(theme music playing) MUSCATINE: Good afternoon, everyone.

And welcome to "P&P Live".

I'm Lissa Muscatine co-owner of Politics and Prose.

And along with my husband and co-owner Brad Graham and our fabulous staff, I am delighted to host you for today's event.

You'll be hearing from our author, Gigi Georges, her new and very first book is hot off the presses just a few weeks ago.

It's called "Downeast: Five Maine Girls and the Unseen Story of Rural America".

Now you may wonder why someone who grew up in Brooklyn and worked in the White House and in New York City government and on political campaigns and has taught political science and has been a communications consultant would choose to write a book about five young women in a rural region of Maine known as Downeast.

Gigi will tell you how she embarked on this five-year project and why and what she gleaned from diving into a world so seemingly removed from her own.

And Gigi, forgive me for this like tiny, tiny, tiny spoiler alert, but let me just say that Gigi's own experiences and those of the five young women, she profiles contain more universal truths than one might imagine.

Gigi's thoughtful approach to writing about the five women she follows from their late teens to early 20s is not been lost on reviewers.

Thank you for bringing the lives of these young women into broader and clearer focus and telling their important stories.

We are also so grateful to have with us, one of the young women Gigi profiles in "Downeast".

Sophia DeSchiffart, known as Josie in the book, is a rising senior at Yale university, majoring in archeology.

She grew up in Cherryfield, Maine and attended the local public high school where she graduated valedictorian of her class before heading off to the Ivy league.

As you might imagine, she brings her own unique perspective to both her Maine roots and her time in the hallowed halls of Yale.

And last, but definitely never least, moderating the conversation today is my former boss, Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton, who by the way is becoming one of our favorite interlocutors at P&P events and, uh, Madam Secretary we cannot thank you enough for being here with us again today.

We so appreciate it.

Now, all of, you know, Hillary Clinton as a former First Lady, Senator, Secretary of State, and the first woman presidential nominee of a major political party, but here are a few things you may not know about her.

She's not only a best-selling author, but now she and mystery writer, Louise Penny are co-authoring a thriller that will be published in the fall.

Also, she hosts an excellent podcast on iHeartRadio called "You and Me Both" and she's no longer the interviewee, but the interviewer.

So watch out if you ever go on that podcast.

And she and Chelsea have launched a film production company that will turn stories about women and girls into movies.

And she's founder of Onward Together, a political action committee that supports women, people of color and progressive young candidates running for political office.

And all of this is in addition to a lifetime spent advocating for women and girls from Arkansas to Afghanistan, to Argentina.

And today she's here to help bring attention to the lives and experiences of women in rural Maine.

So Gigi, Sophia and Secretary Clinton we so appreciate your being here.

It's gonna be a great conversation and the floor, or I should say the screen is, is yours.

CLINTON: Well, Lissa, thank you so much.

Uh, you know, I'm always happy to do anything for P&P and for you in particular.

Uh, but this is another, uh, opportunity to highlight, uh, a book that I think has just an extraordinary story to tell.

And as you said, as you were, uh, reading from one of the reviews, uh, it really immerses you in the lives of these five young women.

Uh, and it does so from the historic cultural, uh, perspective that Gigi brings, uh, to her own, uh, discovery as she, uh, was spending time, uh, Downeast with them.

Uh, the book is terrific.

Uh, it's, uh, something that I hope everybody is, is, is madly ordering as we talk.

Uh, I'm thrilled to be here because in the midst of Gigi's long and storied career, I was lucky enough to have a chance to work with her, uh, back in the 90s and the early aughts, as we say.

Uh, so I know firsthand, uh, the, the care and the, you know, really loving concern she brings to anything she does and that shines through, uh, in this book.

So I'm gonna ask some questions of both Gigi and Sophia, and then we're gonna have time going back to Lissa, uh, for questions from all of you in the audience.

Um, but Gigi, congratulations, number one and I guess for my first question, how did you decide to do this book and how did you select the young women to profile in it?

GEORGES: Well, first of all let me say thank you first to Lissa for your generous introduction and for hosting us here today and Madam Secretary, thank you so much for being here and for the many, many years of, of inspiration and mentorship that you gave to me and to so many other young women and men, uh, across the country and throughout the world, it's such a pleasure to be here.

Uh, I, you know, as Lissa said, I was a city kid.

