Welcome to book tv in depth this is especially or fiction on indepth and last month was David Ignatius who writes about the cia. This month we have Colson Whitehead is our guest his most recent book is the underground railroad. What is the appropriate response mr. Whitehead when your books are praised by the president obama and ohio oprah and the National Book award . It takes the pain away. [laughter] this book has taken off in a way that is unexpected and wonderfu wonderful. So i think my lucky stars i sleep a little better, a better mood generally, and try to enjoy it despite my best efforts. Why does it put you in a better mood . I have been writing 20 something years doing fiction 20 years. And no one particularly cares. So i have the pride of thinking i did a good job with the book and the bonus of other people to see that as well. Host your first book was about elevator repair people. How do you sell a book like that quick. Exactly. So when i send it to my agent with the concept and with elevator inspectors are you dont. You either are along for the ride from the description or not. When i was writing it was my second attempt at a novel. My first one was terrible. Everyone hated it. The agent dumped me. It wasnt going anywhere so for year and a half talking about elevator inspectors they made fun of me. Eventually after a year and a half i finally got it down to what sounded like an interesting book i had a new agent in doubleday thought that as well. Is there a connection between the intuition and stand the underground railroad . They are a couple of topics i circle around, cities, i love writing about new york i get ideas and vitality and energy from the city. Pop culture, rac culture, race, technology, and some of the things that are in some books not so much others. And that serve racialized take we dont have that much to say about technology but there are four or five areas i tend to circle around. How she people read your book . Autobiographical . Social commentary . Sag harbor to bring up in the eighties and does bring up my childhood underground railroad is my least autobiographical book and this is about character which is why people probably like it. And some books are funny some are more tragic. And the experience. Host are you benji with a bad haircut . He is a 15 yearold kid growing up in new york in the eighties. As i did. Unfortunately my life was not very interesting. So i had to exaggerate. My summer was not that cool or compelling. So i started the book i wanted to base the characters on my friends and unfortunately it became less and less like my friend david or scott it started off as autobiographical. Im in their but the demands of the story supersede any autobiographical or memoir experience. If i get a compelling story that means exaggerating what happened to me. Host what is the process to get to elevator inspectors or zombies or the underground railroad that actually exist . It might be the same thing from book to book if you know how to write a certain kind of book why do it again . But by the end of the book and then follow up with one thats not is a way not to do the same thing with encyclopedic narrator and its a way to very it for me so i went from sag harbor a realistic story about the eighties to zone number one the apocalyptic zombie tail to this book underground railroad a historical novel. I am keeping it very different and i get my ideas from article articles, weird things i find in my couch. Sometimes ideas stay with you if you get an open spot in your schedule you can consider it if you are ready. Sometimes they follow way. But they come from different places. Host there seems to be a common theme about a guy who really didnt get the rules of life. And i want to say it is autobiographical and tip my hand too early but save the good stuff for the last hour. There is something about an outsider or we are outsiders in on on in different ways and thats a protagonist and good storyteller see you are in the action and standing apart. Someone who observes and is a bit removed is a vehicle for telling a story. Definitely in the apocalypse and in the world of elevator inspectors, to have a point of view character for the reader. Most of the elevator inspectors family so in addition to the reader and the story. Host it didnt come out until 2011 but i read an article you wrote that as a young guy in eighth or ninth grade . No. I was a big horror fan writing horror fiction and Science Fiction. And going back decades but i had a few terrible stories in college and then started writing fiction in my twenties but the obsession was zombies does go back to my childhood. We watch horror movies together. At a very early age. And then a black man being pursued which of course is part of the story of america. And as a Science Fiction fan. I get the impression there was the obsession. I want to have that judge he obsession. But to come of age during the vcr boom we go to crazy eddies and then with a horror movie and then return them the next week and start over. That make me want to write marvel comics. And by stephen king novels he would come into my brothers room and i would read them. Fantasy, for always seemed to be a tool and two different ideas for me. Like dracula and that means something in england and Something Different to the twilight generation but for me there was an expression of social anxiety and fear of other people. Loved ones and neighbors and teachers and coworkers so many zombies are out to get you. They poison monsters and let the mouse down so my apologies if i interpret zombies that way and i felt ready to tackle it with these ideas in the back of my head. Host is social anxiety a common trait among novelists . Im not sure. [laughter] i think it helps, worrying about your work if you do a good job could be a good skill for being a novelist. Host worried about what others thinks about your work . If its if youre doing a good job. Anxiety versus worry but a healthy amount of worry helps you make sure that you put everything into this paragraph for that page and its coming out right. If you have eight books under your belt. Host you are quoted in 2012 that for you as a novelist to fully inhabit on inhabit to give into every kooky aspect a handy survival strategy. What i write about my different books to express different ideas