Main Street
Sara Otte Coleman Talks Tourism; Brian Freeman & "The Bourne Shadow"
Support for Prairie Public is provided by Stage West, presenting Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical Cats for 12 performances June 30th through July 18th at 7.30 p.m. at Ascension Health Plaza at the Lights West Fargo. Jellicle Cats, come one, come all. Tickets and information at westfargoevents.com. (upbeat music) - Welcome to Main Street on Prairie Public. I'm Craig Bloomenshine, it's the Tuesday edition. On today's show, my former colleague, Ashley Thornberg, interviews Brian Freeman, the acclaimed Minnesota author, who has taken over the iconic Borne series. His latest spy novel, The Borne Shadow, is now available. But first, Sarah Adi Coleman, the longtime director of the North Dakota Department of Commerce Tourism Division, stops by Main Street. She has been leading the division for more than two decades and recently, tourism in the state is setting records and is on the rise. Sarah, welcome to Main Street. - Well, great to be here. - We are happy that you are here. Sarah, 2023 was a record breaking year for tourism in North Dakota. And I would bet when people think of the great tourist destinations on our planet, North Dakota isn't at the top of the list, yet people really wanna come here. - Yeah, yeah, we're super excited. We think that people are finally waking up and realizing that there are 50 states and there are great things to discover in all of them. And we know we don't have a super high awareness. People just aren't familiar with our state. We did a national survey a couple of years ago and found that only about 22% of Americans were had much awareness of the state. And so we know we have that to overcome. We haven't invested a ton of money marketing the state, but boy, the marketing we're doing and the development we're doing is paying off. 25.6 million visitors spent 3.3 billion dollars in North Dakota last year. So that's a big chunk of our economy and a great pillar to go along with energy and agriculture and the other strong industries that our state depends on. - Cass County led the state and visitor spending. Sarah, as you well know, what makes Cass County really attractive, I guess, to tourists? And does that also include commerce? - Yeah, so Cass County did. They exceeded a billion dollars in visitor spending in '23, which is the first time we've had a county hit the big B. So that's super exciting. Cass County has some really interesting makeup. When we count visitation, it isn't just leisure. So it would include if people are coming in for meetings and conferences. But Cass County really has a strong base of those who come in for sports events. So the Fargo-Moorhead Convention on Visitors Bureau works really hard to make sure that just about every weekend you have one or two major regional sporting events. So they do a really good job of attracting people in for those. But they're also kind of our entertainment capital, right? There's always live music. There's entertainment activities going on in that recreation and entertainment area. And so we end up getting a lot of those visitors that come into Cass County for that. Our challenge now is we're thrilled that they're getting across the river, right? And entering the state, our challenge now is really to extend their stay and increase, show them what else there is to do in the state. So start out in Cass County, spend a couple days there and then work your way west. And so one of the things that we're really, really focusing on is we want more overnight trips. Date trips are a big piece of our business, which is kind of interesting. But we want more overnight trips. We want longer stays. For example, when you look at the 25.6 million visitors that we had here in North Dakota, South Dakota had only 14 in some change million. But they spent over four billion. So the people that are coming to South Dakota are coming for longer stays. Whereas some people that are coming to North Dakota might just be coming into Fargo for a concert or might just be coming into Fargo to watch a sports team play for one day and then head back. So we want to build on that success, I guess, is what I'm saying. When I think of South Dakota, I think of Sturgis. And that by itself, I'm sure is a huge money maker for the state. But it goes to your point. That's a long standing event. It's multiple days. People go there and stay there and spend there. Yep, absolutely. And they've built up product and offerings in the Black Hills. So people who are coming to the Black Hills are coming and staying for a longer period of time. And so that's one of the areas that we also are working on is tourism business development, really to round off. And not that Cass County and Fargo doesn't have all the offerings and amenities and whatnot. But more museums, more adventures, more recreation, more amenities is just going to help build more of that mass and then encourage more people to stay longer. When you talk about building up product, what comes to my mind is that the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library that will be opening, what impact do you think that will have? Yeah, actually 26 is when that will open. So it'll be for America's 250th, which will be here quickly. But it is going to be huge. The caliber of that and the awareness that's already out there, it's going to be just an attraction that people are going to come across the globe to see. The beauty of Theodore Roosevelt is that he appeals to so many people. And there's so