Q&A with 2012 Featured Authors Marvin & Deborah Kalb

Marvin and Deborah Kalb are a father-daughter journalism team who joined forces to write their new book, “Haunting Legacy: Vietnam and the American Presidency from Ford to Obama.” Marvin Kalb’s journalism career covers 30 years of award-winning reporting and commentary for CBS and NBC News, including a stint as host of Meet the Press. He is a Guest Scholar in the Foreign Policy Program at Brookings and the Edward R. Murrow Professor of Practice (Emeritus) at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. Deborah Kalb followed in her father’s footsteps as a journalist and has reported for the Gannett News Service, Congressional Quarterly, U.S. News & World Report and The Hill.

Where do you find inspiration?
MARVIN: Inspiration is a hard word to define as an “open sesame” to writing. Some may find it in Biblical stories; others in the lessons of life itself. I find it in the inherent wonders of the stories I am trying to describe: the personalities, the conflicts, the history–all a wonder of nature and a source, if you wish, of “inspiration.”

DEBORAH: The inspiration for “Haunting Legacy,” the book I wrote with my father, Marvin Kalb, came from the long fascination both of us have had with the Vietnam War and its legacy. My father covered the war as a State Department correspondent for CBS News; my uncle, Bernard Kalb, also a CBS reporter, covered the war from Vietnam. I was just a child at the time, but I definitely remember watching the news and trying to figure out what was going on. In 2005, when my father and I were talking about working on a project together, the legacy of the war seemed to be a natural topic to work on. We actually first considered writing a book about the Swift Boat phenomenon in the 2004 presidential election (a group of his fellow Vietnam veterans who ran harshly negative ads against Democratic nominee John Kerry), but broadened the topic beyond Kerry to the war’s legacy in presidential biography, decision-making, and politics.

What advice do you have for aspiring authors?
MARVIN: My advice, for whatever it’s worth, is to write about what you know from personal experience, or from what excites, interests, fascinates you. Then the secret is simply to arrange the words in a compelling fashion. Piece of cake!

DEBORAH: Be persistent! I still have several unpublished novels in my attic, as do many journalists and ex-journalists; I’m hoping to get back to them one day. Overall, I would say that if you love to write and you are able (in terms of time, finances, other commitments, etc.) to pursue your writing ambitions, to spend as much time as possible on it. The more you write, the easier it gets. Have someone you trust look over your material and edit it. Don’t be overly sensitive to criticism, and don’t give up too easily if you face rejection, even over a period of years. If you persist, something will come of it in the end!

What are you reading right now?
MARVIN: I am now reading Walter Isaacson’s last three books, his big and beautiful biographies of Franklin, Einstein and Jobs, three men who opened minds to new adventures. Isaacson brings these men to life. I feel as though I am meeting each as I turn from one page to another. Writing biographies requires a special talent–Isaacson has it.

DEBORAH: I belong to two wonderful book groups. For one group, we are reading an amazing book called “Half of a Yellow Sun” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie; it takes place during the Nigeria-Biafra war, and is one of the best novels I’ve read in recent years. The other group is reading “Visionaries in Our Midst” by my friend and fellow book group member Allison Silberberg, an beautifully inspiring look at various people who transformed their communities through their charitable efforts. I’m also reading “Dreams of Joy” by Lisa See, which takes place in China during the late 1950s; I always enjoy her novels.

If you could sit down at dinner with three other authors, living or dead, which three authors would you choose, and why?
MARVIN: If I could sit down with three other authors? Shakespeare, Jefferson and Wiesel.  With them, the dinner itself would be totally unimportant. They would provide the nourishment.

DEBORAH: It would be an eclectic group. One author I would love to sit down with is the late David Halberstam. I had the pleasure of meeting him many years ago, when I interviewed him for my college senior thesis, which dealt with the three-way relationship among the reporters based in Saigon in the early 1960s, the South Vietnamese government, and the Kennedy administration. Halberstam was one of those reporters, and he wrote so many insightful books about recent American history, politics, sports, and foreign policy. On a completely different note, most of what I read for pleasure is fiction, and I have always admired Anne Tyler. Because she rarely gives interviews, I don’t have much of a sense of how she creates her quirky characters, and it would be wonderful to have a chance to ask her about them. To give the dinner a historical flavor, the third author could be the incomparable Jane Austen, who would have much to say about today’s society compared with the world she wrote about two centuries ago.