I grew up in Brooklyn in this big Greek immigrant family.

And I, um, I spent most of my time as an, as a young adult working in urban places.

Uh, uh, and about 15 years ago, my husband and I made the decision to move to more Northern places.

And in doing so started to raise our young daughter there, who is now nine.

And what I was seeing around me was not exactly lining up with what we so often have been hearing, uh, the sort of dominant downbeat narrative about rural America, of a place of hopelessness and despair.

And yes, there were challenges.

There are tremendous challenges in places like Downeast Washington county and across rural America.

But, um, I felt like there was something more to the story.

And so I sat down with a good friend of ours who's a Reverend who runs this tremendous nonprofit that Sophia knows well because she worked with it, uh, and learned from it.

And we were in Maine, in Bar Harbor where, you know, there's all this tourism and busloads and billionaires as I write.

And he said, if you want to further uncover what you think you're seeing and hearing go up the road, just an hour away to one of the most rural and isolated parts of the most rural state of in, in the nation.

And what you'll find will surprise you.

And he was right.

And I found my way through his introductions at the school to these extraordinary young men and women, but particularly the young women and one of them was Sophia.

And she, and the four other young women that are in this book, uh, really gave me a gift and allowed me to hang out with them for four years.

I don't know how you did that, but, um, it was a great gift and I am so, so grateful for it.

CLINTON: Well, how did you as, uh, first and observer and then a participant and finally an author, uh, really gain the trust of the young women who you profiled.

I mean, this is a very personal book.

Uh, you talk about their lives, you talk about their families, uh, some, some going back generations, you have, you know, generational characters in it.

Um, how, how did you, number one, decide you were gonna write a book and then number two, gain the trust of people who just, you know, months before had been total strangers?

GEORGES: So it occurred to me pretty early on in the process in terms of how I decided to write this, uh, when I started to sit down in particular with these five young women who I thought exemplified the region, uh, and not only that, but sort of the broader story of contemporary young women, um, whose voices we really haven't heard, um, in, from rural America.

Uh, it occurred to me that there was a, a really important story to tell here or an important part of the narrative that hadn't been heard.

Um, how did I get their trust?

I, I you know, I'd love to have Sophia answer this 'cause it would be really great to hear her perspective, but I will say this, uh, I was always very respectful of their time and their space.

Uh, I approached it in a way that was not invasive.

And most of all, I was honest with them throughout about where I thought I was heading about what I thought I was seeing.

Um, and above all I learned to get out of the way, because I thought what a great gift to have these stories unfold through their own lenses, with their own voices.

The best thing I could do is get out of the way.

CLINTON: Well, Sophia, let me ask you, so do you recall your, your first meeting with Gigi, your first impression of her?

Um, how did it seem to you when, you know, she came into your life?

DeSCHIFFART: Yeah, so I actually first met Gigi in a group setting 'cause this was before the book was narrowed down to being about girls from Downeast or even about specifically five girls.

Um, so at first it was just, she came in and talked with groups of us, recording different conversations and ask those questions.

So, and then I just met with her throughout four years and along the way just gained her trust and honestly, probably the main reason I wanted to do this was because she was very open about how the process of writing a book is dynamic.

It changes all the time.

And so every change was talked to us about it, and it was just any time you wanted to, it could be off the record, like just very open and understanding.

And the conversations were often like led by at least me in my interviews with Gigi.

And so kind of steered the topics and just was able to talk about what I want to talk about.

CLINTON: Well, Sophia, tell us a little bit about yourself and your family, uh, your roots in Washington County Downeast.

DeSCHIFFART: Um, yeah, I grew up in Cherryfield, Maine which is one of the five towns that attend the local high school.

And I grew up one of four daughters.

So I have two older sisters and one younger sister I live with both my parents.

Um, I attended the local high school, which my graduating class had 44 kids in it.

Was public school so very small, very rural, um, Cherryfield, Maine, I believe of the last census has 900 people.

So it was, felt very isolating when I was there, but often reflect back 'cause, uh, I'm very glad I'm from there because it gives you a good sense of what community is and what to expect.

And, yeah.

CLINTON: And then you found your way to Yale where you are, as we heard a rising senior.

How has that experience been for you?

DeSCHIFFART: Um, it was a big shock at first.

I definitely remember my first couple of nights at college, just not being able to sleep 'cause was not used to having sirens all the time.

It was so bad.