but different theories and that becomes a way for me to interpret the world for myself how i feel about things and politics and people. So that creative licenses important to me following my own inclinations because elevator inspectors sounds like a bad idea can you make it work can you sell it to the reader. So that delusion you have something to say and the delusion your work is worthy of being read by others is useful for being an artist. Host where did the idea the intuition is come from . For you on an elevator . Did you see an inspector . The aforementioned book everyone hated, that book do you remember gary coleman the little black boy tv star . So writing about black imagery and pop culture it was a novel about a gary coleman ask who has these adventures. It seemed like a good idea to me. In the novel he is in a sitcom called im moving in disease is adopted by rich white people. [laughter] and then i sent out the book and everyone hated it. Then i wasnt going to get a real job and become a lawyer. Maybe people like it may be they want but i will learn how to write by the end of it. So i figured like plot maybe i will have a plot. What the heck. Try that i tried the detective novel and studied suspense. Was watching 2020 in those days and there was an article on the hidden things of escalators. Apparently if you dont prepare them they can detach from the sides so the elevator inspector was interviewed and i thought that was a random job and then you always see in new york there is a law but not necessarily enforced but they would sign a certificate i have been hearing everything is fine. They come once a year to your work or school then you see the elevator inspector had been there. Wouldnt that be cool and he solved a criminal case. Ha ha detective story. So i went to see what kind of skills the elevator inspector would bring to a criminal case and of course the answer is not because they are the elevator inspector. So it was not a murder mystery but solving the mystery of a falling elevator and i made a different culture for elevator inspectors and figured they are conservatives and progressives and those who do it the right way versus the intuition is that are progressive and that duality plays out in the book in different ways. Elevator Inspector School and philosophies so really trying to teach myself how to write. I never had a female protagonist before. And a book with a plot. And then i had this weird idea to solve a criminal case and following it through to the execution. That is how that happened. Host prior to the interview you said sorry for the clunkers you had to read. What do you consider a clunker . I think they are all pretty good but hopefully if you do something for a long time you get better at it. And certain books i wonder why do i use so many adjectives . [laughter] but hopefully im a better writer and doing things in a more efficient way. Hopefully you get better. But hopefully im still in the Getting Better phase and learning from each book. Host does im moving in still exist . The manuscript is there. For a while i thought i will strip mine it but it is really terrible and the energy it would take to bring it up to my now very high standards to write something else. So with my children have a gambling debt they could sell it for some money 30 years from now. [laughter] make some quick cash from upon broker. Host one of your female protagonist ms. Watson and cora is another. What is the reason to write from a womens point of view. Women exist if you tell different stories you should take different points of view. It is part of that. I have a string of male protagonists before the book. So it seems wise to mix it up. So with watson i could not do my hipster new york voice for my first novel. I was forced, as a third person narrator i could not rely upon my first person narrator. I came up with the protagonist i had not done before and by doing that hopefully i become a better writer. With cora, i had a few female narrators and mixed it up. And she writes about how when a slave girl is in a much more terrible form of slavery you are supposed to pump out babies. More slaves. So that predicament is worth exploring. Sometimes we mix it up. Sometimes we want to learn something and keep the challenges going. Host what was your favorite one to write . This book was hard to write because i was broke. This was hard to write because i was broke and depressed. [laughter] then when youre finished you look back and think it was terrible but it was a special time in my life. So the noble hustle was the furnace to write one the most fun to write looking at the world series of poker i tried to claim as many jokes as i could in there with that journalistic framework. But i really was trying to cram as many weird jokes and its of myself into it. It was fun. It started from a climate there is a magazine called grant land that was popculture in sports for a couple of years and they called me up to see if i wanted to write about the world series of poker. I said no. I want to go to vegas it taught. They said what about we pay her entrance fee to go to the world series. I said okay i will do that. That there is no other place so i dropped the kids off at school and the other parent said what are you up to . A set of going to Atlantic City to train for poker tournaments and then a gamble and come back at night. [laughter] and then we got to the world series. I mustve stayed home and i got out of my comfort zone and the 5foot area around of my couch. I learned how to play poker so i would embarrass myself and my family and new york at the world series. I was writing the article so write a joke and then make yourself laugh. And then youre stupid for laughing at your own jokes for a while but writing in a way like dickens did back in the day and then people like that i felt good to give me energy to keep going. So it was a special writing experience in terms of the material and how it came to be. I look upon that in six months very fondly. Host so to paraphrase, i got to wear sunglasses inside it was good for me because im half dead anyway. Sure. For years i have been told i have a good poker face. I realize thats because i was half dead inside. [laughter] so to have a mask so my natural lack of aspect was for once an asset in a social situation. [laughter] you