Alex Kotlowitz’s An American Summer: Love and Death in Chicago might be considered a bookend to a 40-year career writing about the violence and the communities affected by it. In An American Summer he returns to the neighborhoods and relationships forged while writing There Are No Children Here, published in 1991 and named one of the 150 most important books of the 20^th century by the New York Public Library, for what he describes as one more attempt at showing how violence impacts those living it. Through a tapestry of intersecting lives and stories, readers are intimately introduced to people they may have never met and life experiences they may have never witnessed despite living only miles apart. An American Summer was released in March 2019, and the author has been speaking across the country to share the stories of people, young and old, and many of whom he has grown to love, while reporting on families who live predominantly on Chicago’s South and West Sides.

The book itself is a vessel of empathy, ready and waiting for anyone who wants to absorb and understand the complicated relationships people in these neighborhoods have with love, and death, and in many cases, the resilience required to get through each day. I was awed by Kotlowitz’s ability to speak without judgement, through the eyes of an observer who was indeed meant to tell these stories. Though the streets where the stories are set, and where many of his interviews took place, are better known for the violence that rearranges the lives of all involved, the pages are filled with hope. The pain these men, women, and children survive, or succumb to, is pain many of us would struggle to witness, let alone endure.

Alex Kotlowitz is an award-winning writer, documentary filmmaker and producer who has published four books all which elevate the stories and resilience of those often marginalized. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, Rolling Stone, The Chicago Tribune and The Washington Post. He collaborated with acclaimed documentary filmmaker Steve James for The Interrupters (2011), an Emmy-award winning production following those at the frontlines who are trying to interrupt the intractable violence in Chicago. I caught up with Alex at a North Side coffee shop in Chicago, my dog-eared, notes-in-margin, highlighted copy of his hardcover book in hand. I am forever grateful to have shared the following conversation with him.

Please See Me: You mentioned while on a panel at the LA Times Festival of Books this spring that you’re not an expert on gun control, a question you often get when speaking. You shared that you are a storyteller, and that you wanted to let those you interviewed speak. So that what would happen?

Alex Kotlowitz: Right. I’m pretty straightforward at the beginning of the book that I’m not reckoning with public policy in this book. One, it’s not my bailiwick. And two, I said in the book and I’ll say it again, anyone who says they know what works is lying. Because we haven’t figured it out. For me the power of telling stories is not that they answer questions, it’s that they ask them. That’s what I hope to do in the book, and if it informs public policy, informs our laws, or how we deal with one another, all the better.

PSM: You began doing interviews for the book in 2013, and in the epilogue you mention a colleague telling you that “you were meant to write this book.” Given your body of work that only makes sense, but what significant event in 2013 propelled him to say this?

AK: I don’t think it was any significant event in 2013. In fact, I landed on the summer pretty randomly. In some ways I see this book as a bookend to There Are No Children Here, which was about the gross inequity in our cities, and this growing divide in our nation. One of the things that became clear to me as I spent time with the boys whose lives I chronicled was not only the incredibly distressing conditions in public housing, but also the relentless violence in their lives. I’ve been troubled, unsettled, perplexed by the stubborn persistence of that violence. In these intervening years, I’ve done reporting which has deeply informed me. I was involved in the Harper High series for This American Life where we spent six months at a high school on Chicago’s South Side after a year in which 27 current and former students had been shot, seven of them fatally. I produced the documentary The Interrupters, which followed three violence prevention workers over the course of a year. An American Summer was my final effort to take a swing at trying to understand what’s going on. I also feel, and I’ve felt this for a long time, that we’ve grossly underestimated the impact of the violence on both the spirit of individuals and the spirit of community. And we’ve underestimated the capacity of people to move on, and in some cases move on heroically. This book was an effort to grapple with that.

PSM: Do you think you have it figured out?

AK: No, I never feel like I have it figured out. It’s funny, I was just on a panel with Thomas Abt, a Harvard professor, who I greatly admire and who has written a deeply provocative book, Bleeding Out. It’s such a thoughtful book, and I learned a lot from it, but I disagree with him that we’ve figured it out. We haven’t. We have ideas that have worked in some places and not in others. And as Abt points out, we’re finally thinking about violence prevention through a public-health lens. What he does more than anything is give us some hope, some sense that we might well be able to reduce the violence in our cities. But look at this past weekend [in Chicago in August]: 53 wounded, 7 killed. And this at a time when we think we’re doing reasonably well.

