Straight ahead on Tennessee Writes, we're meeting Tennessee author Jared Sullivan.

He's from Franklin, Tennessee, where he lives today with his wife and daughters.

Get this, his very first book was named a Best Book of the Year.

He always wanted to be an author but needed a steady paycheck after college, so he became a magazine editor and worked at magazines like Men's Journal and Field & Stream.

He's still editing magazines, but he's also writing.

His book tells the true story of our country's largest industrial disaster in history.

It happened right here in Tennessee.

You know when Erin Brockovich comes to town, it's serious.

He says writing that book was hard on his marriage and family, but that hasn't stopped him.

He's beginning two new books, one about a school massacre and the other about his own marriage.

Today, we're talking industrial disasters, legal thrillers, and marriage.

Brew yourself a fresh cup of coffee and find a comfy chair because Tennessee Writes starts right now.

[music] Books about Tennessee.

Books that come from Tennessee authors.

Books and stories with a Tennessee twist.

West Tennessee PBS presents Tennessee Writes.

Hello and thank you for watching Tennessee Writes.

We're a unique book show that goes beyond the pages to let you see the author in a personal and revealing way.

My name is Peter Noll.

We're about to get up close and personal with another Tennessee writer, finding out about their childhood, how they began their career, where their stories come from.

We'll even ask what advice they may have for you if you want to write your own book.

Plus, we put them on the clock for two minutes of the lightning round.

Today, Tennessee Writes welcomes author Jared Sullivan.

He lives in Franklin, Tennessee, with his wife and two daughters.

He's a magazine editor and has worked at Men's Journal and Field & Stream.

He's also written for The New Yorker, Time Magazine, and USA Today.

His debut novel is The True Story of America's Worst Industrial Disas.. which happened in Tennessee.

Tennessee Writes welcomes Jared Sullivan.

Jared, welcome to Tennessee Writes.

Hi, glad to be here.

Thanks [crosstalk] Thank yo.. Delighted.

We're excited to have you here.

Have you been to Jackson before?

Oh, I have been through Jackson many times.

Yes, we have a lot of East Tennessee ties.

I wouldn't pretend I know Jackson extremely well, but I've been-- Your grandparents lived near Dyer?

Where?

A little town called.. I lived there for decades.

I'm more familiar with the territory north of Jackson and around Dyer and Yorkville and Rutherford and all that up there.

Okay.

Well, welcome to Jackson.

This is the Jackson Media Center for Channel 11 and Tennessee Writes.

Yes.

We are fascinated that you were so open in my.. about this book being really tough on your family and marriage.

Yes, it was hard.

I mean, I think-- Was it just the time spent?

Yes, I began this-- My first reporting trip for this book, I just found out we were expecting our first child.

I was living in New York at the time.

I grew up here in Tennessee, but I flew from New York down to Tennessee to report this- well, it become this book.

It was first a magazine story, then I expanded it.. but the first reporting trip for that magazine story, I just found out my wife was expecting, which is very exciting.

Then I did the magazine story.

Then 10 months later, COVID came.

I was working at a magazine in New York, Men's Journal, and the whole magazine effectively got shuttered.

Me and my wife, we packed a bag and flew home with our six-month-old at the time.

I didn't have a job.

We lived in a barn behind my parents' house for a year and a half while I slowly kept working on this and reporting.

Yes, it was hard to balance being a young father and writing and reporting.

Yes, and also being-- I was writing freelance stories, but I didn't have a full-time job, so that just added to the stress.

It took me five years to do the whole thing.

Eventually, I did get another full-time job.

Then the book became a Nights and Weekends pursuit.

That means saying no to a lot of things, a lot of fun things.

We had a second child in the mix too.

Yes, writing the book is not easy.

I don't think anyone would ever tell you it is, but if you come from family wealth, it's a lot easier.

I did not come from a lot of family wealth where I could not think about money and whatever.

Yes, it was taxing, but it was an important story, so I was happy to do it.

My wife, she's incredible.

Caroline, I love you.

She's incredible.

She fully supported the book and had no reservations about me doing it.

At the end of the day, it's time at the computer writing or on the phone calling or traveling, meeting with sources, and not being with the family.

Yes, it's just a bear, but I feel like the story demanded everything I could give it.

There's no promise of a second book.

This could be it.

I was like, if this could be my one shot, I'm going to make it the best book I possibly can.