trying to unpack me being half dead . [laughter] host will say that for the therapy session. [laughter] but you do write about having a mask on and the fact that you are semi depressed when you are writing in a different person when you are done with the book is that depression important to you . Partially. And i think to have a healthy and joking relationship whether it is art or anything else. I dont take myself too seriously. I think its important instead of how my work with other people that how i define that is important most i know just go along and write some pages then hand them in. And we can keep doing what we like to do. So a lot of times writing is omnipresent so its great if you figure out a new sentence or character or a problem we have been working on but for me not to take it too seriously. And the character of the depressive shut in is fun to play and it is partially true. And also sort of a default setting in my public relations. Host what was the easiest book to write . They were all pretty hard i have to say. I will go with the shorter ones. Apex is pretty short. The bird on the book im working on now is pretty short. [laughter] short is not easy but it tends not to prolong the agony of a 400 page book. Host when you win the National Book award am bullets are praised by a president obama and oprah is there pressure on the next book . There is always pressure i think on myself because i wanted to be good and different. I dont want to coast. Fortunately when i get good news in the middle of something come i can feel really good than the next day i think this sucks and its terrible. Its always hard. And the pressure is selfimposed but it has always been there should i write a book . And rather not be broke so i should get a real job instead of doing this so it is always some kind of real pressure. Things are going well are not going well. Host good afternoon and welcome to book tv on cspan2 our monthly indepth program. This year we are doing a special fiction in addition with bestselling fiction authors. This month our author is bestselling author Colson Whitehead. Here is a list of his books we have referred to several throughout the first halfhour but here is a list. The intuition is the first book 1998. John henry days 2001. Apex 2006. Sag harbor 2009. The noble hustle 2014. Nonfiction and of course his most recent the underground railroad which won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book award et cetera et cetera. We want to guide your participation into our conversation. What is the first line you wrote for the first words you put to paper for the underground railroad . It ended up being the opening line. The first time caesar approached cora she said no. I write the outline before i start writing so i have to know the beginning and the end. The last couple of books i know the last line of the book before i started writing and i write towards that. But the first line i think it came very quickly when i was ruminating and organizing the book and survive the horrible vetting process to get into the book. Host what is the vetting process . [laughter] you say its genius and then a few days later you say that is stupid. So in this case the first line was durable and sturdy and spoke to cora in the one sentence and it stayed with me. Host from the underground railroad about the grave robber robbers, the negro became a human being in death only then was he the white mans people. Thats from a section that takes place in the early part of the 19th century with a doctor going to medical school. And the book does take an eccentric route through american history. The main storyline takes place in 1850. That was my cut off for her technology. And then there are certain side stories in the book for the supporting cast. So in that section doctor stephen to meets correlator in his life is a young medical student in the 19th century learning about biology. And cadavers with a healthy trade with grave robbing some people go and to compete the gangs beat each other up. And then to see himself very liberal and amusing and talking about prejudice and uses that despite racial prejudice and the aspersions cast upon black folks in america. That ironically these folks become equal, these dead folks are certainly elevated only in death to a level of the quality. So one of the moments in the book. Host did you know you would write about that when you started the book . I mentioned that in the outline, yes. Any florida or South Carolina but the white supremacist part in the state which became indiana. Then i knew i wanted to have the opening so coras grandmother follow her from africa two different plantations. And i figured i would move on to coras life. And it could be a way to open the world where cora cannot go. Even though there was a strong structure with a short biographical chapters in medical school. And then coras mother gets hers. After certain sections i would think who should get them. And a husbandandwife team who took cora in and what things he learns and what can ethel bring to the book. So even though i do have a strong structure before you have to be open to the process and where it takes you and those short sections are very useful in terms of giving voice to how the book evolves. Host can you read the underground railroad as historical fiction . I think if you are wellversed in historical fiction, you will know this actually didnt happen in 1815 i moving something from the late 19th century. I had the idea to make the underground railroad a metaphor into something for real the metamorphosis i had on my couch so there was a fantastic elemen element. Which means i can do a lot of Different Things in the boo book, have the different alternative americans and power and successful conception comes from having a fantastic structure. But no, not a historical novel. I take many liberties. I would not stick to the facts but larger american truth thats not bound by chronology and what actually happened but a different kind of connection that i can make and give to the reader with different historical episodes. Host did the rental plantation actually exist . Did you visit these places in your research . The rental plantation where cora is raised and enslaved is my own creation. I had the latitude and from pop culture to have this idea of a plantat