PSM: An American Summer took 6 years to come to fruition. I know the process can be long, but is this typical? You mention these were some of the hardest interviews you’ve ever done, that you were drawn in deeper. Was it the people? Your relationships to and with them? The content and fact-checking?

AK: Well, I’m a slow reporter and writer to begin with, and I often don’t know when to stop reporting. But what I didn’t expect, and I feel a little naïve to admit this, is when I began this book I thought it would be relatively easy to report. I thought with the summer I had clear temporal boundaries for the book. I thought I’d report over the summer and for the following six months and then begin to write. Of course when I got involved in the stories, and people’s lives unfurled, it revealed so much more of what they were up against, so I couldn’t let go. The reporting took considerably longer than I expected. Also, people were constantly cancelling interviews with me, and at first I took it personally. But I realized I was talking with them about what was for most undoubtedly the absolute worst day of their life, and my presence was a constant reminder of that moment. But I think my presence also had the effect of letting people know that that moment wouldn’t be forgotten.

PSM: Why this structure for the book—the three days introducing each chapter? Was it time interviewing? Time spent with each person?

AK: Each chapter lands on a day during the summer. The structure is in some ways straightforward: every chapter begins on that day, in a moment, and then goes back in time to understand how we arrived at this place. But there’s a little trickery of time going on as well. Some stories move forward in time, some by as much as two or three years. And then the reader is pulled back into the summer of 2013. It’s like entering a portal, enveloping yourself in the story, and then getting pulled back into the summer. I really struggled though. It had me absolutely paralyzed for a while: How could I tell these stories in the constraint of this summer? Would I simply need this huge epilogue? My friend Chris Ware, the brilliant cartoonist and storyteller, gently suggested I just start writing the stories and worry about the structure later. That helped to get me out of my paralysis. Just tell the story, and everything else will follow.

PSM: Your writing style includes the use of simile and metaphor, such as the following example: When talking about Gerald’s memory of the fire, you write: “like an ancient cliff painting, the scene still recognizable but the drawing faded in places and in some cases simply erased by years of erosion.” Is this how you write naturally, or do you insert the imagery later during rewrites?

AK: I tell my students to be careful with similes and metaphors. They shouldn’t be used to show off as a writer but rather as a tool to help readers see what you see and hear what you hear. I use them as an assist to the reader, to help them see things that otherwise might feel unfamiliar.

PSM: There are so many excellent descriptions of emotional pain in your writing, drawn through the physical details. For example, in Chapter 12, “The Two Geralds,” you write: “he folded forward in his chair, his head buried in his hands…I thought he might be nodding off, but then I realized he was in some discomfort…‘I’m always afraid,’ he told the others in a voice so soft they had to lean in to hear him. ‘I’m not afraid of dying. What I’m afraid of is losing my mother, of being in prison, of being a failure. I’m afraid of living.’” When you write a scene like that, what’s your process?

AK: I’m an inveterate note taker. I’m always writing everything down, I mean everything, and I worry later about what I’m going to need. When I sit down to write, I actually do it at first without my notes and try to recall what I saw or experienced. My assumption is that the things I remember are things that readers will remember as well. I can still picture that first meeting with Gerald. He just seemed so distraught, and in some ways, so in need. When he heard about the trauma therapist the women in the group had found, he just wanted to know about it. He’s deeply thoughtful, and wanted to know more about this notion of a trauma therapist. The other thing I do is take photos of people. I do it so I that I can look at them when I sit down to write. So, I can remember the way people look. The tough thing about writing nonfiction is that you’re looking for moments or scenes. Unlike fiction, it’s really tough to have nonfiction rely too much on internal musings. It’s propelled by external actions. So for instance, in that moment with Gerald, I had to think about what made him seem so distressed. I work hard at reporting and writing cinematically.

PSM: Are you doing more in film?

