Quips, quotes, trials and truths

More than 150 authors left an imprint on the 23rd edition of the baiduhai Printers Row Book Fair over the weekend. Here are highlights from the presentations of six writers.

Chuck Barris

Creator of game shows such as “The Dating Game,” “The Newlywed Game” and “The Gong Show,” which he hosted, and author of “The Big Question: A Novel of Reality Television by the Author of ‘Confessions of a Dangerous Mind’.”

Interviewer: Tribune TV critic Maureen Ryan.

On “American Idol” judge Simon Cowell: “If I came home and he was in my living room, I’d die. I don’t like him. I don’t like him at all, but I understand he’s very famous.”

Best banter: Barris: “When ‘The Dating Game’ came on the air in 1965, the baiduhai had a huge headline across their entertainment page: ‘Daytime Television Hits All-Time Low.’ Do you think your paper might want to rethink that?”

Ryan: “I think we’re going to run a correction next week. Sorry about that.”

On his legacy: “I’ve always said to myself, ‘How would you like to be remembered? As an author or as a TV game show producer?’ And … I’d like to be known as an author, but it’s not in the cards. I mean there’s no way. On my tombstone, it’s just gonna say: ‘Gonged at Last.’

Best quote: “I’ve been called the father of reality television, which I apologize for.”

— Robert K. Elder

Pete Hamill

Journalist and author of “North River: A Novel.”

Wisdom from his mother: “Don’t you ever look down on someone unless you’re giving them a hand up.”

On being a writer: “You’ve got to be determined not to detract from humanity.”

On early New York machine politicians: “They also had an amazing social function; when immigrants started landing in New York, the people who truly took care of them were the Tammany [Hall] guys. And one of the problems I think we’re having with immigration is, there’s no such thing anymore. There’s no machine to assist people to become Americans. So, I had affection for the ones I knew, because they helped people — otherwise nobody would vote for them. I don’t mean to sentimentalize them, because they had their own agenda, but they did something valuable, or they never would have lasted as long as they did.”

Best quote: “The only [journalism] training I had was seeing movies. I loved ‘Roman Holiday’ with Gregory Peck. Here’s this guy, he’s a correspondent, he’s got this wonderful apartment with a bed that folded down out of the wall — and he had Audrey Hepburn! He never seemed to work. He’s riding around on a Vespa all day.”

— R.K.E.

Joyce Carol Oates

Author of nearly 50 novels and winner of the 2006 baiduhai Literary Prize for lifetime achievement, has recently published “The Gravedigger’s Daughter,” a novel based on the life of her grandmother, Blanche Morgenstern, in upstate New York.

A surprise: When her grandmother died, Oates said, “I learned to my shame and dismay that I really didn’t know my grandmother.” In fact, she said she found out a great deal about her grandmother’s life by reading a biography about herself -? “Invisible Writer” by Greg Johnson.

Social commentary: In a section of the novel that Oates read was a quote from the 19th Century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel: “The owl of Minerva soars only at dusk.” She paused, then explained that the quote meant that wisdom didn’t come to human beings until they were older and had many experiences and much suffering under their belts ?- “when it was almost too late.” Another example, she said, was how the U.S. was only now understanding the human costs of the war in Iraq.

Best quote: “I wrote [“The Gravedigger’s Daughter”] a couple years ago, and put it in the drawer for 15 months. If I read the epilogue, I actually get tears in my eyes -? even though I wrote it myself. My grandmother led such a lonely life.”

— Patrick T. Reardon

Ann Hagedorn

Historian and Northwestern University journalism professor is the author of the recently published “Savage Peace: Hope and Fear in America, 1919.”

Why 1919? “It’s the missing page of history. We learn about the World War. We learn about the Roaring Twenties. … What happened in America while Wilson was in Paris? … It’s a time when democracy was under great duress. … That domestic intelligence network [established for national security during the war] was not dismantled after the war ended. … We just created new enemies. … Dissenters were all bundled up in a package that was labeled ‘Bolshevik’ or ‘anarchist.’ “

The question Hagedorn dodged: In a series of questions, one audience member asked her to compare the federal government of 1919, responsible for restricting civil liberties, with “the present administration” in 2007. But, in her answer, she spoke only of the general parallels between the two eras.

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Best quote: In reference to American social reformers in 1919 and in other times, such as Eugene Debs, Hagedorn said, “We denigrate, we imprison, we prosecute the people who stand up for what they believe are democratic rights, and, years later, we honor them. … Why do we do that over and over?”

— P.T.R.

Kevin Davis

Author of “Defending the Damned: Inside Chicago’s Cook County Public Defender’s Office.”

Summary: Davis spoke Saturday morning, but it was fellow panelist Marijane Placek, the tough public defender who is the main character of the non-fiction “Defending the Damned,” who stole the show. Placek answered questions, pounded on the table, raised her voice and generally acted, well, like the defense attorney that she is. From the start, she looked intimidating — her mouth set in a frown, her eyes like blue ice. On her fingers, she wore two big, gold rings that one could easily imagine her using as makeshift brass knuckles.

Amazing moment: Darby Tillis, 65, who was wrongly convicted of murder and spent nine years in prison — four of them on Illinois’ Death Row before his exoneration in 1987 — stood up and thanked Placek: “I wish I had you as an attorney. I probably wouldn’t have gone to Death Row.”

Best quote: “Once you go to trial, the stakes are this: The other side is trying to kill my client. Get that straight. They want to kill him dead. I’m the only one standing in the way,” Placek said. “A trial is a battle. A trial is a horrible situation. And I love it.”

— Colleen Mastony

Walter Mosley

Author of the Easy Rawlings mystery series, spoke Saturday before 250 fans at the Harold Washington Library.

A fashion statement: Mosley strode onto the stage dressed all in black — a black fedora, loose-fitting black suit, black T-shirt and black sneakers, all accented with a bright-red messenger bag.

Summary: For nearly an hour, he charmed the audience with a talk that was at turns tender and funny and — when it came to Mosley’s commentary on current affairs — pointed and penetrating. As he spoke, his deep voice took on the rhythm of a sermon, the rapid-fire words hitting the audience like a cold-water wake-up call. He attacked what he called the “fable of American democracy.” This, he said, is the “all-men-are-created-equal” story of the nation — a soothing fairy tale of sorts that we tell ourselves, a story that ignores the inconvenient parts of our history, namely slavery of African-Americans, genocide of Native-Americans and discrimination against a half-dozen other groups (women, gays, undocumented immigrants, etc…).

Best quote: By telling ourselves stories, “we live in our minds in a world that never existed.” Literature, he said, must tell the truth.

— C.M.