much that we can all learn from him. And the building itself is being done so well. And not just the building but the storytelling, how they're connecting that to the land and the stories of the land. And it's just going to be so exciting. I just, I can't even wait. It's going to be really fun. We're already seeing a lot of interest in the museum and in the library and in the activities and experiences that they're going to offer in conjunction with that new offering. What does the quintessential tourist who comes to North Dakota look like? In other words, where are they from? What do they want to do? Oh, I love that. And the tricky part for North Dakota is that we don't have the one destination that everybody knows of and comes for. We don't have a Grand Canyon. We don't have the Mount Rushmore. We have multiple things across the state, which makes it a little trickier as a marketer because we know they come from multiple experiences. So it isn't just, as we love the family and who jumps in the suburban and heads out to the Badlands and Theodore Roosevelt National Park and experiences all the activities, entertainment, outdoor recreation, the Mottahay Trail, they might canoe, they might mountain bike. They're going to enjoy the musical. They're going to stop in Dickinson and go to the Dinosaur Museum. That is one component, but we also have a lot of other groups and personas per se that come, and it might be that family that's coming with to the sporting event. It might be the people who come to fish and hunt. And those aren't always just the same groups that they used to be, and it might not just be a group of men, it might be a family. And we do really well also with the people who are interested in culture and history, right? So we have great, phenomenal historical offerings and really cool cultural events. We were just talking about that yesterday as we're thinking about serving up content for the fall and all of those great cultural festivals and harvest festivals and whatnot that we have late summer and fall throughout the state. So it's family travelers, it's road trippers, it's adventure seekers, people that really love outdoor recreation. It's the people that just wanna go and stay in a nice hotel and have a great meal and go to a concert. So we don't really have that one group that represents the main visitor group. - Sarah, we've talked about workforce a lot here at Prairie Public, not necessarily though with tourism, but I've got to believe that workforce are the availability or lack thereof impacts what tourism vendors can provide. - You know, it is and it's kind of a two way street. You know, we do see challenges, especially in hotels and resorts and this year I believe the National Park is, it's the first time they've been fully staffed with their seasonal staff in multiple years. State parks I think is in a better position. So we're kind of getting over a little bit of that bump but yeah, it's a challenge and I know some of the resort owners and especially those that are really busy during the peak summer season and need to augment their staff with additional people during that peak summer season. I know that that can be more of a challenge in trying to provide the service levels that visitors expect, right? But I think we're making progress in that ground. So that's exciting. But on the other side for workforce, one of the things that we have done at the Department of Commerce, so we're one of the few states that has really kind of used the synergy of tourism and talent attraction marketing to our benefit. You know, we know that people normally visit a state before they move. In fact, our recent survey showed about 80%. - I'm raising my hand. I don't know if you can see it, but yeah. So I'm raising my hand. - Yeah, yeah, you know, you're gonna test, you're gonna take a test drive, right? You're gonna come in and you're gonna see what maybe what part of the state might be interesting for you. There's probably jobs that will fit your interest across the state, but we really think of tourism as kind of that first date. You know, come in, see what it's like and help, you know, which helps open the eyes to a potential longer relationship and career opportunities here. And so, yeah, so there's just a lot of synergy and we even have marketed them together. So that's working out really well for us. We're enjoying our conversation with Sarah Adi Coleman. She's the longtime director of the North Dakota Department of Commerce Tourism Division. How do you decide, Sarah, who to market to, every marketer wishes they had a treasure chest that was just unlimited with funds, right? But you have to make decisions. - We do, and it gets trickier and trickier every year. Doesn't a day go by where there isn't at least 25 different opportunities in my inbox. And so, we really take a very data-driven approach to our media buy and our earned media, you know, work that we try, that we do use with influencers and just general journalists that we bring in. We look at where we've seen success. Obviously, where we see opportunity, we test a lot of things. We're able to determine which marketing pieces have motivated, to some extent, we're able to kind of attribute certain visitation to specific marketing pieces. You know, some of that is done with our geolocation data where we're able to see if somebody engaged with a piece of our content, a digital ad of some sort, if that motivated, if we saw that, then that phone show up in North Dakota. - So, there's a lot of metrics that we look at. In fact, it's