AK: I’m an executive producer on a documentary my friend Steve James is directing, but I’ve been determined to get back to my writing. I’ll continue writing about the profound inequities in our cities, but there’s other terrain that’s calling me as well. These are such troubling times, and I imagine all writers are thinking about how they might weigh in, how they might make some difference.

PSM: In Chapter 2, “Mother’s Day,” you write about mothers who are grieving the loss of their children to violence. You write, “One mother told me I didn’t know there were so many ways to grieve.” You mention that some are debilitated and some become activists. There are so many parallels to the pain and activation of mothers who have lost children to medical harm in my world. One striking difference, however, is that mothers advocating after patient harm are predominantly white, affluent, and able, whereas the mothers in this chapter have lost kids, and it’s flipped back at them, so that they have to defend their children. How can we show that these worlds are more similar than different? Can we?

AK: That for me is what storytelling is about. I guess the ultimate question is how can you get more people to pick up a book like An American Summer if they don’t have connection to these communities. That for me is the real challenge as a storyteller, as a writer. How do you engage people who wouldn’t ordinarily be drawn to this subject matter or these individuals? My answer to that with There Are No Children Here is that I wrote about children. This was a harder one. You hope that the stories are compelling enough that they’ll draw readers in, and that once they’ve met the individuals in the book and have heard their stories that it will have upended what they thought they knew.

I will say that maybe one of the big differences between the mothers I spent time with and those who have lost children to medical harm is that these mothers, while in the midst of their grief, still have other children they’re trying to keep from harm’s way. They constantly have to be on guard.

PSM: I’m always looking for ways to bridge what many may believe to be disparate worlds through our universal need for love, respect, family, purpose.  I love what Creina said to Malan: “The only thing you can do is love, because it is the only thing that leaves light inside you, instead of the total, obliterating darkness.” You believe this to be the default setting of most mothers who have lost a child to the violence. Is this because of the mothers you met?

AK: Yes. The mothers I’ve met have been so loving, so warm, so nurturing. I’m just astonished. I mean one in particular that I write about briefly, Myrna Roman, I just saw her the other day. She lost her child in an absolutely senseless killing. He was out with his cousin and was killed by someone he didn’t even know. Myrna makes you feel good just being around her, despite all she’s been through. And she’s so open and forthright about her journey. She has this remarkable strength about her, and yet I know how much she’s still hurting. Lisa Daniels, who readers also meet in this chapter, is another remarkable woman who, like Myrna, makes you feel good just being in her presence. And Lisa’s journey will, I have no doubt, knock you off balance—and make you reconsider what you thought you knew.

PSM: In Chapter 3, “A Conversation: The OGs,” we go back in time a bit, but these are also new relationships for you. Did you know Jimmie Lee was looking out for you while working on There Are No Children Here?

AK: No, I didn’t. When I first showed up at Henry Horner, I spent time at the Boys Club, and the staff and the kids there were my introduction to the community. I spent three or four weeks hanging out at the club, and getting to know the kids and the staff, like Major Adams, who took me around and introduced me to people in the neighborhood. Unbeknownst to me at the time, one of the things Major was doing was introducing me to the gang leaders and letting them know I was okay. And so they kind of kept an eye out for me. Jimmie was in prison by the time I wanted to interview him, and he declined an interview from prison at his lawyer’s advice. I met him for the first time when I was working on The Interrupters, and we’ve since become friends. I admire him for the work he’s doing now.

PSM: Did you meet Napolean while writing There Are No Children Here?

AK: No. He went to prison, too, when I was working on that book. In fact, the murder he was involved in is a scene in that book. He’s just a gentle bear of a guy, and is doing remarkable work in violence prevention now. I love the last line in that chapter, that he apologized for not texting me back because he didn’t want to text and drive.

PSM: Yes! There are so many last sentences in your chapters that pack so much meaning, so much emotion. Like George Spivey in Chapter 14, “Artifacts.” You write: “George told me that after Daquan was killed and after he got out of the halfway house, he sought out Daquan’s friends. ‘They told me Daquan was so glad I was home,’ he said. George then got up and told me he had somewhere to be.”