Um, like at home, it's like, if you hear a siren, you kind of assume, you know, who the ambulance is going to, so you worry, we're here to just there's sirens every night.

Um, yeah.

CLINTON: Well, Gigi, when, um, you started learning more about Downeast and learning more about this community, um, how did your research surprise you?

Uh, was it what you expected in part, but then different expectations and, and information as you gathered it?

GEORGES: Yeah, here's what surprised me most.

And I think what, um, most readers of this book will find surprising too.

And Sophia alluded to it a little bit, and that is that when we think about rural America, particularly outsiders right?

Who haven't experienced it, haven't lived it in, in, in the way that Sophia and these other four young women have.

We so often moved to that space of, as I said, hopelessness and despair of the challenges of the things that could be done better, and the ways in which many people are struggling.

What I found that I do believe is so surprising and so important to the conversation that we have more broadly about rural America was that despite challenges and there are many, and Sophia can tell you about them first hand, despite challenges, these communities are thriving.

They are connected to the nature around them.

They are bonded to each other in a way that is so meaningful and so beautiful to see when someone has, for example, a lobster fishermen and lobster is lobster fishing is, is a really significant part of the economy in this part of Maine, as it is across Maine and many ways on the coastal Flint.

Um, when a lobster fishermen gets hurt and has to be out of commission for a week or two weeks or three weeks, the community will gather around and they will pick up his halls or her halls, and they will make it work.

And they will make sure that he can put food on the table or she can put food on the table, uh, in so many ways, I saw this big and small and it is powerful and it represents a tremendous measure of social capital that we don't often think about or talk about.

CLINTON: You know, there are other things you report on in the book that are specifically designed to help the young people of the community.

You describe a successful program called Edge, which is designed to, uh, provide Downeast young people with a structured in school, after school, and summer experiences, uh, that, you know, might be more readily available in other parts of Maine or other parts of our country.

Uh, can you talk a little bit about that program and why you were so taken with it?

GEORGES: Yeah, and I, and honestly, I would love Sophia to jump in here because she is one of the young women who not only experienced the Edge program, but ended up being a mentor, um, for it.

Uh, but I will start by just saying this, that it is, um, a program that's run by this, uh, wonderful non-profit that I mentioned at the outset, uh, the Seacoast Mission, uh, and it really finds, um, the way to connect with young people in Downeast Washington county, in the main islands, um, where there is, uh, so much poverty and where folks really are disadvantaged and may not have the opportunities that others do that are less isolated.

And they infused this tremendous sense of energy and, um, sense of self and, um, help promote this sort of, um, agency that I saw so beautifully in the young women that I spent time with, uh, Sophia and the other young women.

Uh, and, and, and that I saw in the way that they excelled and they pushed their limits both in school and outside of school as leaders in the community.

But Sophia, do you wanna say a couple of words about Edge and the role it played in your life?

DeSCHIFFART: Yeah.

Um, I participated in Edge when, it starts in third grade and does go all the way up through high school, but most kids trickled out around, like when they go into high school, 'cause you start playing sports after school.

Um, but when I got into high school, I started working as a mentor for them as well or volunteering sorry.

And it's a cool program that both provides kind of free after-school care for the younger ones, but keeps you engaged, you got like sports activities and there's like cooking and arts, which is great for the after-school program and homework help.

What they also did is they took high school students who wanted to volunteer for them as mentors.

And you gain a lot of leadership experience throughout the year, then end of the year, they also make sure that you get to see someplace that is not where you grew up.

'Cause a lot of people actually aren't able to leave the state or to places so I got to see, see New York city for a week, um, through Edge and kind of tour around in DC one year and then go to Boston and just try to both work with the younger kids and to broaden what they get to experience, but also keep their high school students engaged by just finding other ways to kind of expand our worlds.

Yeah.

CLINTON: I really love that.

I mean, I love the continuity of it.

I love the way that older students are used to mentor younger students.

I love the expansion of, you know, what you experience and places you go.

Uh, it's the kind of program that I think Gigi, you suggest you'd like to see more of throughout the country to strengthen, uh, communities by giving them, uh, an approach that really connects, uh, people with the young, younger, uh, members of that community.

Is that right?

GEORGES: Yeah, that is absolutely right.

And I think it's a, it's an excellent model.