somewhat overwhelming when you start layering all of the different data sources that we have, none of them perfect. You know, my marketing and research manager likes to say if I could just put a chip in everybody, you know, then I'd know. But that's a little scary, we won't go there. But we do get, we do have a lot of ways to determine what is the most successful, what not only what channels and what media, but also what creative executions. You know, even things like, you know, even things like subject lines, if you're doing an email campaign, you can A/B test and kind of determine what's getting the most clicks and engagement. So, lots of analysis, it's really fun. I love to kind of look at what's working and be able to tweak. And that's a nice part about the digital side of our media bias that we can tweak that. If we see, you know, we just went over that. We had a meeting last week and did a deep dive into the metrics and the analytics and made some changes. You know, it's not as easy on the traditional media side to make changes, but we can. And so we just continue to monitor it. And then about every other year, we do advertising effectiveness research that gives us, you know, additional data to make those decisions on. - Sarah, outside of the surrounding states, is there a state or two that likes to visit North Dakota more than others? - Yeah, you know, we've had great, great luck in Illinois, the Chicago area. That was a market that we were probably able to add about five years ago. Got additional budget and that investment has definitely paid off. We actually did a, started our media campaign in Colorado, specifically the Denver market, focusing more on talent attraction and saw such great, great numbers. And so we've included Denver and that market into our media. Historically, we'd always market at East, right? Thinking that, okay, we're kind of where the West begins. We have a little different offering than the Western states do. But now with, especially since the pandemic, with outdoor activities, still, you know, super people are super interested in outdoor recreation, but they don't necessarily want to, you know, be bumper to bumper traffic. And then when they get to the trail, they can't find a parking spot. And, you know, it's people all along the trails. And so we're really been marketing that wide open spaces, you know, no lines, no traffic, you know, less people. And that's really working well in Denver. We also see really good, you know, continuously good results with our neighboring states. But the bigger states, too, where we see numbers come in would be like the Californians in Texas. And even though we do just specific, subject-specific advertising in those markets, there's just a lot of population there. So they tend to show up as well. - Sarah, one of the things that I noticed in Wyoming, and I really believe it's a thing, there are some folks in Wyoming who, well, I'll give you an exact example, was driving between Casper and Gillette, Wyoming, a few years ago. And this really nice truck passed me. And it had this great picture of a buck and horse, the symbolic Wyoming cowboy on the back with a circle, and a line through it that said, "No vacancy." Are there folks here that, gosh darn it, they don't want folks to come? And is that a problem for your office? - It's become a real part of the work that we do. And we talk a lot about sustainable travel, because our goal is to, you know, we want to sustain all of this. We aren't the kind of a destination where we want to come in and see people deteriorate our quality of life, or be a burdensome on our outdoor recreation or our resources, or city amenities and infrastructure for that matter. So we work really closely with those, that sediment, I should say. And they call it resident sediment, and a lot of places have to do a lot of work with residents and making sure that they find the right balance. And, you know, some of it works, and some of it's upside down because of the way, you know, the economies that these communities were built on. You know, you may have a community, and definitely not in our state, but some other western states where the economy, that community is 100% dependent on tourism, but the local residents don't want it anymore. Well, they can't, you can't, it's not sustainable. And so really it's about managing that, making sure that it's all tied to the goals and that the community believes in it and supports it as well. So while we really don't see a ton of that, we know there are places, you know, for example, in hunting and fishing, for example, where we have folks who love to duck hunt or love to fish that don't necessarily want us inviting other people to their favorite spots or their favorite locations for hunting and fishing. And so there again, it all comes down to managing and making sure that we're doing it right. And at this point, we're not, I don't think we're at any risk of seeing any overtourism in our state. - Sarah, you've mentioned the word infrastructure in our interview. If you could wave your magic wand that would improve infrastructure that tourists need, want, desire, what should communities be thinking about? Oh boy, that's a really, really great question. You know, in so many cases, there are great, great historic pieces to communities that people just don't have the budgets to maintain, right? So you think about some of the town squares and some of the smaller communities or you think about some of those bridges or the water systems that help keep golf courses green and