Some additional moments that struck me in this chapter are when Napolean and Jimmie talk about the need for standing, meaning, and respect as men, and when they can’t get that, they choose to be feared. They also tell you that the younger gangbangers don’t listen to the old-timers. The neighborhood pressures win out, and kids get sucked in. How can we find ways for the communities at risk to have purpose?

AK: There are two things going on in your question. The first is the myth that some of the older guys hold, that things were better back in the day. The truth of the matter is, that as bad as it is now, it was considerably worse (in numbers killed) back then. But there was this greater sense of control, it was purposeful, as bad as it was. The other thing I think Jimmie is talking about is the distressing conditions in these communities, and for me, that is what’s most sobering, how little things have changed.

PSM: They also mention how much easier they believe it is to get guns.

AK: That’s nationwide, not just in Chicago.

PSM: How are our schools failing?

AK: The great American myth is that schools are the one institution where you can transcend your social status in life. The schools aren’t working as they should, but I will also say it is a place kids want to be and where they feel reasonably safe. I think we should build on that. I think it’s criminal the lack of social workers in our schools. We should have medical clinics. Places for kids to go after school and just hang out or receive tutoring. Why not build on what still has some dignity and honor in the community, and that’s the schools.

PSM: Jimmie says at the end of that chapter, “Alex, you’re going to bust your head trying to figure this out.” Are you?

AK: In some ways he’s right. I’ve been asked by editors at various places to write about the violence, but I wrestle with what more I have to say.

PSM: In Chapter 5, “The Tweets,” you interview Chicago Tribune reporter Peter Nickeas, who struggles with all he witnesses while covering this same beat. You write: “But he can’t look away. In fact, the longer he spends chasing the violence, the more he needs to linger, to hear from those still standing. He knows how they feel. He knows their anguish, their fury, their fear, their will to go on. The violence, the trauma, he realizes, has this paradoxical narrative. It isolates people. He knows that all too well…he found comfort in talking to people in the streets, people who had seen what he’s seen, people who had a lot more at stake than he does. The violence, he tells me, also pushes people together. He gets a tattoo on his left forearm, a quote from Cormac McCarthy’s All the Pretty Horses, ‘The closest bonds we will ever know are bonds of grief. The deepest community one of sorrow.’”

This reminds me so much of our patient advocates and our own dysfunctional healthcare system built off grief but never fully dealing with it. So many physicians, nurses, and caregivers who hold more than they can cope with are committing suicide or burning out because caring for the caregiver isn’t something we take the time to do. Peter Nickeas was one of those exposed without a way to manage what he saw, swallowed whole. But think of police officers on the front lines. Parents and family members of victims.

AK: In both Pete’s story and the story of Anita, the social worker, you see the effects of secondary or vicarious trauma. People who are profoundly affected by the violence, and not because of anything they’ve witnessed or experienced firsthand. But rather because of all the people they’re spending time with. It had a profound impact on Pete, especially the first years he was reporting. And Anita too, all the time she spent with Thomas and the other kids, it began to take a toll on her. Part of her face became paralyzed due to stress. I think we underestimate the effect the violence has directly and indirectly on individuals.

PSM: That’s the ripple effect of what’s going on. To me, that’s why this violence affects all of us.

AK: It does and it doesn’t, right? Part of what’s so troubling is that it’s so easy to live in parts of Chicago and be completely untouched by the violence. For me, empathy is so essential. It requires a leap of imagination; it requires some effort to try to imagine yourself in the shoes of Lisa Daniels, Eddie Bocanegra or George Spivey because the truth of the matter is, it’s easy for people to just go about their lives and not have to think about it. Ending the violence and the profound poverty that serves as its foundation is, in the end, a moral argument. It requires compassion and empathy.

PSM: One connection I see, even for the unknowing, is that some of the docs that rotate through Cook County Hospital also care for patients at Rush University Medical Center. These two patient populations are worlds apart, yet think about a young resident physician who works on his or her first 14-year-old gunshot victim at County. She then heads over to do rounds at Rush, and might be so disconcerted by what she just saw that she misses a critical lab value in her Rush patient’s medical chart. She discharges the patient, only to have them die in the street of a heart attack. People have to see that the well-being of all of us affects all of us. That’s one reason why I’m trying to use stories to connect in the healthcare world. The power of empathy is that bridge.