You and your wife doing good now?

Oh, yes.

Yes, yes.

She's just great.

You want more kids on the way?

No?

We have two, j.. That's plenty at the moment.

Okay.

You guys.. you both are from Franklin, Tennessee.

We are.

Yes.

You went to college, University of Tennessee in Chattanooga?

Yes, Go Mocs.

Woo.

Then you flew off to the Big Apple, New York, to edit magazines.

Yes, me and my wife, we got hitched.

She was living in Charleston, South Carolina.

I was living in Columbia, working for a tiny outdoors magazine.

I was away from her a few nights a week.

We're like, "This is not sustainable.

Let's both move to New York where we can both work for magazines."

That's what we did.

I got a job at Field & Stream, the legendary hunting and fishing publication.

It was a great education in how to write and how to report stories.

The Field & Stream editors, they're like a bunch of crusty old guys.

They really pushed me as a young editor to be better and not to be boring on the page and to find a compelling story.

It was a great education.

Also, I love fly fishing, but I'm not Mr.. I can't tell you the latest whitetail tactics, so my niche became conservation and wildlife.

That segues in with my book, which is about a disaster, a TVA power plant that was an environmental disaster.

I feel like I've been pursuing the same thing for the past 12 years or 10 years or whatever.

Then after a couple years at Field & Stream, I had a great experience there.

I got to travel the whole country hunting and fish.. For our viewers out there that don't know what a magazine editor does, you're not just doing spell check on stories.

No.

No, no.

It's a lot more comprehensive.. Yes, so when you're an editor of a magazine, your currency, your value comes from your story ideas.

Yes, you need to be able to clean up a story.

You need to be able to look for typos, but that's not really your job.

Your job is to run the magazine and to come up with ideas because if you wait around for a writer to bring you a great idea, you will have a very boring magazine.

You have this like, "Let's go send this person, go do this crazy thing.

Let me think of an example.

I was at Men's Journal later.

I sent a writer to a Bigfoot convention.

It's a stupid story idea, but I was like, "Let's go see what these guys are up to."

You go send the writer, and he goes checks it out.

I just sent another writer to the Peruvian rainforest to investigate a murder that involved a Canadian ayahuasca shaman, or something, who got murdered by this tribe deep in the rainforest.

This writer was like, "I want to go do this."

I was like, "I would never do that, but I will happily pay to send you to go do that and bring back the story."

Yes, being an editor is a really amazing job.

It's also just a great education in writing because you learn people's tricks and get to see how they piece together stories.

You get to pull stories apart and put them back together, and-- You said editing prepared you to be a great writer.

Yes, I just steal things from people I've edited.

I could see-- I know what works in a story and what doesn't.

I know you got to start quick, fast sentences to open a story and put the conflict in the first or second sentence.

Don't be boring.

That's the number one mandate with the sort of journalism I do.

Obviously, you have to be factual.

You have to tell a true story, but also, you don't want to put people to sleep.

It's all about a good story, good characters.

You said people don't remember the chemical in Hinkley, California, but they do remember Erin Brockovich.

Yes, magazine journalism, again, I'm not a hard news reporter.

I don't cover the president.

For magazine journalism, such as it currently exists in as much diminished state, is character-driven, character-focused.

Yes, Erin Brockovich is the example I mentioned.

You've done your research and read past interviews I've done.

Yes, people don't remember the chemical that's taken those people.

They remember her because she's such a dy.. When I was writing this book about the Tennessee Valley Authority, I also knew I needed characters that the reader could follow and root for and also feel disappointed in at times and on and on.

[music] Jared, let's go deep into Valley So Low.

This is your first book.

You mentioned earlier in the program it came from an article that you did, and then it just developed.

I think a lot of people were surprised to hear this is the largest industrial disaster in our nation's history as far as square [crosstalk] Yes, in terms of volume, other stuff [crosstalk] Volume.

It's bigger than Exxon Valdez, the [crosstalk] 500 times, yes.

Yes.

It's huge.

When I was reading the New York Times book review, his first book featured in New York Times, was saying how the whole true story, it was play-by-play textbook of how companies should not react, but you knew they were going to.

Yes.

Yes, yes.

The gist of it is-- I don't want to ruin the story, but it's a true story you can Google.

Give us the elevator pitch of what the book is about.

Yes.