parks green and all of those things. And so those are the kind of infrastructure pieces. You know, obviously there's, you know, there's event venues and there's, you know, fairgrounds and those kind of infrastructure pieces as well. But, you know, it's all inclusive, right? Visitors can do everything from enjoy a community pool to a city park to really needing that, you know, that bridge that goes over your river or the airports. You know, and luckily in North Dakota, we've got great airports and great roads. Our Canadian friends, Sarah, haven't returned to visit us as often as they did prior to COVID. Why is that? I think a couple of reasons. You know, we made it difficult for them during COVID. There were a lot more restrictions coming into the U.S. than having Americans go back into Canada. So it took a while to get over some of those hurdles. And I think during that time, Canadians patterns changed, right? I mean, not that they didn't know about Amazon before, but maybe they figured out, oh, this is really, you know, this is fine. And as much as I love to go to North Dakota once a month to shop and enjoy, you know, a concert or an activity, you know, I can shop online. I think the, you know, the exchange rate has also hurt us a little bit. That's been pretty challenging, you know, as well as just, you know, inflation and costs have increased as well. You know, our hotel rooms are more expensive than they used to be, which is okay because they were underpriced before. But I think it's just, it's just really good. And it is coming back. You know, last year we were up, I think almost 50%. This year we're up almost 20% again. We still aren't to the 2019 pre-pandemic level, but we think they miss us and they enjoy coming and we think we're going to, you know, we're going to see them come back soon. - I should have asked you this question, Sarah, when we were talking about demographics, but relative to the age of visitors who come to the state, are enough young people choosing to come to North Dakota for a tourism choice? - You know, that's a super interesting question because we're seeing where younger generations are the ones who are prioritizing travel, right, as part of their discretionary spending, whereas maybe older generations wanted to remodel the kitchen or buy a new car, younger generations love experiences. And so we know we have to appeal to those younger generations if we're going to keep those numbers up and growing. And that's, again, that's where we really want to showcase what's unique, what's new, what's hip, whether it's, you know, the new breweries, the new restaurants, we have the entertainment options, the live music, as well as those unique outdoor experiences. - Sarah, I want to ask you, what I hope isn't a sensitive question, but there's been a lot of discussion in Jamestown about needing a attraction that is central to our state. Do you believe that? - I think you're maybe referring to the Bison World Project. - Yeah, to the Bison World Project, there's been a lot of discussion about, okay, there's good stuff in Fargo, there's good stuff in western North Dakota, we need something in the middle to go to your point, see if people can stay a few days. - Yes, extend the stay. And yeah, I would agree with that. You think about how, if we can, I've always said that we're a genuine location, right? We're authentic experience. So anytime we help try to support projects and tourism development projects and new businesses, we really look at, it doesn't tie to the character and the history and the culture of our state. And Bison World does. I think people, when people think theme park, I think they're, when that was the initial kind of word that came out, I think people thought, oh, they're just gonna slap up a statue of a buffalo and do some rides, but they really have a cool plan and it really ties into what we do have to offer and so many stories that we can tell about the Bison. And there's experiences across the state that people could do, like we have a whole Bison trail. You know, and you link that into, you know, our championship winning, you know, NDSU Bison and it really, really fits well and not only geographically, but also thematically. - So we have a couple of minutes left. You've talked about the economic impact, but let's talk about the tax impact. Visitors have paid hundreds of millions of dollars in local and state taxes. Give us the detail about how important that is to our economy. - You know, we talked a little bit about the sustainability and there are about 3000 businesses that are kind of classified as tours and businesses in the state, but those businesses also provide experiences and entertainment and amenities for local residents, right? So it's the visitors that help sustain that, maybe it's a local coffee shop at the lake or whatever that business might be. And the visitors, they paid over 307 million in local and state taxes last year. So essentially that saves every household in North Dakota almost a thousand dollars. So you think about, okay, and we're really lucky because, you know, we're one of the very few states that doesn't have like a state occupancy tax or anything like that. So in some ways we're leaving money on the table, but the money that they are paying in, it goes into the general fund, right? It goes into the general funds of the state and the cities and local communities to really help continue to build on that. - All right, Sarah, I'll let you finish this sentence for me. Upcoming tourism, I am most excited about what for North