Uh, and I know that there are models, other models like that out there, but I saw the way in which it really promoted leadership and excellence and, and that sense of self, uh, that I see so much in the young women that are profiled in this book and whose lives we see through this book and, and in others.

And there, there is that, and there are so many other, I think, um, ways in which both to the public and private sector can be doing more, um, to help these communities strengthen and build.

Um, and, and we see, because we see that young women like Sophia and, and the other women in this book, they really want to stay and build.

They are connected to this place in ways that are so meaningful and they do not want to abandon these places.

And I think that that's something that we can't underscore enough because if we have the resources to help them, uh, whether it is helping more nonprofits from the ground up or helping women owned businesses, get the training they need and the seed money they need or helping vocational and technical education, which is so, so desired by so many in the community, uh, all of those pieces can help them build what they really want to build.

They don't want to leave.

CLINTON: Well, that, that is something I wanted to ask Sophia because you're clearly very self-motivated, you're now connected, not only to the worlds of Downeast, but of Yale and of Greece, where you went on an archeological dig.

Um, what advice would you give to other young people, particularly young women who do wanna stay or wanna come back, uh, to be members of the community, uh, that you grew up in and other communities in Washington County, uh, and really kind of help, you know, bring that community, you know, together and provide more opportunities.

What would you say to them?

DeSCHIFFART: Um, I would say honestly to appreciate the small community that's there.

Um, 'cause when I was there I was ready to leave.

I felt very isolated.

And you just read about all these different places, but I guess I undervalued how wonderful it was to have a group of people where you could say, "Oh, I want to do this."

And then you've got your guidance office.

You've got the community, like my parents who are all very supportive in like, "Okay, we'll, we'll see how we can make that happen," or, "It's okay to dream and go do things.

Um, and just kind of everyone's pulling your weight.

So for example, like whenever something exciting happens, like the whole community is excited about it too.

GEORGES: Yeah, yeah.

DeSCHIFFART: Um, and that's not as common other places as I thought it would be.

Um, so yeah, and I would say definitely what you want to make it happen like there are ways to get around the financial barriers that are often the main blocker of being able to go someplace else, or you could stay and do something that I don't know might help the community more or grow.

Um, and just... CLINTON: Yeah.

DeSCHIFFART: Just reach out to the people 'cause there's a lot of help there, or people willing to help and help you find the ways to do what you want to do.

CLINTON: Well, I also understand that in high school you were a leader of, uh, the Civil Rights team.

You were instrumental in helping organize an event for International Tolerance Day.

Um, how did you come to not only be interested, um, but enthusiastic in being a leader on behalf of, you know, tolerance and, and how did that go over in the community?

DeSCHIFFART: Um, this is an interesting question.

I would say I got involved with the Civil Rights team because one of my friends, at least my freshmen sophomore year had recently come out as gay and just had a really rough time of it was getting bullied in high school.

And just asked, "Hey, can you come to this meeting with me, like support of a couple of us."

And so I started attending and got involved that way and found that I really enjoyed it because I believe in justice and equality and that's not always there, but I would say the community is very unique in that though it's a more conservative community socially and like politically, but it's very tolerant in different ways.

So towards individual community members like their members living with developmental disabilities and just different, I don't know, um, like lifestyles stuff that wouldn't be as welcome other places that are just embraced with community because once you're in the community, you're in the community and you're a part and people will come together and support you.

However, there's not a ton of tolerance towards groups of people.

So the second something becomes politicalized, it becomes less accepted.

And so then there was a lot of pushback doing this when you fight for, I would guess inclusion of groups of people, but on an individual basis, it has some growing to do, but for the most part is very tolerant, even more so in some other areas.

CLINTON: That's a really interesting distinction, Sophia, because I've seen that in my own life and certainly in my, you know, political activities, how individuals can be accepted into a community.

But when there is a demand, uh, for acceptance of the group of which that individual is or represents, there's often, uh, a discomfort.

Uh, and so I, I think the way you described that as particularly useful, because obviously we're going through a lot of, you know, a lot of, uh, time here where people are quite intolerant of each other, um, coming from all directions.

Before we move to the, the audience questions.

I, I have to start by asking you Gigi.

What was it like on the lobster boat?

I mean, a lot of people watching are going to be really interested in what your experience was like.

And, uh, after you finished talking about it, I, I want Sophia to talk, uh, or reflect on it.

GEORGES: That's great.

