-Our next guests are the co-authors
of the political thriller "State of Terror,"
which is out now.
One is an award-winning best-selling author,
and the other is a former senator, secretary of state,
and the winner of the 2016 popular vote.
Please welcome to the show Louise Penny
and Hillary Rodham Clinton.
[ Cheers and applause ]
♪♪
Welcome to the show!
-Real people!
-Real human beings. -Real human beings.
-Not bad, right? Not bad.
Well, we're very -- we're very lucky to have you both
on a night that the audience is here.
Congratulations on the book. -Thank you.
-You've written nonfiction.
Louise, you have written mysteries.
This is a thriller.
It's a little different for both of you.
How was your collaboration process?
-It was fabulous, I have to say.
You know, Louise and I were friends
before the idea was presented to us,
and I really came to know her
through her amazing series, the Gamache series,
that I just loved.
And when the idea was presented,
I think both of us were, you know, a little --
you know, wondering, how would this work?
'Cause we were friends.
We didn't want to undermine our friendship.
And so we dove into it and we started working on outlines.
-Well, we tried to figure it out, didn't we?
Like, what are we going to write about?
And, you know, we thought, first of all,
if you've got a secretary of state,
maybe you don't want to write about
a secretary of transportation.
-Right.
-So that was clear, but the rest of it wasn't.
-Did you ever say, "You know, we could also write
about a Canadian mystery author"?
-Yes, I did! And Hillary kept nixing it.
-Yeah. -Classic Hillary.
-That was classic Hillary. Exactly. Yeah, exactly.
So then there were times when we were --
because this was in the pandemic, right?
So we couldn't even get together.
So we were doing FaceTimes
and, "What about this and what about that?"
And then there were times we got ourselves so confused,
we thought each other's screen had frozen
'cause we were just staring at each other.
Like, "Where do we go from here?"
-We had these dreams before the pandemic
that, you know, we'd meet at a spa somewhere.
-Sure. -You know, we'd spa all morning.
-We'd spa all morning.
-Maybe write for an hour.
We'd go back and spa some more.
-Yes, have a facial, exactly.
-None of that --
-You probably got it done faster this way.
-I think we probably did. [ Laughs ]
-So, this is about a new secretary of state who --
and there's also a character
who's a former president who's reckless.
-You could say that, yeah.
-I think there are other words.
-He's from Palm Beach.
-Well, a lot of people live in Palm Beach.
-Yeah, a lot of people live in -- Right, yeah.
But was he inspired by anyone? Was there anybody in real life?
-He is fictional, Seth.
-Yeah, yeah, yeah. -He is fictional.
However, having lived through
the prior four years... -Yeah.
-...it wasn't too hard to imagine.
-Yeah. -And the president is someone
who gets the country into a lot of trouble.
-Yeah. -Yeah.
And some of it of his own making
and some of it because he doesn't understand
how other bad actors are actually using him.
You know, so it wasn't too difficult for, you know,
Louise and I to think about this fictional former president.
-No. No, no, no.
But I remember the moment when I asked you,
like, what -- what was your nightmare?
When you were secretary of state,
what kept you awake at night? -Yeah, yeah.
-And -- -I had a list.
-She had a list. [ Laughter ]
It was terrifying, so then she went through it,
and I said, "Well, choose one,"
and you chose the nuclear option.
-I mean, in the book, the plot really revolves
around the great fear that we always had, and still do,
that terrorists would somehow get ahold of nuclear weapons,
either a dirty bomb or something more sophisticated,
and it's a plot that we hope
never, ever comes true in real life.
But it is something of a cautionary tale
about what could happen.
-When you were secretary of state,
I imagine briefings all the time,
and you would have a great burden, I would imagine, on you
to make sure you were up to speed on everything.
But it would also, I would imagine, be important
to find time to, like, shut your brain down a little bit.
-Right. -Did you in those times --
Were you reading fiction about worst-case scenarios,
or were you reading even lighter stuff?
-Lighter stuff, lighter stuff, but also classic mysteries,
like the ones that Louise writes.
You know, and "People" and "Us Weekly."
I mean, I was trying to keep up
with what was actually going on in the world,
not just what was in my briefings.
-Whereas I was reading intelligence reports.
[ Laughter ]
-I have a lot more questions for both of you.
We will be right back with more from Hillary Rodham Clinton
and Louise Penny.