Dakota? - I'm most excited about the growth and the path that we're on for growth. Theodore Roosevelt National Park had its highest visitation month in June, 210,000 people. I'm excited about the path we're on both in terms of growing the amenities and experiences we have to offer with investment and then also marketing and telling the great story of all our state has to offer. - Sarah Adi Coleman is the longtime director of the North Dakota Department of Commerce Tourism Division. Sarah, thanks for joining us today on Main Street. - It was fun, thank you. - Coming up after the break, the legendary Jason Bourne is back in the latest spy novel from Brian Freeman, the longtime Minnesota author who took over the series. That's after this. The FM kicks band brings jazz to area parks this summer with concerts at First Leather in Church in Fargo, 6 p.m. July 17th, and Gooseberry Park in Morehead, 7 p.m. July 18th, lawn chairs recommended details at fmkicksband.com. The kicks band receives funding from the arts partnership with support from the cities of Fargo, Morehead and West Fargo. - Welcome back to Main Street on Prairie Public. I'm Craig Buminchine, the legendary Jason Bourne returns in The Bourne Shadow, the latest spy novel from Brian Freeman, a longtime Minnesota author who has taken over the iconic series. Set primarily in France and Germany, the story delves into Bourne's past and its impact on the current political landscape. Before leaving the station, my former co-host, Ashley Thornberg had the opportunity to speak with Brian Freeman about this gripping new release. - Brian, thanks so much for joining us on Main Street. - Absolutely, it's great to talk to you. - All right, I never want to give spoilers, so I always ask the authors of novels like this. How do you describe the book? - Oh yes, well, when it comes to The Bourne Shadow, this goes back deep into Bourne's past. And of course, before he became the spy known as Jason Bourne and before he joined this shadowy organization, Treadstone Bourne was a man named David Webb, but he remembers nothing of that life. So when a woman recognizes him as David Webb, he's pulled into a hunt that forces him to go back and expose the lies and betrayals of that forgotten past. - Let's talk about memory and how much of it impacts both the structure of the book and just the very concept of identity when it comes to Jason Bourne and slash David Webb, slash Kane, if you've read enough of the books that those will all make sense to you. There's a part of the book where obviously there is a lot of violence in the books that you write. And at one point, he doesn't take in action and it proves that he's a little bit human. And it says, so Kane had an Achilles heel. He was still a human being. He still felt something. Most of the other Treadstone agents became little more than robots after years of violence. But Bourne had somehow salvaged part of his soul. Maybe it was the loss of his memory. Maybe not knowing who he was kept his humanity alive. Brian, as you are going through books like the Jason Bourne series and this struggle with memory and identity, why is that so appealing to you? And who are we, if not at least at some level, a collection of our memories? - I love the complexity of the subject of memory. I've dealt with it in a number of my own books under my own name from The Nightbird to I Remember You. And it's just a rich source of both drama and emotion. And I think when it comes to Bourne, I think it's the nature of his forgotten past that really has made him such an enduring hero and someone who continues to fascinate and grip the imagination of readers because he is struggling with that sort of existential question of who he really is. It's not even just a question of his past. It's really a question of who he is as a human being and is he a moral man and can he be a moral man with the things that he has to do? And that's sort of an ongoing struggle. And so I think that the different dimensions that you can explore in the series with that, it really gives Bourne sort of a humanity that readers can connect with. This is not a sort of classic superhero, sort of a hero in Bourne. He's really someone that has the kind of struggle on obviously sort of an extreme, violent dimension and level that we all go through in terms of trying to figure out who we are and what does our past say about ourselves? - Do you consult memory researchers when you are trying to write a book like this? His memory sort of comes back in waves and he can never be quite certain if it is true or where the memories happen for him? - Yeah, I've actually done a lot of memory research over the years because I've actually dealt with memory in several of my novels. And one of the things I always remember from the research I did is that memories aren't fixed. They're very malleable. And if you take a sort of take a memory off the shelf, the act of doing so begins to change that memory and it becomes kind of reshaped like clay. And by the time you then refile that memory, it's not quite the same as it was when you pulled it out originally. And so you start to remember things different from reality, the more that you try to go back and recreate those events. And certainly for someone like Born, it means that he can't really trust even the images that come back to him because they're both scrambled and unreliable. - And then on top of that, working for a shadowy government agency that may or may not be trustworthy in and of itself, boy, I can see why you would be so drawn to revisiting