-Welcome to the show. -Well, thank you.
-Thanks for having me. -And congratulations on another book.
Another book. That's right.
-Thank you for remembering. -Right... (laughs)
What-What's fascinating is you-you wrote a book,
uh, before this that was a smash hit.
It was about presidents and their pets.
-Right? -That's right.
-And then, um... -"Smash hit" part...
But, okay, it was, yes, about presidential pets.
It did very well for a book about presidents and their pe--
It-it was the best-performing
-"presidents and their pets" book. -Exactly.
-Thank you. -That's a hit in my book.
-I love the spin. -Yeah? Right.
Um, and you didn't do that again.
Is it because Trump doesn't have a pet?
That is true that he's the first president, um,
to not have a pet in the White House.
Chester Alan Arthur burned all of his papers,
but, um-- So we don't know for sure that he had pets.
But my understanding is he had a goldfish.
I'm not making this up. Um, uh, but, um,
but Donald Trump does not have-- does not have a pet.
-Right. -Millard Fillmore also didn't have a pet,
but he was the vice president of the ASPCA
for the Buffalo chapter when he left the White House,
so that counts.
(laughter)
What-what I always find,
-um, really... -I can't believe
-you didn't follow up on that. -...freakish-freakish about you
is that you-you just have all of this information
-in your head. -Yeah.
You-You're, like, a-- like, a presidential buff.
Like, you just-- you just love information about pres--
-any trivia about presidents. -Yeah.
I-I love presidential factoids.
And I grew up outside of Washington, D.C.
And, seriously, when you grow up in the D.C. area, sort of,
the president is kind of the above-the-title film star.
I imagine it's the equivalent of growing up in L.A.
and looking through the Paramount gates, in a way.
-Right. -But-- So I've always been kind of fascinated
in the presidency.
This book is interesting though,
because you wrote about people in this book--
It's, like, Mobituaries-- which is a play on your name
but "obituaries" as well-- Great Lives Worth Reliving.
You went with all of the people
who we almost wouldn't know about, you know?
So it-it's not about Jimmy Carter--
it's about someone in Jimmy Carter's family, you know?
-Yeah. -It's not about Rosa Parks,
it's about another woman of color, a black woman,
who decided to ride on a tram
when she wasn't allowed to and it was all-white.
Just, like, why did you choose these characters?
How did you find them?
You know, this kind of marginalized history,
these people that I don't think
got the send-off they deserved, and it's...
I know it sounds silly when we're talking
about serious subjects like Elizabeth Jennings,
the Rosa Parks of New York, but it feels good.
-It's fun to know this stuff. I like that. -Right.
And, uh, and, um... and I thought people...
Especially these kind of pockets of progress,
um, that have been forgotten,
I think are important to know about.
That history doesn't move in a straight line.
So, somebody like Elizabeth Jennings,
-almost exactly 100 years before Rosa Parks. -Right.
She's booted off of a... um, a streetcar in New York City,
and she hires a future president,
in fact, Chester Alan Arthur.
I can't believe this is the first interview ever
where Chester Alan Arthur has been name-checked twice.
-(laughter) -But...
She hires a young Chester Alan Arthur
to defend her in civil court, and she wins.
And this leads to the integration of New York City's
transportation authority shortly after the Civil War.
And I thought, that's kind of nuts
that people don't know this.
Every single story in this book feels like stories
you would want to just have in your brain
-to be the most interesting person in a room. -Yes.
Right? Because... No, really, because it's, like,
one of the stories that blew my mind here is when you...
Like, I didn't know the history of the term "Siamese twins."
-Right? -Right.
Conjoined twins, but then originally,
people were like, "Siamese twins."
And I didn't know that it came from two twins
from a region that was once known as "Siam,"
-which was Thailand. -Right.
And you tell this story, which is fascinating,
'cause they're conjoined twins, and then they come to America.
-They're brought to America. They're a sideshow. -Mm-hmm.
-Then they go on to become slave owners? -Right. It's...
So you're, like, cheering for them
-the whole time in the story. -Yup.
And then, at some point, you're like, "Whoa! Whoa!"
-You're like, "Oh, I almost completely loved you." -Right.
"And you just screwed it up at the last second."
-So... -You had to go and become slave owners.
Right. Aah! But that made it, to me,
a... a certainly more complicated story,
a richer story, and a story more worth telling.
I mean, they are kind of...
They're immigrants. They're...
They're names are Chang and Eng Bunker.
They're two of the first celebrities in America.
They're once wildly famous.
They're pull yourselves up by your bootstraps.
They win their freedom, and then they own slaves.
Um, and it's sort of like the story of America--
-the good and the not good... all in one. -Right.
I mean, they pack it all into that story,
and, um, I want... you know...
And-and I was drawn to them, 'cause I remembered
as a kid growing up...
People my age will remember,
in the Guinness Book of World Records,
there was this stor... this picture of them.
It's, like, the picture of the conjoined twins.
And, uh, and there was this whole story behind that.
What is your favorite story, like, that everyone you think
should know about but they don't know about?
Oh, boy, I have so many that I love.
I love the story of Billy Carter, um, because, um...
Billy Carter, the younger brother of Jimmy Carter...
-Mm-hmm. -...is remembered by most people, if at all,
as kind of a buffoon, kind of a joke,
a caricature of a redneck.
Um, and he, in fact-- I went and I talked
to President Jimmy Carter about him,
to his widow and his six kids.
And they describe a man who was hard working,
who was very funny and we know this from interviews,
profiles that were done of him.
Um, and a man who was struggling with alcoholism.
And in the last proud chapter of his life,
ministered to people, um, that could relate to him about this.
-Right. -Um, and, you know, here he is in a small, tiny town
in Southwest Georgia living his life,
his brother decides to run for president,
the media descends-- I mean, how would you,
how would anyone handle that?
The business, the family business
-was then put into a blind trust. -Right.
Quaint, I know.
(laughter)
And, um, those were the days.
And, uh, um, and...
so he has no choice but to make his living
-at being Billy Carter. -Right.
Kind of being a caricature of himself.
But a complicated and decent man.
Like, when you really learn about him.
And, uh, so I wanted to be generous
and I wanted to be compassionate.
I think obituaries are the one place in journalism
where the rule of thumb is, and I think should be
giving people the benefit of the doubt.
Oh, that's interesting-- giving people the benefit of the doubt.
When you die, I mean, come on.
(laughter)
-You're gone, you're gone. -Right, I mean...
I mean, unless you're a war criminal, that's different.
-Oh, then no doubts? -Right, yeah, you don't--
Some, some doubt or no doubt at all?
No benefit of doubt?
-No benefit of the doubt. -None at all?
-No, no nice stories -Nothing?
about how they like puppies and all that, no.
Got it, got it. What if it was like,
"Puppy-Loving War Criminal Dead"?
Or would you not even include the "puppy-loving" part?
-Two-part series. -Ah!
"War Criminal Dead... also loved puppies."
Right. Yeah, that's an inset. Inside...
-Ah, we put that inside the story. -Right.
If you get that far, "also loved puppies."
If you get that, but we want to make sure you get
-to the war criminal part first. -Got it, got it, got it.
-"Puppies could not be reached for comment." -Right, right.
Thank you so much for being on the show.
-Thanks, Trevor. -A fascinating book.
Mobituaries is available now, a really fun read.
Mo Rocca, everybody.