AK: You’re making an argument for what I do. Storytelling in my mind is essential.

PSM: In Chapter 11, “Day of Atonement,” you share Eddie Bocanegra’s story, which is just so powerful. It seems to cover a longer time period. Did you spend more time with him?

AK: There were a few people I knew before I began the book. Eddie and Thomas in particular are two people who I knew I wanted to write about. I needed to find a way to shoehorn their stories into that summer. I met Eddie while working on The Interrupters, and I consider him a friend. I spent an enormous amount of time with him. He’s incredibly thoughtful, and I learned a lot from both him and his wife, Kathryn, who is also deeply involved in violence prevention. One of my favorite parts of reporting this book was driving down to Texas with Eddie to visit his family. We had such a good time on that road trip, and then I got to spend time with his family, these incredibly welcoming people.

PSM: You write that when Eddie was asked to be on a panel while in prison, with a scholar who was researching hope and inmates—but it seemed that researcher had already decided inmates have lost hope—Eddie politely and firmly declined. You write that “what bothered him, is that it’s only human nature to have hope. Without it, you have nothing. It’s about as close to death as one can get without actually dying.” The guard that sucker punched him infuriated me as a reader. About that you write: “And only later…in the privacy of his cell…did he cry. Not because of the physical pain…but because of the humiliation.” Do you want to talk about not having hope and feeling humiliated as being far from rehabilitative?

AK: This sense of hope, and it sounds really glib, but I think part of what’s happening in these communities is so many young people are losing hope. And without it, you’re without a sense of purpose, without a sense of future. That’s why I feel the violence is only symptomatic of what’s going on in parts of our cities. We have these incredible inequities. Eddie is somebody I think, who on some level, whether he was conscious of it or not in prison, knew he needed to hold on to hope. There’s a moment, I’m not sure if it’s in the book, but he painted a lot while in prison. He had painted a picture of himself in a suit that he found on the cover of a GQ magazine. It’s really about what he imagined might be possible though he’d be the first to tell you he was filled with all this self-doubt.

PSM: This chapter was primarily about Eddie’s atonement for the life he took. He’s so pained by the guilt of having taken another life. Self-forgiveness is difficult, and that struggle speaks to our humanity, no matter how very different the worlds we live in may be. It feels like another place to connect people with vastly different circumstance and life experience.

AK: There are lots of stories of forgiveness in this book. Eddie’s story and Marcelo’s story both are about forgiving one’s self, and the struggle that ensues.

PSM: So many young boys and men show up to prison with PTSD, and it’s made worse while there. The cycle continues—stories of how resilient these boys are get overlooked. Is this the reason you put the stories into the world? To tell the truth?

AK: The simple reason is that I was looking for people I wanted to spend time with, who I felt were on some level good company and who were teaching me something. I figured if I enjoyed spending time with them then readers would as well. I was also looking for stories that surprised me, knocked me off balance, and upended what I thought I knew. And each of those stories does it in their own manner. It isn’t until I sit down to write, and for me this is why writing is so hard, that I try to figure out what to make of all I’ve seen and heard. I began to realize the various themes—forgiveness, fear, trauma—that wend their way through these narratives. I also realized these are all stories of people who are still standing. People who are moving forward, and some quite heroically, like Eddie and Lisa. I know it’s dark terrain, but for me, it’s a collection of stories filled with all this light. Eddie Bocanegra, Lisa Daniels, Marcelo Sanchez, Ashara Mohammed.

PSM: Did you grow up in Chicago?

AK: No, I grew up in New York, but I’ve been here 40 years. This is home.

PSM: When you went to write There Are No Children Here, did you have a connection to the community?

AK: No, I was working at the Wall Street Journal. Years earlier, I had dropped out of college for awhile and worked as a community organizer on the Southside of Atlanta in what was then the second poorest census track in the country, second only to Watts. I wasn’t aware of it at the time, but it was a really transformative experience for me. I grew up in a very integrated neighborhood in New York, but it was the first time I had experienced the deep, profound poverty in our cities, and I was haunted by it. In fact, when I joined the Journal I wanted to go back and do a story on some of the kids I had known there but it wasn’t logistically possible so I did the next best thing, which was to find a community nearby. I was working in the Loop at the time, and so just drove two miles west to Henry Horner. The moment I set foot in public housing I felt this deep sense of shame. The conditions were so distressing. How was it I didn’t know? I thought I knew, but man, the conditions there were just horrific. I mean they were inhumane.

