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CNN Saturday Morning News
Interview With Jerome Kramer of 'Book' Magazine
Aired June 08, 2002 - 09:23 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Well, stumped for ideas about what to do for your summer vacation? How about a road trip with a literary twist?
"Book" magazine has compiled a list of summer getaways, and we're going to get right to them.
Jerome Kramer, editor in chief of "Book" magazine, joins us from New York with details on these novel excursions.
Jerome, good to see you.
JEROME KRAMER, EDITOR IN CHIEF, "BOOK" MAGAZINE: Good to see you, Kyra.
PHILLIPS: I guess you can kind of see me, I guess.
KRAMER: That's right, OK.
PHILLIPS: All right, let's get right to it, because we have a great list of places, and I got to tell you, I just love this. I think this is such a neat idea for vacations.
KRAMER: Thanks, thanks.
PHILLIPS: And I've lived in a lot of these cities, so I've been to these places, specifically New Orleans. Let's start there.
KRAMER: Right.
PHILLIPS: And I have visited the homes of these authors. I love it. Let's talk a little bit about this, starting with Tennessee Williams.
KRAMER: Well, Tennessee Williams, of course, "Streetcar Named Desire," really kind of associated with New Orleans in so many ways. And he really kind of captures the magic of the city. And if you make it down to the Big Easy, you know, there's just no end of literary ghosts walking around the streets.
We make some jokes in the magazine about it's just filled with spirits, and of course New Orleans is full of spirits in more than one way.
PHILLIPS: That's right, you're right. And not only can you visit the -- also you can see Ann Rice's home too, of course.
KRAMER: Right, right.
PHILLIPS: But there are ghost tours, I mean, did you know that?
KRAMER: Yes.
PHILLIPS: They -- and you -- and cemetery tours, and they tell you all these tales. It's pretty eerie.
KRAMER: Well, by the time you've got those vampires from Ann Rice and all the authors walking around, you know, there's -- you got to, I guess, watch your back a little bit.
PHILLIPS: All right, Minnesota, of course...
KRAMER: Minnesota.
PHILLIPS: ... "Great Gatsby," one of our favorite ones, we had to all read this as growing up.
KRAMER: Right.
PHILLIPS: You can sit...
KRAMER: Fitzgerald, you know, Garrison Keillor, Sinclair Lewis. You know, the Midwest, in many ways, is the heartland of the country, and in many ways it's the heartland of the country's literary soul, so to speak. And so Minnesota, there -- you can go on tours of the towns that have inspired "Prairie Home Companion," and you can see Fitzgerald's roots. It's full of wonderful literary background.
PHILLIPS: Asheville, North Carolina, what a beautiful place! Thomas Wolfe and...
KRAMER: (UNINTELLIGIBLE)
PHILLIPS: ... Charles Frasier, of course.
KRAMER: Right.
PHILLIPS: What are some of the highlights?
KRAMER: Beautiful, absolutely. Well, of course, it's -- the landscape of Asheville is what gives rise to the authors' work, and that's -- it's still there, you can still get a sense of everything that inspired them.
PHILLIPS: New York City, definitely an inspiration for many writers, the highlight for me was the Harlem walking tour.
KRAMER: Right.
PHILLIPS: And I understand you can actually -- can you go to Langston Hughes' home and visit?
KRAMER: That's right.
PHILLIPS: OK.
KRAMER: That's right, and you can see his -- the notebooks and so on that he left in the home. You have to schedule that with Albert Davis, he's the curator there. And you can also go and do different kinds of tours. You can go through the -- Greenwich Village, there's a tour of literary-related pubs, take you to Chumley's (ph), the White Horse Tavern, the Cedar Tavern. These are places where Ring Lardner and Alan Ginsberg kind of made their homes.
And it's...
PHILLIPS: You can walk the beat of the Beat writers.
KRAMER: Right, exactly, right.
PHILLIPS: All right, Connecticut. Mark Twain, of course.
KRAMER: Right, you can see Mark Twain's home where he created Huck and Tom Sawyer, made fortunes, lost fortunes, had a room of his own where he could play billiards, smoked 22 cigars in a day.
PHILLIPS: Oh, my gosh.
KRAMER: And it doesn't sound healthy, but it seemed to work for him.
And then right across the lawn from him is the Harriet Beecher Stowe house, from "Uncle Tom's Cabin," of course.
PHILLIPS: Massachusetts, we've got to mention this. You've got a lot of writers with history here.
KRAMER: Well, you can go to Walden Pond, of course, Thoreau, Emerson, you know, really the birthplace of so much of the culture of the country and so much literary history there as well.
PHILLIPS: Taos, New Mexico, Hannibal, Missouri, Oxford, Mississippi...
KRAMER: Beautiful, right.
PHILLIPS: ... northern California -- I mean, we could keep going, so I'm going to tell everybody, how do they get your magazine? How can you get "Book" magazine?
KRAMER: On newsstands.
PHILLIPS: OK.
KRAMER: Borders and Barnes and Noble newsstands, particularly, and go to bookmagazine.com, and the whole list is in there, whole article on "Literary Road Trips" that you can go this summer.
PHILLIPS: Jerome Kramer, thank you so much. Great ideas. KRAMER: Thanks for having me.
PHILLIPS: We appreciate it very much.
KRAMER: Thank you.
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