What did the boys bring from joe . As far as motivation, as far as i think the same thing. I mean, ironically he once joe and john were, you know, had to go into world war ii, he didnt want them in the war. He wanted them protected, but they were both they had their fathers desire to go out there and do it. Take risks. So they both wound up doing Dangerous Things and joe, several flights and finally got shot down and thats in the book and once again, thats we try to deal with i try to deal with each kennedy in the book in terms of, there are three or four chapters on young joe and take you right to the point where he has that tragic accident and then meanwhile, john goes off and he winds up on the famous pt109 and both of them put their lives at risk big time. Were joe, jr. And jack different people . Oh, yeah, and pretty competitive. Joe was the one that the family thought were going to be the star. Jfk was very sickly as a kid and continued to be sickly, one thing and another he had a terrible bad back, but he had been hospitalized. You know, a lot of even as a student, sort of like what kids are going through now, he was home schooled a lot because he was ill. James patterson, what was roses role . At that, you know, i wish id gotten more on rose and were working with barbara hall now. Barbara hall was the show runner on madam secretary. And she wanted to do as i mentioned the notion of the american crown and i think in, i think shes going to make more of rose. I just didnt get enough on rose. I kept trying to get more and more and more and we went through a lot of the archives and, oral histories or whatever are available. Couldnt get enough on rose, but she was i mean, shes with a the mom. She was behind the scenes. And you know, once again, it was a different era, but she was strong in other own way and certainly in other own way and influential the kids being as driven to be as good as they could be. While you were working on the house of kennedy, were you simultaneously writing a thriller. Oh, yeah, yeah, and a kids book. You cant see it here, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 about 0 20 manuscripts. And not making it up, there are kids books. So theyre all in process. Working on them. Yeah, yeah, and i mean, theres another nonfiction thing im doing now a friend of mine, matt eversman, matt was do you remember the movie blackhawk down, he was the actual sergeant portrayed in the movie and he went on to be a First Sergeant in basically ranger Training School and were doing a book now, walk in my combat boots. People who have gone through combat and ill take the interview and turn 30page interviews into 5, 6, 7 pages and our mission is if you went through combat that youll go these guys got it right. If youre one of the people you think you know with a soldiers are all about, youll read it and say, i had no idea, i had no idea. One of the things weve seen again and again. We see with their fathers and their loved ones. They come back and they dont want to talk about it. In this book they talk about it. How much interviews did you do for that. Pretty much done, we did a couple hundred interviews and didnt use all of them, obviously, but when you talk about all of those manuscripts sitting around, do you wake up with an idea . Yeah, this morning i did. I was in here at about quarter after 5 00. My wife, where are you going . And a while back, not too long ago, i you bought the rights to you know only the shadow shoes for sure . Yes. I bought that from conde nast and something to make the character a lot more relevant and i woke up at foursomething and i was mulling these couple of scenes i thought were important and also, the sense of new york in the era that the book will take place. So i rushed to this room, this computer and started playing with that. Is that computer off line . Yeah. And so nobody can access what youre doing in there . I hope not. [laughter] probably they can, you know . Whats the difference between writing a nonfiction and a fiction book. Not supposed to make stuff up. Here is the worst thing about nonfiction, okay . And bill bryson dealt with shakespeare. In it, he mentioned the fact that nobody knows anything about shake spears. Shakespeare. Theres one image how he looks. Theres one piece out of a Court Proceedings where hes in it for half thats it. There are hundreds of books with shakespeare. Are you kidding . Where are these . Are they all novels . Are they fiction . We dont know anything about shakespeare. Bizarre. At any rate. The hard things i cant make up things early on. One of the early things i wrote about king tut and i wanted him to live. I wanted him to live. One of the things i learned in house of kennedy was the number of years they spent in new york and london. The family was in london for a year and a half or so, yeah. But several years up in bronx. And theyre down here, too. And in bronx, exactly. I mean, a lot just the Little Details are so one of my favorites is when jfk was president , he loved judy garland and they were friendly he called her up several times and asked her to sing over the rainbow to him over the phone. Its just kind of cool. And who the heck was it oh, and a neat thing was when john, jr. , when he was pitching george magazine, he had this magazine that he put out before he died, and he would go around to these mainly older investors and he would say, the weird thing is, you all knew jfk. I didnt. You know . And thats an interesting thing about this book, too. And you know, a lot of people, you know, people who lived through it will go, oh, my god, i thought i knew everything about the kennedys, i had no idea, theres so much i didnt know, but for a lot of people they dont know anything. Younger people and they dont read history now. They dont know any of this stuff and its an extraordinary story and i hope a lot of younger people read it. When i say younger, i mean under 40. James patterson, whats it like to have a big book come out in the middle of what were going through . You know, look, i mean, theres been nothing like this certainly in my lifetime. I have nothing to compare it to. I guess the closest, and this is before me, would be what was going on in world war ii where you had, you know, this incredible number of males out of the country, in danger, 420,000 americans died during world war ii, but even that probably wasnt as extreme as whats going on now. Books are, you know, doing barely well, actually. My books are doing well because people can remember my name and they go online and oh, okay, who do i remember the name . Patterson . Were doing fine. One of the cool things, this just goes to show, but around the world. This is the sunday times. Its the london times. Front page in the london times and six pages inside, thats how interested in england they were in this book. Which is really it was just extraordinary to me. New york times, not so much, you know. Do you miss the book tour . Do you not enjoy those anymore . I, you know, i just, i did a big one with president clinton when we went around with the president , and that was fun. Really big audiences, so, and