Read our interview with Matthew Algeo, the author of Harry Truman’s Excellent Adventure:

Your new book is about a road trip President Truman took with his wife Bess after his term was up. How did you first find out about this unusual vacation? What led you to write about it?

I first learned of the trip when I visited the Truman Library in Independence, Missouri, in 1998. Inside a display case was a newspaper clipping that mentioned the trip in passing. My curiosity was piqued, but it would be another eight years before I finally had a chance to return to the library to dig deeper into the story. And the deeper I dug, the more I realized just how extraordinary this journey was. It was an episode unique in the annals of the American presidency.

You met many people while retracing the stopovers on the Trumans’ trip. Of the people you met and the stories you heard, what was the most unexpected?

Frankly, I was surprised that so many people who saw the Trumans on their trip are still alive! After all, it has been 56 years. But I tracked down a dozen eyewitnesses, including Manley Stampler, the state trooper who pulled the Trumans over for careless driving on the Pennsylvania Turnpike. Of course, when he pulled them over he had no idea who they were – until he walked over to their car and got the surprise of his life!

What was the most surprising thing you learned about our former President and his wife?

For one thing, Harry Truman drove way too fast. Bess only agreed to go along on the trip if Harry promised to drive no faster than 55 miles an hour. (At the time, some states had no speed limits at all!) Also, Harry and Bess both loved fruit. They ordered it at just about every roadside diner they stopped at. Bess was especially partial to cantaloupe. I suspect one of the reasons they ate so much fruit is because it was cheap (see next question).

What would you say is the most interesting thing about their trip?

That they traveled by themselves. Back then, ex-presidents were not entitled to Secret Service protection, so it was just Harry and Bess tootling around the country in their Chrysler. Also, ex-presidents weren’t entitled to pensions back then, either. When they left the White House, Harry and Bess were on a fixed income: their only income was Harry’s army pension of $111.96 a month. So they were very frugal travelers.

If George and Laura Bush were to go on a road trip, what type of car would they drive? Where would they go?

Wow, that’s a good question. Given the problems facing American automakers, they’d definitely drive something made in the U.S.A. I know George drives a Ford F250 pickup on his ranch in Crawford. That would work. As for where they would go, I think they should follow Harry and Bess’s lead and drive back to the East Coast. Come to think of it, I should probably send them a copy of my book!

Read our interview with Christopher John Campion, the author of Escape from Bellevue: A Dive Bar Odyssey:

You’ve had some incredible adventures, certainly as evidenced by the title of the book. What has been the most notable experience to you as an artist and performer?

Rock 'n Roll takes you to some strange corners of the earth. In these places you get to meet and talk to some of the most left-of-the-dial, night-crawling, fringe characters you'll ever know in this lifetime – the kind of people you just don't see in the daylight. I inhabit these folks onstage when I'm telling stories and took great pleasure in writing about them and voicing them in the book. So that's one thing, but I'd have to say that getting sober and, in turn, regaining my faith has been the most profound experience of my life. I used to look at the world through a boozed-up prism of all the things I, "wasn't getting," and having zero gratitude for all that I already had which was a family I loved, a great band to make music with, lots of wonderful and interesting friends, etc...Now I just pull the ripcord on all my artistic endeavors and cockamamy schemes and let the chips fall where they may. I realized that it's all in the doing, not the receiving. Everyday above ground is a good day for me. Let's face it, I'm playin' with house money as it is. I could be dead twenty times over with some of the reckless and drunken stunts I pulled.

You’ve performed extensively over the years with the band. How does performing influence your writing?

I think the performer in me kind of gave birth to the writer. The monologues in the show started out as stories I would tell off the cuff to set up different songs in the set. Through this I could see that the audience was making more of an investment than when I just quipped and played the odd song. Rather than continue to tell the stories straight outta my head in a concert format my friend (and eventual director), Horton Foote, Jr., encouraged me to script them and that's how the Escape from Bellevue show was born. When I sat down to weave the stories into monologues my light came on as a writer. I was excited by the composition of it. I loved voyaging through my imagination and bangin' it out on the keys. Then when it worked onstage I was on cloud frickin' nine (because, of course, I was shitting in my pants that it wouldn't). The success of the show gave me a lot of confidence so when I sat down to write the book I made a conscious decision to keep my voice the same and write it as if you (the reader) were sitting in front of me listening to me tell it. That's how I haphazardly arrived at my style, I guess.

Are there any similarities between the two?

There are some similarities between performing and writing in that both things require you to, "walk the plank," and put yourself out there (very scary stuff). They are also very different animals. When you go onstage you get hijacked by adrenalin. That can be both a good and a bad thing but it's unavoidable because crowds give you energy. You can have a night when you really don't feel like playing but the people spur you on and you've really got no choice but to bring it. They motivate you into it. Writing is all self-motivation and self-discipline. It's very lonely business. You have to draw your energy from within. When you're floundering or writing yourself into what seems like an impossible corner to emerge from with any relevance there's no one there to cheerlead you out of it. Wouldn't that be something, though, to have a gallery of folks cheering you on as you wrote? Picture yourself stepping back from your computer with furrowed brow, your hand tightly gripping your chin, bewildered as to what to do next, and all of a sudden some drunken fan in your living room yells out, "C'MON... YOU CAN DO IT, BRO!!! GET THOSE KEYS MOVIN'.... WE LOVE YOU!!!" Actually, that would be my worst nightmare. I can't have anyone around when I'm writing.

You dedicated the book to your family, they are clearly very important to you. How do they feel about the trajectory you’ve taken, and about the success of your show and the book?

Oh, they love it. We're a close-knit, live-out-loud, big Irish clan. Everyone in my family from Mom and Dad on down tells a good story, can sing a song, and takes great pleasure in stirring the pot. There were eight of us (including Mom and Dad) around the dinner table growing up, so if you had a story all t'eed up that you wanted to tell you had to fight to get the floor. Then when you finally did have it you'd better damn well make it lively and entertaining or you'd lose it just as fast. That kind of immediacy definitely formed me as a storyteller. There was nothing worse than digging back into my mashed potatoes, my head held down, all dejected, knowing I'd flopped. Then one of my brothers or sisters would launch into a story and the laughter would swell at the table and I'd be smiling again. They are my heart.