It's about, as you said, the largest industrial disaster in US history, December 22nd, 2008, at a TVA power plant outside of Knoxville.

There's a 6-story-tall, 84-acre mound of coal ash.

Coal ash is what's left over after you burn coal to produce electricity.

It's the sooty, sandy, nasty stuff.

Well, after some five decades of burning coal to power 700,000 homes in this area, this big mound had formed, and it collapsed in the middle of the night, and a billion gallons of coal ash swallowed 300 acres around this plant and destroyed homes.

This black wave threw fish onto the riverbank and down power lines.

It was a huge, huge, huge mess.

After it happened, TVA, their PR lackeys got in front of the news cameras and basically said, I'm paraphrasing, but basically said, "This stuff poses no significant health risk.

Don't worry about it."

People were like, "Okay.

TVA has a lot of goodwill because of its work in the Great Depression and some of its work afterwards."

People took TVA at its word.

As many people remembered, in 2008, the economy was on its knees.

The housing and stock markets had just collapsed.

A lot of folks were already out of work.

After this disaster happened, union reps started working their phones, trying to get people to start cleaning up this mess.

900 blue-collar men and women from around the country descend on Kingston, Tennessee, and start cleaning this stuff up with bulldozers and tractors.

They told them, it's safe.

You could eat coal ash.

Famously, there was a safety contractor who worked for TVA told these workers, "Yes, this stuff is so safe.

You can eat a pound of it a day and be fine."

He later backtracked on that in court.

Yes, that's what the workers heard.

They asked for dust masks and were routinely told no.

The workers who insisted were often the first to let go from the job site because, as the cleanup progressed, they needed fewer and fewer people.

The workers, their health quickly started to deteriorate because it turns out coal ash is full of arsenic and beryllium and radium and really nasty, nasty stuff you do not want to be inhaling five to seven days a week on the job site.

These workers get sick, and they approach this Knoxville attorney by the name of Jim Scott.

He works in big cases, but he was not a big, high-powered attorney.

He meant really well.

He listened to these workers, and they said, "We have been intimidated.

We've asked for dust masks and respirators, and TVA and one of its contractors, Jacobs Engineering, has denied us.

We need someone to go to bat for us in federal court.

Jim spent the next 10 years of his life dragging this case forward and nearly killed himself.

It just means he nearly worked himself to death on the case.

He was going up against these slick, big city law firms.

Yes.

It's a David and Goliath legal fight.

Jim worked on contingency.

That's how these personal injury cases work.

The workers did not give him any money upfront.

Jim would only get paid if he won.

Yes, TVA's contractor, Jacobs, they brought in these very slick attorneys who had previously represented Exxon and Ford, all these huge companies.

For a long time, it was just Jim solo trying to keep this case alive.

These defense attorneys, they're very, very skilled, and they got the case thrown out effectively twice.

Jim and his team, he eventually brought in a few other folks to help him, but him and his team have to save the case.

It was a brutal process and a really ugly look at the justice system in this country.

Just to let the viewers know, Erin Brockovich really did go to Kingston.

Yes, she did.

She did.

I was not just making that up.

Yes, she did.

She flew down initially.

She did not stick around.

I'm not really sure the full story on that.

I don't want to say what exactly.

She came to sign up some clients, homeowners originally, because, like I said, dozens of homes got this mucky stuff.

You can see my book cover inundated by this muck.

Very quickly, these homeowners sued TVA for property damage.

Her firm signed up some of those people for this first wave of property damage litigation, but she didn't stay on the scene very long.

There are dozens of pages of notations, which means you did your homework.

Are you not afraid of getting sued?

TVA is not someone to mess with.

The contractor is not someone to mess with.

You've got a big publisher.

Who's your publisher on this?

Knopf?

Knopf.

It's part .. Yes, but I would have been totally afraid.

I did take out a million-dollar insurance policy just in case I needed litigation help, but I gave everyone a chance to comment.

I gave TVA and the contractor Jacobs ample chances to comment.

That really helps lower your litigation exposure.

I sent them a-- I first asked at the interview.

I spoke to many of their employees on background or off the record to make sure I had the story straight.

There was also voluminous court depositions and transcripts, so I had a lot of materials already public record.

Then when the book was about to come out, I sent Jacobs and TVA each about a 25-page memo.

It's listed facts.