this throughout the series we are visiting today with Brian Freeman about his latest in the Jason Born series. It is called The Born Shadow out this week here. And I am wondering about how you keep working with this structure of memory because it would be so convenient. You could just throw in any little plot hole and be like, I guess he didn't remember that from his past, but that would make you kind of a lazy author. So Brian, just in terms of your own sort of authorly morals and ethics, talk about your process of having this spongy boundary that is a main character who doesn't know who he is or what that means. - Yeah, that is kind of a delicate balancing act. And it's even more complicated with the fact that of course The Born series goes back more than 40 years from the original book by Robert Lovellam in 1980. And it's not like I can have sort of the exact same backstory of a character that had his roots in Vietnam and Watergate in the 1970s. So I've had to modify the backstory of Born to make it relevant and current for the books that we're writing today. And yeah, it's sort of tempting to always say, well, yes, that was simply something that was sort of out of the mist of what he did remember. But I try to stay honest with the reader that it was a big chunk of his life that he lost, he essentially lost everything. And now it's starting to come back in bits and pieces. But as I said before, he can't necessarily trust that what he's remembering is what really happened. And then of course, when he relies on other people, they may have agendas of their own that they are pursuing and they may not be telling him the straight story about what actually happened back then. So I'm not sure you can ever really have Born remembering his past, but I think that's also realistic in that someone that has had a traumatic brain injury and had that kind of memory loss, they're not likely to get everything back and what they do get back, they have to sort of question themselves. And again, that's what makes Born such an interesting character is he is in that netherworld where he's always questioning what he can believe and what he can't. - What is it that the memory researchers are saying if you've talked with them specific to your novels about how sometimes these memories come back and he can do things like recognize a city that he doesn't ever remember having been in, but suddenly he knows where to go or he's fluently speaking another language or has these just incredible life-saving skills. When somebody has a suffered memory loss like that, does it really tend to come back like that? They remember the thing and then sort of have to recontextualize it? - Yeah, I think what is actually pretty common is that it comes back in bits and pieces. It comes back in images and flashes. It's not like you're seeing the whole story of what happened. Something sort of triggers a memory or triggers an image and that's what kind of connects things together. But even when that happens, you can't necessarily be confident that what you're remembering is actually the way it was because of the fact that memory is so malleable and years on, people get to a point where they can't necessarily distinguish from something that they read about or were told about and something that actually happened to them and those things begin to bleed together in such a way that people remember them, but they can't necessarily be sure that that's the way it actually happened. - And then you throw in a couple sentences here and there about things like AI and there's one point where somebody's trying to recognize handwriting. It could be the work of AI. It could be the work of a good foreigner here. How do you see AI affecting Jason Bourne or if you'd like to talk about non-fictional spies, feel free to add in there. - Well, I'm actually working on a book now where a character refers to AI and says that she thinks it's more A than AI. And so, I think that there's clearly a lot of focus on that right now. I personally don't think that it's going to have quite the impact certainly on my profession that people may be worried about. I think that the technology still has a long way to go in terms of actually being able to create an out of its own head versus what humans are capable of and what I've seen so far I'm not altogether impressed with. On the other hand, in terms of spy novels, well, there's almost interesting possibilities for what AI may do. And dramatic movies and books have been exaggerating the capabilities of technology for a long, long time. It's a very honored trope in the thriller genre. - There have been examples though of presidential ad campaigns, even that have very tiny in one of the corners say, these are AI-generated images and they look like newsreel footage. And this book in particular is set during the French elections, which have just happened here the first week of July and a very similar concept here without me giving away too much of the point of the born shadow. There was a concern in the book that some extremists would take over the election. And that very much did just happen in France. There was concern about the tilting of the election into sort of what some people would refer to as extremist hands. I'm wondering, going back to what you said earlier about Robert Ludlam, the original writer of the series and the guy who created Jason Bourne, being set in Vietnam. And then you've had other novels where he is in Russia and then now he is working his way through France. And how are you picking where these novels