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