Uh, I had the really, really good fortune of going out on a lobster boat, uh, a number of times, uh, with one of the young women, uh, McKenna in the book who is extraordinary in her own, right.

Uh, she's been lobster fishing since she could walk essentially.

And at the age of 17, she became a, the captain of her own lobster boat.

Um, so she took me out as her sternman, which meant that, uh, I was by her side doing all the, the grunt work, abandoning the lobsters and, and measuring the lobsters and throwing back the ones that were too small or weren't the right under, right under the regulations.

Um, it was such hard work.

I have so much respect for these men and women who are now trailblazing as locks, lobster boat captains, like McKenna.

And, um, it was an extraordinary experience.

Um, and I'm sure I, wasn't a very good sternman, but she was very, very kind to me.

CLINTON: What's your reaction to all of that Sophia?

DeSCHIFFART: I actually have never gone on a lobster boat.

Um, I've never actually gone and hauled chops or anything.

So it's interesting to hear your perspective.

CLINTON: Yeah.

Yeah.

That may be something you wanna try to do in the future.

GEORGES: Right.

We'll get you out there Sophia.

CLINTON: If you're, if you're interested in Maine, if you're interested in young women, if you're interested in lobster fishing, whatever you're interested in, um, Gigi's done, uh, masterful job of bringing it all to life.

And, um, I, I thank Sophia for being with us to give us, a, a feel of what the process was like and, and how Gigi went about her reporting.

And again, congratulations, Gigi, um, really well done.

And back to you, Lissa.

MUSCATINE: Uh, thank you all.

What a, what a great conversation.

I mean, this could go on for hours, days, weeks.

It's, it's so interesting and Sophia you're really, it's so great to listen to your perspectives, um, which we don't get to hear enough of.

So thanks to Gigi for bringing you along and thank you for, for sharing your, your insights.

Uh, what Sophia was just describing about exclusion of, of groups, but, um, acceptance of individuals and the questioner had, had, had asked how tolerant basically is the community to people of different sexual orientations.

And my, I guess I could follow up if I may, um, on that question, based on what you said, um, to ask, was your involvement a protection for the friend of yours?

Was that friend ultimately accepted?

And what do you think the experience was like?

You said it was hard for your friend.

Did it make any headway into thinking about groups that were, that were not quote "mainstream"?

Or what would you say, uh, about your friend's experience and how you played a role in it?

DeSCHIFFART: Um, yeah, I actually was not very involved with anything regarding like civil rights or LGBTQ plus rights until after he had specifically asked, um, to like, I believe it was help with Pride Day or it was something, um, and then I got involved and though I can't really speak for him, but from observing the, what ended his time kind of getting harassed was graduating.

MUSCATINE: Mm-hmm.

DeSCHIFFART: And going onto college.

So just leaving the community.

But what I think he didn't get to see is that he was like one of the first, um, openly gay people at my time in the high school.

And so since then it made the path a lot clearer or an easier I think, 'cause a lot more people came out after.

And so I think there's little bit of a trailblazer.

Um, and so more tolerance is coming.

I wouldn't say it's easy, um, for high school students or I guess junior high students who come out in the area, um, I would say less so because the community at large, but a lot of peers for the most part is the problem.

Um, but it definitely is improving.

And I noticed even throughout my four years there, that tolerance did improve.

MUSCATINE: Well, here's a kind of related question.

And again, it's, it's really for Sophia, but how does your community handle discussions of politics, especially during the last presidency and did the last four years lead to greater, uh, discord or polarization in your community?

DeSCHIFFART: I would definitely say I avoided a lot of political discussions community, um, and that, I think it was a very polarized conversation, but because the majority of the community was in agreement on their political views, I would say acts whatever you polarize, two groups against each other, those groups do become closer.

So it goes both ways.

Um, I come from very Republican area, so it definitely became a thing of the community... MUSCATINE: Mm-hmm.

DeSCHIFFART: But I don't know, there, there's not a ton of room I would say for the moderate or like the crossing over of views.

Um, because when one groups we found these very radicalized, either liberal or conservative then did tends to push across the other like the other group.

You don't wanna have a lot of conversations, which is less than ideal, but that's what it is.

GEORGES: What I, I might, I might just add to that.

MUSCATINE: Mm-hmm.