are going to be set and were you aware of the current French election cycle as you were writing this book? - Well, I think one of the great things about Robert Ludlam's novels was he had a real knack for finding things that felt current and topical and adapting them into plots where people would sort of be having that little question mark in their head and asking, oh, is that the way it really could have happened? And so I've tried to carry that on in my Jason Bourne novels and make people feel that the books are sort of ripped from the headlines. And so I'm always looking for topical issues that are going on. And so I've dealt with, I've dealt with technology and social media and fake news and misinformation and disinformation in the media and things along those lines that have felt like they're sort of right ripped from the headlines and feel very topical. So same thing here. Honestly, it's amazing to me how the news surprises me. I'll pick something that feels rather topical and by the time the book actually comes out, it feels like somebody must have been reading, well, he must have had some insight and knowledge about that. (laughs) And I swear, I didn't put anyone reading the Bourne shadow and looking at the Wall Street Journal on the same day would probably be thinking, oh, well, this is interesting. - I definitely looked at my husband and said, you know, maybe he is a former CIA agent and this is just his way of making use of that. And so much of this book in dealing with the election cycle and the two extremists parties coming at one another has a lot to do with immigration. There is a section in the book where a woman is being openly taunted. She's in a burka. Why did you want to focus in on this sentiment of fear of immigrants and the place that they hold in society? - Well, I think that's driving so much of the political divisions right now. And you've got kind of a clash of cultures, a clash of values and instead of assimilation, you sort of have sides bumping together against each other and trying to figure out a way forward that is able to bring people together. And we're clearly, you know, and nowhere in the world do we seem to be doing a particularly good job of that. And so when I look at the Bourne novels again, you know, Ludlem always had such a great knack for finding a topical conspiracies. I think that inevitably when you have tension and conflict, I think it tends to produce conspiracy theories and people look for sort of simple explanations that involve these strange forces at work that are able to shape things. When in reality, you know, life is simply very messy and we have to sort of do the hard work of getting through it. But, you know, in a spinal it's always very tempting to think about, you know, who are the unseen players that are sort of pulling the strings behind the scenes? - There's also a section where when the polls are closing, the leading candidate on the far right claims that if he loses, it'll be because of a rigged election and not abide by the outcome. Certainly we have seen a lot of that in not just France. Are you worried about global democracy? (laughing) And honestly, I'm not. I have a lot of faith in people. I have a lot of faith in the ultimate common sense of people, regardless of the misinformation and disinformation that gets thrown people's way. I think that people have a pretty good gut sense. And any time you, I think what you tend to see in elections is when one side or one party starts, you know, going in too much of an extreme direction, that the people have a very capable knack for pulling them back to the center. And so, no, I actually have a fair amount of faith and confidence that we'll get through this. You know, I look back at history and I was only five years old in 1968, but I tried to imagine what people felt like in 1968 when you had literally political assassinations going on and rampant violence and war and they must have felt like the world was coming to an end and civilization was coming to an end and how are we ever going to get past this? Well, you know, what we did get past that and we will get through this era as well. - How do you put yourself in a mindset such as that maybe thinking back to what it was like just being alive in the world in 1968 or specific to these books in the mindset of someone like Jason Bourne, who knows he has these skills, knows he can be a killer. Not sure if he's doing it for what he would at least hope are justifiable reasons. - Yeah, I think that actually gets back to the idea that for all of the extremes of a character like Bourne and the violence that you would find in a thriller, I think that what makes Bourne such an interesting character is his basic humanity and complexity and his struggles with the concept of morality and identity, he may do it on a level that is beyond what an ordinary person would and yet at the same time we're all asking ourselves the same questions and we're all dealing with those same struggles. So to that extent, I think Bourne just makes for a really fascinating character to study and to write about because all of these questions he has to be asking himself and trying to sort of fit himself into a part of the world that it's something that we all try to do and so I think that it makes it a very, he becomes a very relatable character to write about and hopefully to read about as well. - There's a line in the book that says truth is what you can make people believe. Your wife Marsha is a regular first reader of your novels. Does she ever get concerned