Occupation: Journalist Birth: 1949
I want my books to last, to stand the test of time, and to do that I focus on the forces that shape the subject - the cultural and sociological geogr….
You also had in Detroit that summer, an early variation of Ferguson. A black prostitute was shot in the back by police. And all of the efforts that a….
I said that I'm only there to write the truth, I'm not going to cover anything up, but I'll put everything in context and get as close to the truth o….
It's hard to know exactly how people develop the characters they do. There could be people from humble beginnings that turn into jerks. Some characte….
Well, there is something beautiful about ruins. I mean, in one sense it's not that different from going to Rome and looking at the Forum. But it's ch….
It is?classic Bill Clinton, sincere and deceptive at the same time, requiring a careful reading between the lines..
Originally, John Kennedy was going to come speak, and then Lyndon Johnson. Because it was October of '62, neither made it because of the Cuban missil….
Natural politicians are skilled actors, recreating reality, adjusting and ad-libbing, synthesizing the scenes, saying the same thing over and over ag….
And all of the big shots of the car industry are there, strutting their stuff. And that year, they're feeling especially good because cars were selli….
My favorites are Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye, but those are a little off in terms of getting Detroit right on the head. But of course, you know, "D….
So, I mean, there's still vast swaths of the city that are suffering from a lack of jobs and poor housing and poor public schools, but they are build….
I want to write for history, not for the moment..
It seemed that I could tell the whole story pretty powerfully in those 18 months between October of '62 and the spring of '64 when they were all at t….
There was a precarious balance during those crucial months between composition and decomposition - what the world gained and what a great city lost. ….
And then the industry itself was so cocky about what they were doing that they weren't seeing what was coming on the horizon with Japan and Germany a….
My basic philosophy is that no human being is a saint..
Detroit was an exaggeration of what was going on across the country. You could see the divisions, even within the Civil Rights Movement of that perio….
It was so crucial to the Civil Rights Movement that on June 23, 1963, Martin Luther King came to town, walked down Woodward Avenue with more than 100….
And that John F. Kennedy uttered the first variation of "ask not what your country can do for you" in Detroit on Labor Day in 1960. So Detroit was re….
I look for two things when I am about to launch into a book. First, there has to be a dramatic arc to the story itself that will carry me, and the re….
It was a time of uncommon possibility and freedom, when Detroit created wondrous and lasting things. But life can be luminescent when it is most vuln….