Mary Roach

And it was for Columbia.

And one of the names on the patch is Clark, Laurel Clark.

And I realized in the middle of his explaining things that his name is Clark.

Like that was his wife.

Wow.

So his wife had died and that was what was motivating him.

You know, he believed that it can be survivable, that you can create a survival suit for surviving an explosion at altitude or, you know, a breakup, maybe not.

depending on the type of explosion.

But that just changed the whole tenor of the conversation.

And it was, you know, you have those moments where, you know, like Mark Randolph, the guy whose iron lung I had spent time in, you know, I went there thinking, this is a chapter about negative and positive pressure breathing and about iron lungs and what is that like?

And, you know, and all of a sudden he was talking about his marriage to Mona and how hard it

you know, everything that he'd done for her.

And he was reciting when she wakes up in the morning and I take her from the iron lung to put her in the hospital bed.

I use a pulley and he just recited all the steps like it was like a prayer, you know, like an incantation.

And I realized sometimes what you think the chapter is about needs to scooch over and you need to give this person room to talk about what it was like

to be with her.

And like, you don't always anticipate the emotional moments because I'm kind of a goober, you know, I'm just kind of like out there to have fun and kind of find cool, interesting things that I can bring to readers.

And all of a sudden I realized I'm stepped into somebody's world and there's more to it than that.

It's such a good book.

Thank you so much.