GEORGES: It's sort of just from my own observations of the past few years, one of the things on both of those questions, um, what Sophia noted about increasing tolerance in the high school, I saw that I saw that evolving and I thought I saw the way in which the civil rights team and the active members of it, and those who were courageous enough initially to join and speak out, were able to bring more and more of their peers into it.

And it was a very powerful thing to see.

And I, you know, um, young women like Sophia and a couple of the other young women who are in this book, um, who took on that role when it was very early on, um, I think deserve a lot of credit for the courage they showed.

And, and that is the inevidence today.

MUSCATINE: Mm-hmm.

Um, here's a really interesting question, Gigi that I guess you might wanna answer.

Um, it's many of these rural areas all over our country have had bad drug and addiction problems and unemployment and real poverty.

Did you find these problems in Downeast during the years you were writing your book?

GEORGES: I did.

I did.

Um, unfortunately, uh, the, the area of Downeast Washington County, like so many areas in rural America, um, tremendous poverty, um, Washington County itself has, uh, childhood poverty rate of 30%.

Uh, it is among, um, those places that we think of when we think rural poverty.

Um, but it is often not thought of, because we think of as Maine, as a place vacation land, lobster rolls, and it is there and it is real.

Um, and, uh, Sophia spoke so beautifully and eloquently in, in our conversations about her awareness of it and, and her sense of it, um, around her.

And I will leave that to you to read.

Um, but it's well worth reading.

Um, drug addiction is a serious problem.

It is unfortunate, the opioid addiction rates are very high.

Um, but again, with all of these challenges, there is this other side and it is so I think important to the conversation to recognize and understand the way in which the community with these issues and these problems rallies around and, and helps one another and, and finds its way.

And yes, it needs help, but it is also finding its way in a very important and optimistic light.

MUSCATINE: Mm-hmm.

Um, here's a, here's a question from somebody who graduated from high school in Harrington two decades ago, and identified strongly with the girls' experiences and asks even despite the region's overwhelming whiteness, whether you considered including a nonwhite girl, a Latinx or native American girl in the book?

GEORGES: I did, I did.

And I had the great fortune to speak to a number of young women from migrant and immigrant families, families that, you, you know, it was really, um, so wonderful to see the way in which they made the choice, the decision to stay in Downeast Washington County, after many of them came as farm workers.

Uh, and what they saw was many of the things that are celebrated, uh, by the young women who are in this book, who ended up being profiled, um, in terms of opportunity, despite great challenge in terms of community and the ability to stand side by side with multi-generational families to build and strengthen those communities.

Uh, I made the decision ultimately to profile these five young women, because I thought their stories exemplified taken together, uh, the broader narrative that I thought was important to tell, but I could have easily had a number of those other young women, um, extraordinary in their own right.

And I do talk about, um, one in particular in the book, uh, and the journey she's taken in the successes she's had as, as, um, the daughter of migrant workers who then settled as immigrants in the community.

MUSCATINE: Well, one, one, uh, person wonders, whether you will maintain these relationships going forward.

Will you, do you anticipate having close relationships with these young women you profiled for, for the foreseeable future?

GEORGES: I'd love to have Sophia answer that for her perspective.

But I, my answer is unequivocally I hope so.

Uh, we, um, we continue to be in touch.

We're in touch regularly.

We have a group chat, um, but, um, I very, very much hope so because to, to me, uh, it was such a gift, such a gift of trust, um, that they gave me, I honor that gift every day and reflect on it.

And I very, very much hope we'll be friends for a very, very long time.

MUSCATINE: And, and one person asks what percentage of high school class go to college and how many leave the area, how many stay or come back?

And I think you do answer some of those questions in the books.

So I don't know if you wanna give the like quick summary, but, um, you know, I'm sure it's a question that a lot of people are, are asking.

GEORGES: Yeah.

The high school graduation rate is very, very high.

Um, it does drop off, um, fairly significantly for, for a four year college going, although the statistics, if you include, um, more, uh, two year college and, and, um, vocational training, um, then the numbers go back up, but it does, there is a drop off, um, and there is frankly, um, I think a, a really valid and interesting, um, educational debate about what the best path for many of these young people is.

Um, whether it is four year college going, uh.

Just very quickly there's young one young woman in the book who, um, earns this coveted scholarship to Bates College, which is an extraordinary college, uh, for a liberal arts education.

One year into it she realizes that it is the wrong fit for her, that she wants to be a speech pathologist.