PSM: You wrote a little bit about this in There Are No Children Here, right? I remember a description of how the projects in Chicago once were nice, but that city policy over time neglected them. Is that right?

AK: They were once reasonably nice, yes, but let’s not forget they were built on the cheap and they were built on the edge of existing black ghettos. They served as a kind of bulwark to integration. They were set up for failure, and then for the next twenty years they were utterly neglected by city officials. The more time I spent at Horner the angrier I got.

PSM: In Chapter 12, memory, trauma, addiction, and injustice seem to be the themes. You write that Glady’s memory of the fire and trial “has shattered and rearranged itself numerous times.” Trauma does that. It toys with you.

AK: Yeah, I had a really difficult time, and then when I sat down to write, I kind of remembered things in slivers, these short moments. It’s really hard to describe. I think trauma does that. With trauma it’s often hard to hold on to a full narrative, especially a narrative with all this context. And it happens to people as well. Gerald remembers the day of the fire in a very particular way. He feels all this guilt about it, but I’m not quite sure it happened quite the way he remembers it. Also, he was quite young at the time, only eleven.

PSM: Gerald’s heroin addiction is a big part of this story’s trajectory. He also chose heroin to avoid thinking about it, or maybe heroin chose him?

AK: I think he was so distraught and so traumatized he had to block it out.

PSM: The pain in these communities is constant. How are they coping if not by seeking counseling?

AK: Part of what I came away with from this book is that we have these traumatized communities, both community-wide and individually. Until the past couple years, we haven’t even acknowledged it. It’s only now that we’re beginning to have conversations on how best to help people grapple with their trauma. Like Pharaoh from my first book, who I write about in the preface. It had been something like twenty years since he witnessed the murder of that cab driver, and he had never spoken to anyone about it. That’s the other thing that struck me—the utter silence that everyone lived in. I think it’s partly out of fear that if they talk about what they’ve witnessed, they’ll get drawn in and be held culpable for the crime. Sometimes people don’t talk about what they’ve been through because they feel there’s no possible way anyone could understand—or they might think that there’s some flaw in their character. I was struck by this utter loneliness so many experience.

PSM: You’re describing something similar that doctors experience after harming a patient. They can’t function in their job, yet they’re expected to go to the next trauma.

AK: Yes, it’s the same for people at war. I was just reading a new book by Tim O’Brien, a kind of letter to his sons. I’m doing an event with him in October. In the book, he talks about being an older father but also about his time at war, and how those memories still gnaw at him. He has this memorable line towards the end of The Things They Carried: “This much I know to be true. Stories can save us.” I think he was talking as much to his readers as he was himself. Telling stories connects us—and helps us make sense of our lives.

PSM: In Chapter 14, “Artifacts, ”the story about George Spivey and his son, Daquan was so subtle and poignant. When he says, “My son wasn’t who you think he was,” it’s clear that this was a father wanting people to know who his son really was.

AK: You hear this constantly. You see that in the Lisa Daniels story, too. That in the wake of these shootings, the police often say it’s gang related, suggesting that what goes around comes around and that the victim had it coming. One of the first things that happens for parents who lose a child to the violence in the streets is that they have to defend the honor of their child. There’s an interview George gives to a reporter, after sitting on that stoop all night, defending his son’s honor. Can you imagine? In this moment of deep pain and grief, you feel obligated to defend the honor of your child, not because of anything they did but simply because of their skin color and because of where they live.

PSM: That’s the injustice of all of this. It makes me angry and tearful at the same time.

AK: Lisa Daniels, same thing, her son was killed and the headline reads, “Convicted Felon Murdered.” Lisa worked hard to reclaim her son’s narrative.

PSM: For me, what was interesting about George was that despite not wanting to talk about it, he wanted to, needed to, talk about it. You write: “This is grief. You feel ripped in half. Half of you wanting to retreat, to disappear, to find a place where no one asks questions. And then there’s the part of you that wants to remember, has to remember.”

