Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr Poems

David McCullough in conversation with Kenneth Whyte

A: I grew up with stories. My father was a wonderful storyteller. He enjoyed the person he was telling the story about, some character who did something odd or had figures of speech. He was a salesman and he met all kinds of people, from going down into coal mines to calling on the executives of the Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company. I grew up with three brothers, and we all loved the stories of days past when there had been floods or fires or some adventure that he’d been on or knew about. I’m not quoting exactly, but E.M. Forster said, “If I tell you the king died and then the queen died, that’s a sequence of events. If I tell you the king died and the queen died of grief, that’s a story.” So it’s understanding the human equations involved, and I particularly have always liked plays, movies, novels where plot derives from character rather than outside forces. All my books, not just this one, are about a journey.

A:     Their journey, how they come out of this catastrophe. Right after that book, one publisher wanted me to do the Chicago fire and another wanted me to do the San Francisco earthquake. I was hardly out of the gate as a writer, being typecast as Bad News McCullough, but in fact I was searching for a symbol of affirmation. I know that we human beings can be very short-sighted, irresponsible, stupid, but that we aren’t always. So I wanted [a subject] that was admirable, noble, and has stood the test of time. That’s when I did The Great Bridge . The [builders of the Brooklyn bridge] did it right, and against horrific odds and all manner of unexpected problems, and human frailty, human greed, human deceit. Out of that gilded age rose this magnificent accomplishment, which is still the primary symbol for the city of New York. When 9/11 happened, the very next morning, front-page photograph in the Times don’t know how it’s going to turn out. I like to talk about the hinge of history. And as often as not, it goes one way or the other because of a person or a group of people and how they respond, what they are willing to endure, what ingenuity they have. What they’ve made. I’m not a sports fan, and there are probably all kinds of reasons for that, but when the game’s over, what have you accomplished? And why do people have to walk for cancer? Why don’t they make