I'm going to say this.

I'm going to say this.

I'm going to say this.

They got to go through and choose to comment if they wanted to.

I incorporated their comments in the book as best as possible.

There's footnotes throughout the book saying, "TVA or Jacobs disputes such and such facts."

I wasn't really worried.

I did my due diligence.

I was very transparent about this is what I'm.. about you and your organization.

It's hard to accuse someone of slander or libel if you give them a chance to comment.

Also, I was working in good faith, too.

I didn't have an axe to grind against these corporations personally.

They hadn't harmed me and my family, but I feel like it was my duty to report truthfully what happened.

I don't think I took unfair shots at them.

Maybe they'll disagree.

Their views are reflected in the book.

You know what their positions are.

This is incredible as your first book.

Oh, thank you.

Yes, thank you.

It was very-- In the storytelling, you must have interviewed hundreds of people.

I did.

Yes, I did hundreds and hundreds of hours of interviews.

First, I cast a broad net.

Then eventually, I found my handful of main characters.

It ended up being a lot of repeat interviews with those handful of characters over and over and over again.

It's a history of the area, Kingston, that area.

It's a history of TVA.

In Tennessee, yes.

About how it was started during the Great.. and then how things changed with the TVA.

Fascinating story.

Yes, TVA is-- My book is very critical of TVA.

I also spent many pages talking about how Tennessee and the surrounding states would be a lot worse off without TVA.

TVA was the brainchild of FDR, as you said.

It helped lift this region out of poverty in the Great Depression by first hydroelectric dams and building a fleet of 12 coal-fired power plants.

All that energy helped attract factories here.

It helped boost our livelihoods.

In 1933 when the-- I guess the stock market fell in 1929, but 1933, when the TVA got started, the average Tennessean made 40% of the national average income.

We made less than half of what people elsewhere did in this country.

People here had nothing.

They lived on the equivalent of $7,000 a year when adjusted for inflation in today's dollars.

People here had absolutely nothing.

TVA was a miracle.

It came in.

It was good government action.

It was ambitious, and it worked.

They built these dams.

They built these coal-fired power plants, and people's lives got better.

They also had demonstration farms.

They had a mobile library service that would go town to town giving library books out.

They had a planned community north of Knoxville called Norris.

It was very ambitious, and it worked.

It did make life better for people here.

My book is very critical of TVA because it's taken some huge missteps in the years since the Great Depression, but I'm rooting for TVA to correct course because we need it to be great.

We need it to produce abundant low-cost power because Tennessee, we still have lower incomes, worse health outcomes than the rest of the country.

TVA could be a part of correcting that.

[music] Jared, it's now time for the Tennessee Writes Lightning Round.

It's where we ask our authors a series of quick literary questions, and you try and answer as many as you can in two minutes.

If you can't think of an answer, just say pass, and we'll move on to the next question.

Okay.

We'll put two minutes .. counting down after I ask my first question.

Jared, you want to play Tennessee Writes Lightning Round?

Is there a prize?

Yes, there is.

Then, yes, I don't care what the prize is, as long as there's a prize.

We'll put two minutes on the clock.

What's your favorite magazine to read?

The New Yorker, easy.

How many hours a week on average do you spend reading books?

Probably only five, if I'm being honest.

Whose autobiography book is your all-time favorite?

Pass, I'm not sure.

Where is your favorite place to read books?

In my chair, my house, my kids.

Do you write your books on a computer or by hand?

Oh, computer.

Do you prefer fiction or nonfiction books?

Historically nonfiction, but warming up to fiction.

Roughly how many books do you own?

Oh, hundreds.

I don't know.

I have whole.. What book are you most embarrassed to admit publicly that you've read?

I think being embarrassed about what you read is embarrassing.

I'm not embarrassed by anything I've read.

How many versions of your book did you write before it was completed?

Not one, I mean, one.

If your book was made into a movie, what actor do you want to star in it?

That's a great-- Matt Damon would be a great .. Name a fellow author you would like to go on a book tour with.

None.

First book you can remember reading as a child.

Caps for Sale.

[crosstalk] On average, how many books do you complete reading in one year?

One a week, one every two weeks.

I don't know what the math is on that.

If you could have any world leader read your book, who would it be?

Gosh, I don't know.

Pass.

What celebrity would you most like to co-author a book with?

None.

What distracts you the most when you're trying to write?