AK: That’s trauma, right? I remember that meeting with George welI. I hadn’t seen him in six or eight months and I got a text from him so I went over to see him. We talked for about an hour, and suddenly he looked at his watch, and said he had to be somewhere. I don’t think he had to be anywhere. I just think he was done. I think he was conflicted; on one hand it was therapeutic to be able to talk about his son’s death, to not forget it, and on the other hand it was really, really painful.

PSM: Did you find this to be typical?! People were hesitant, uncomfortable to talk initially, but needed to?

AK: Yes. I work really hard at being straightforward with people about what my intentions are. I always have my notebook open. I don’t want people to forget why I’m there. But the perk of what I do is that many of those I encounter become friends.

PSM: Do you tape interviews? Were people suspect of the recorder?

AK: Sometimes, but not very often, and no, they weren’t. But recorders break down. You have to transcribe, which takes time. I also find that because there’s something tactile about taking notes, it makes me much more attentive.

PSM: Do you run stuff by interviewees?

AK: I try to as best I can.

PSM: How do you manage the pain of hearing and absorbing these stories?

AK: I don’t know if I do it very successfully. There was a moment when I was done with the reporting that I became really depressed in a way I’ve never experienced before. I realize in hindsight it had everything to do with this kind of secondary or vicarious trauma I mentioned earlier. Even though I was writing about trauma and thinking about it, I wasn’t self-aware enough to realize what I was going through. I feel sheepish even talking about it, as it pales in comparison to what others have experienced firsthand. What’s more, I don’t think there’s anything more cathartic than being able to tell stories. The very act of storytelling is an act of hope, and that’s what got me through. Another perk of this work is the people I meet. Not all, but some became really good friends. Eddie, Anita, Lisa, Ashara, Thomas, Marcelo, Mike, Victor…people who have become a part of my life.

PSM: You said the friendships held you up, and you give credit to your family and colleagues for “keeping your spirits up,” but you’re at the front lines too, and have been. Like Peter Nikeas. Care for the caregiver is only just now being given more credence in medical communities. Did you seek counseling or therapy to deal with all of this?

AK: Yes, I went into therapy. There are things that l like to do, and I tried to make time for that too. I still play basketball. And I love to canoe, so I tried to make time to get away for a week or two each summer. That time away in the Northwoods is incredibly invigorating.

PSM: You mention that it was no doubt cathartic for those you interviewed to tell these stories. How would you describe, or explain, the healing aspect of your interviews with those who spoke to you?

AK: I don’t want to presume how it was for them. Eddie and I have talked about this. There’s something both therapeutic and nurturing to be able to talk about your trauma, but it’s also scary. He was letting me and all these other people into his life—and he’d be the first to tell you he’s still working through it all. Each of the people I spoke with, in their own way, there’s this measure of courage in their willingness to share their stories.

PSM: Please tell whoever you talk to that they’re touching so many lives.

AK: I will! One of the things that has been really rewarding for me because of all the attention the book is getting is that I try to invite some of the folks to join me on panels. I just did one with Lisa. Eddie, Kathryn and I did one, as well. I’m going to speak at a number of colleges in the fall and spring. Lisa and I just did a really cool thing. She was appointed to the parole board in Illinois. This is an institution that’s grappling with forgiveness, and she’s had a measurable effect there. We had a conversation about her journey and it was videotaped and will be shown in the prisons.

PSM: Do you want to talk about your next project?

AK: I’m not ready yet. All I can say that as a writer, as an American, I’m just so agitated and troubled and angered by these times, and so I’m trying to figure out how to weigh in and make some difference, however small.

PSM: Is there anything else you’d like to say? This was a really good book.

AK: Thanks. Thanks so much. It’s funny, you know, some people read this book and come away with this great sense of hope and see the light. Others say it was a really difficult read, and I get that. But I don’t know how you can read these stories, and not walk away with a sense of promise. You spend time with the people in this book, and you can’t help but be inspired, how they manage to stay erect in this world despite all that’s going on around them.

Tracy Granzyk is the editor in chief of Please See Me.