Oprah Talks to Mariane Pearl

Oprah: So what will you tell your son about his father?

Mariane: I wrote this book partly for Adam. I think the book retains his father the way he was. Danny's life is not hijacked by the way he died. I try to keep him alive by the way I describe him in the book.

Oprah: So many people put so much emphasis on the way a person died. But there was a whole life here.

Mariane: Right. That was my big challenge. And I think I succeeded in doing it. Adam will know how silly his father was and the kind of jokes he made. He'll know his father's personality. Sometimes I'm terrified because there's a video out there. And whether or not I want to see it, Adam will have access to graphic images. How do you tell a kid that his father was killed in that way?

Oprah: But you do have to tell him.

Mariane: Yes.

Oprah: He'll grow up, and he will know.

Mariane: He'll know. So I can only do my best to make him happy and to try to convey everything to him—not only what happened to his father but what happened to me, and how he was born. We're so happy that he's here.

Oprah: There's a wonderful line in the book where Daniel says to you, "It's so incredible how much you can love somebody you haven't even met yet."

Mariane: Right. What I realized recently is that Daniel will always be Adam's father. No matter what, Adam will have a very strong father. In his final days, Danny couldn't communicate. He had no pen. He couldn't talk. They took away his voice. But somehow, people all over the world still knew who he was. People wrote to me saying, "Danny could be my son," and things like that. Without words, he managed to communicate who he was to people he didn't even know. And that told me he wasn't defeated.

Oprah: And all those letters show that he created this bond of human solidarity that allowed you to be lifted.

Mariane: Very powerful, very strong.

Oprah: I love what you said about the challenge to be happy so that they won't win—and I know that choice is daily. You've still got to get up every morning and face the reality of your life and raise your son.

Mariane: Yes.