She wants to go back home, Downeast, settle there and work with the young people and the adults who so desperately need those kinds of services.

And she leaves Bates.

Some to, to many that would seem like it wasn't a rational decision, but it was so rational and so right.

And not only right for her, but important to the community.

MUSCATINE: Um, Sophia, here's a question for you, which I'm sure also a lot of people would like to know the answer to, and it is what is next for you, what would you like to do next and wishing you all the best.

DeSCHIFFART: Well, thank you for the well wish.

Um, I'm trying to figure that out.

I'm currently trying to decide which grad schools to apply to 'cause ideally I'd like to be a professor.

Um, but that is a lot of schools so I am entering my senior year so I have one year left and then hopefully I will go on to grad school.

Um, yeah.

In archeology.

MUSCATINE: I think everybody joins in wishing you the best and also having great confidence that whatever you do, you are going to do well.

And, uh, and you know, I don't think a lot of people are going to worry about that at this point, but, um, we are, believe it or not almost at the end of our time, I have time for one more question for Gigi and then Secretary Clinton, if you would like to make some final comments, that would be wonderful.

Um, but Gigi, one person wants to know what is the thing you most want your readers to take away from this book?

GEORGES: I want readers to take away the notion that there is a really optimistic and important story to tell about rural America that is reflected through the lenses and the voices of these five extraordinary young women.

And that those voices, the voices of these contemporary young women, which we really haven't heard in the narrative are incredibly important to our broader discussion, to increasing empathy and to maybe just a little bit reducing those divisions that we unfortunately all seem to be feeling so much these days.

MUSCATINE: It's just such a terrific book as Secretary Clinton said, it's, it's just, the stories are so deeply personal and so pointed and compelling and, um, you know, eye opening really.

And Secretary Clinton, you probably have some really good summary thoughts for us.

So I'm going to turn it to you for that.

CLINTON: Well, I think, I think Gigi and Sophia have done, uh, all that work.

Uh, all I can do is say amen, uh, because this is a, a terrific piece of reporting.

And I think for anybody who is trying to understand in such a divided time and Sophia is absolutely right, I mean, it's become impossible to talk with people who are in their separate political bunkers.

They don't wanna come out.

They don't want to have a conversation, uh, they just wanna stick with their tribe.

And it's, it's really going to take a lot of, uh, effort on the part of many people, uh, to focus on the problems we have and to try to bring people together around solutions.

And it's always better if, as you look at a problem, uh, as Gigi has so eloquently pointed out in the book, you can be optimistic.

You can say to yourself, you know, there's a lot that can happen.

There's a lot we can do.

There's a lot, we can learn from each other.

Um, so this book, uh, is a terrific, uh, story in and of itself, but it's also a really timely one, uh, because we're in a fight for the future.

And I don't care what side of the political divide you find yourself on, uh, we've got to start, uh, crossing over and finding some common ground because nothing is guaranteed.

Uh, and whether you're in, you know, Downeast Washington County, Maine, or you're in Brooklyn, like Gigi was growing up or you're in Washington, D.C., or anywhere else, uh, in the country, uh, we have a lot of work to do and it's exciting work, and it should be stimulating and hopeful and optimistic, uh, to bring America together, uh, urban and rural and, and every other way.

So again, I congratulate Gigi on this book.

Um, I congratulate Sophia on having survived her COVID year at Yale and moving onto her senior year, uh, where, uh, she will then decide how to pursue her own dream and Lissa thanks for asking me to do this.

And I wish you and, and Brad and everybody at Politics and Prose a good post vaccine, uh, time now this summer where I hope people are flooding into the bookstore and not just picking books up at the curb and not just ordering them as I did during the pandemic, but getting back into the great joy of wandering up and down the aisles and seeing whatever, you know, strikes your fancy.

So thank you all very, very much.

MUSCATINE: And thank you for, for that.

We really do welcome people back.

We hope people will flood in, like you're saying, it's, you know, it is a place of discovery.

Um, and you will be able to discover this book on our shelves, on our, hopefully our bestseller list.

It's a beautiful cover by the way.

Um, so really appreciate all the support for P&P and having all of the three of you today.

It means so much to all of us at the bookstore, and, uh, we wish you all the best.

We hope you will stay well and stay well-read.

NARRATOR: Books by tonight's authors are available at Politics and Prose bookstore locations or online at politics-pros.com.

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