Children.

No question.

Do you own more paperback.. Paperbacks.

I love paperbacks.

Last time you checked out a book from the publ.. Three days ago.

Name the book you think everyone should read.

Oh, my gosh.

I want to answer this one.

I want to answer this one.

Sir Malcolm X. I love that.

[music] Jared, we always love to hear authors speak the words that they put down on paper.

Would you mind reading a short selection from Valley So Low?

I'd be happy to.

This is the moment when the coal ash dyke that's next to this big power plant, a moment something goes a little wrong.

"As the clock approached midnight, a stiff wind blew over the rolling countryside that surrounded the Kingston fossil plant.

It was the winter solstice, and in the quiet of that long night, the old farmhouses, country churches, trailer homes, and lakeside estates that dotted the hills and coves around the power station were dark and still.

Christmas trees glowed in living rooms.

The Year Without a Santa Claus played on TVs.

Outside, the temperature hovered around 14 degrees Fahrenheit, cold enough to freeze the pipes of the McDonald's in town.

Then, shortly before one o'clock, the north section of the coal ash dyke suddenly and almost wholly collapsed.

When it did, more than a billion gallons of coal ash slurry, about 1,500 times the volume of liquid that flows over Niagara Falls each second, broke forth.

A black wave at least 50 feet high rushed northward with the power and violence of water punching through a dam.

A backwater inlet separated the coal ash pond from the small peninsula along the Emery River.

A few dozen homes set along the water's edge.

As the black wave roared ahead, shaking the earth, it overwhelmed the inlet and slammed into the peninsula.

Most of the slurry, nearly 6 million tons in all, forked right around the obstruction and rushed into the Emery River, filling in a 40-foot-deep channel.

The rest of the ash, nearly 3 million tons, filled in two sloughs on either side of the peninsula, hurling fish 40 feet onto the riverbank.

The wave kept going.

It downed trees, covered roads, and knocked out power lines.

Docks were inundated.

Boats were carried away.

Soccer fields were smothered."

I'll stop there.

That's the moment terror was unleashed.

Thank you.

[music] Jared, we've got viewers probably sitting out there watching us on TV right now or streaming us online that think they need to tell the story about this because Tennessee is so rich with history and stories that people have forgotten.

What advice would you give them on how to get their book written?

I apologize.

This is simplistic.

We just have to do it.

I don't think I'm any smarter than anyone .. I just sat down at my computer and wrote many stories to lead me to this book.

A lot of people, they say, I want to write a book, but they never actually sit down and do it.

Finishing is the hardest part.

Starting is the easy part, but actually finishing it-- Also, just have focus.

I don't have any other hobbies, really.

I hang out with my family and my kids.

I read, and then I write.

I don't watch-- I don't stream things, really, ex.. I don't have other hobbies.

He did stream Tennessee Writes.

I did.

Actually, .. I do stream PBS, American Masters.

I'm a big fan of American Masters.

It's like a treat.

It's not like an everyday thing.

I get home from work.

I go for a short run.

Then, I choose, like, I guess the better, write or read because-- Yes, I'm not-- It takes it all to do it.

You have to give it your all to be any good at anything, I think.

To be good at anything, you have to have a single-minded focus .. Where do you send people to get your book, which is available hardcover and audio and-- Where do you send them?

Amazon is easy, but your local bookstore likely also has it.

Barnes & Noble also has it.

Also, whatever's convenient.

I would just want to sell books.

Whatever's easiest for you, if that's Amazon, then please pick Amazon.

How can people get in contact with you if they've got questions, comments?

I have a website.

It's jr-sullivan.com.

I have an About Me page, and there's a little email field.

I try to be good about responding to folks, especially I can tell they're earnest and sincere and really have questions.

Jared, sadly, we've come to the end of this edition of Tennessee Writes.

We want to thank you for coming on and sharing about your family, your history of writing from New York City to Franklin to Kingston, Tennessee, and sharing all of it with us.

Before you leave, would you mind signing your book, Valley So L.. I would be delighted to.

Thank you.

I'll say Channel 11, thanks for your public service, long live public media.

Jared.

Thank you so much.

We appreciate it.

Yes.

For comments about today's show or to suggest a Tennessee author for a future program, email us at tennesseeWrites@westtnpbs.org.

Tennessee Writes, on air and streaming now.

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