when you say things like that? (laughing) - Well, Marsha always likes to say that she sleeps with one I/O now and it is funny because obviously I write some dark books and a lot of dark things happen in the books and yet the books are so unlike me as a person and I always enjoy doing library and bookstore events and chatting to readers and inevitably I'm telling stories and we're all laughing and some reader will sort of tentatively raise a hand and say well how is it that you write such dark books? You seem like such a nice person and I mean they always qualify that you seem like such a nice person. I'm not staking out any guarantee. - I mean, that would make you a good spy. (laughing) How do you describe yourself? - Oh, you know, I personally think the best writers are probably relatively boring people because and probably the same actors would say the same thing that they like to pour their imaginations into their characters and their stories and otherwise I think lead pretty ordinary lives and certainly I think the best writers I read about are the same way in their ordinary daily lives they're just ordinary family people and they have their friends and their cats walking across the keyboard but somewhere in the dark recesses all this other stuff just sort of pours out onto the page they put it on the page and then leave it behind. - And you can read those pages in the new born novel it's called The Born Shadow we've been visiting today with author Brian Freeman you can find out more at befreemanbooks.com Brian, thank you so much for your time today. - Thank you. - That was my former colleague Ashley Thornberg with author Brian Freeman. Dakota Dave Book is upcoming. Support for Prairie Public is provided by Trollwood Performing Arts School for sending the Adams family a musical comedy full of laughs, fun for the whole family and all the antics the famous family is known for. Tickets available at trollwood.org or by calling 218-477-6502 Performances run July 16th through the 20th and July 23rd through the 27th at Bluestem Center for the Arts in Morehead. (birds chirping) This is Dakota Dave Book for July 16th. Farmers saw an economic moon during World War I. They bought more acreage and invested in farm machinery. And the aftermath of the war crop prices collapsed when the sudden decrease in demand resulted in oversupply. Farmers needed government assistance subsequently becoming an important voting block in the 1928 presidential election. Presidential contenders Herbert Hoover and Al Smith both courted the farmer vote. Government aid to farmers became a central issue involving crop supports and the regulation of railroads. As July heated up in 1928, so did the presidential campaign and farmers were at the center of it. Farmlife editor William Johnson painted a rosy picture of life on the farm in an address to a convention of world advertisers. He said the demands of farmers for relief were based more on the desire for added luxuries than a demand for necessities. He said conveniences like cars, farm machinery, radios and electricity made farm life easier for modern farmers. He said farmers quote simply are out for incomes large enough to pay for the standard of living they have tasted in towns and cities since automobiles and hard roads took them there. Later in July, the Bismarck Tribune printed a rebuttal to Johnson. In an editorial titled, "An Unfortunate Statement," the newspaper said farm life was not nearly as idealistic as Johnson seemed to think. The editorial stated, "Farming may have no bread lines, but if Mr. Johnson will investigate the bread lines, perhaps he will be surprised at the number of former farmers he finds in them, forced there by reverses over which they had no control." In the opinion of the newspaper, the demand of the farmer today is not for relief, but for equality. Throughout the summer, the focus remained on farm relief. Indeed, the economic conditions for North Dakota farmers in 1928 were not as rosy as the picture painted by Johnson. As an agricultural state, North Dakota suffered when crop prices plunged. As farmers suffered from economic depression, the urban areas enjoyed relative prosperity. Despite no widespread economic failure, North Dakota farmers struggled with heavy debts, high costs, and low crop prices, and it was only going to get worse. No one knew in 1928 that the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl were right around the corner. Today's Dakota Day book written by Dr. Carol Butcher. I'm Ann Alquist. (birds chirping) - Dakota Day Book is produced in cooperation with the State Historical Society of North Dakota, with funding by Humanities North Dakota, North Dakota's largest lifelong learning community. - We'd like to thank the North Dakota Council on the Arts for supporting arts programming here on Prairie Public. - A small town in New Mexico still hasn't recovered from a 2022 wildfire accidentally caused by the U.S. Forest Service. Now it has flooding and water shortages, too. Tomorrow on Morning Edition from NPR News. - Weekdays, beginning at 4 a.m. Central, here on Prairie Public. (upbeat music) - And that's a wrap for today's Main Street. My colleagues and I at Prairie Public are grateful that you've been able to share time with us. Tomorrow on Main Street, Travel Writer Alicia Underline Nelson is on a family vacation in Wisconsin-Dells, and we'll check on tips on exploring the water park capital of the world. We hope you can join us again tomorrow on Main Street. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music)