we might do another bookstore and well probably do other big tour. Ill do speeches, but its more like big groups of librarians or big groups of teachers. I remember i did one right after President Trump was elected, there was about 3,000 librarians in indiana and could you imagine librarians the small number that would have been President Trump fans so you want to go into a dead room like that the next morning like 8 00 in the morning, it was interesting. But, you know, i miss things like that, but im sure well be doing more in some way, shape or form and when we do this, we go and you come to my office and we do it like this, thats okay. Wed love to take a tour of your office sometime, too. Right now, but, yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you consider yourself a historian . A historian . No, i consider myself a story teller. You know with kennedy and john len lenin john lennon, a lot is out there and hasnt been put in place. One thing about nonfiction, an awful lot of it is written for academics or people who are worried about, you know, weve got to get every single u. S. Grant. A like a thousand pages on u. S. Grant. Some people, they dont want a thousand pages on u. S. Grant. The house of kennedy reads more like a novel, you know, its 400some pages and very readable and moves. Its not everything about the kennedys, but its an awful lot. People that know the story, they go theres a lot i didnt know and refreshed me and reminded me of a lot of the stuff i didnt know. How do you get into childrens books . Had a kid. Had a boy, jack. When jack was and he was an interesting little dude. He was four or five, i was going out to l. A. And said, are you going to miss me . And he said, well, not really. And i was kind of taken aback and he goes, love means you can never be apart. And im like, wow. And i told him right there. If you Say Something in our house, i know own that line so i can use it, i can use it in my books, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. You know, he was always and still is that way, but you know, the interesting thing was, he wasnt a big reader. He was a bright kid and wasnt a big reader. When he was eight, my wife and i, sue, we said youre going to read that summer and people should be doing this now, its really important. So, and we went out and got him about a dozen from library and local book stores, thought they would turn him on. From Percy Jackson to a wrinkle in time. We said youre going to read every day this summer and he said do i have to . I said, yes, unless you want to live in the garage. We read in our house, thats the deal. But, but, but, we were really careful to get books we thought would turn him on. By the end of the summer he read books, when he took his ssats, he got 800 in reading. Right now in this country, more than half of the kids in this country do not read at grade level, which is disgusting. They figured out some things that really, we can correct this. I dont know to correct all the warming. I i dont think well have water problems. I dont how to influence that can actually solve a lot of this thing about kids reading grade level. You can do with your kids and grandkids. I guarantee books, i think my kids books are some of the best books by the way. Im just doing one now. Actually they came to me and said james, kids around the world we want them to know that Albert Einstein the scientific theories but theyre very smart as you would expect they said just you have to make it entertaining. I said all i have to do is write about Albert Einstein in this series and make it entertaining for the kids . Thats it. I did this series and are very entertaining. And i guarantee anyone watching, if your kids read one of those, by the end of it they will be entertained, it will of the book and it will know more about einstein then you do, which is a pretty call promise. Muhammad ali said wed like to do a book about caches clay, meaning when mohammed was a little kid in louisville. I went out and approached a friend of mine and so we did a book together which will come out in november. About caches clay, remembering or becoming muhammad ali is the name of the book. Caches clay. I write the pros and he writes poetry. Its very accessible poetry. We tell the story of how he became muhammad ali. As a little kid though. Its a lot of stuff and its cool and fun and exciting. Host is that one of guest during this mess. Host is that one of the goals . Guest absolutely. Thats to make it easier for parents and teachers and whatever to find books that the kids, that will turn the kids on. On. Which is important. A lot of times people when i go to Hardware Store item would ask for and it dont want to look like a fool. I know i need this but i dont know what kind and it dont want to be made fun of by the person at the counter. A lot of people feel that way but bookstores. They dont know what kids books and dont want to look stupid and so they dont go. They dont go into dont ask and thats terrible. Its not their fault. Although parents and grandparents need to understand its your responsibility to get your kids reading. Its your responsibility. You dont let them come in and tracked mud all over the living room floor. You make them sit down at the dinner table at least for a meal a day and need to get them reading. If youre not reading at grade level you have to put that on your own children because its a terrible burden for the kids if they go through school and youre not reading, if theyre not confident readers. The next school so hard. Host are you of the school we see kids on their phones and you shake your head . Guest i tried not to get too crazy about it but sure, absolutely. Host thats reading. Guest kind that may be a little bit. Im not crazy about it. I dont get angry about it. You do a little bit. Okay, new world. Same with adults. You will be at dinner or see people, three people again and all on the phones. Theres people there at the table. Of course it goes to dinner anymore . In the old days, remember when we used to go to dinner . Used to be fun. Host i vaguely remember that. During this current situation, youve also been active in helping independent bookstores. What if you been doing . Guest we kind of reached out. I got involved with Reese Witherspoon who also is very concerned about authors and bookstores in books. We established indie bookstores. Com at a guess we praise about 1 million and that will be distributed to indie bookstores. No handling fees, no, you know. We put in half 1 million, or i did. So thats a a good thing. That will help. Its not if nothing else books, it will not solve the problem but dont get some money available okay, people believe in us and theres hope, and that made my day a little better today. Hopefully now as things start to open, hopefully in a lot of these places they will understand that bookstores are essential as Liquor Stores and gun shops. That would be nice. Once again, they should be a reasonable way where we can take, people into bookstore and nobody can wear the masks and stay apart

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