I'm John Batson with Brenda Wineapple, very generous to talk about her new book, Keeping the Faith, God Democracy, and the trial that riveted a nation.

The trial ends on the 21st, and on the 26th, Mary Bryan, his wife, who's arthritic and in a wheelchair sends one of their aids to wake Brian,

who's taking a nap after midday meal.

And Brenda, this is a very sad turn.

I know in inherit the wind, it was not filled in.

You just were led to understand that Brian dies soon afterwards. However, there is the

suggestion in your reporting that with his death and he died, they believe of a stroke, but that

diabetes clue you provide was an indication that he'd not been properly caring for himself

for some time. There is a suggestion that Darrow's triumph became a way of speaking against him.

Was that popular to say that Darrow had driven Brian into his grave?

If you're a Brian supporter or you're horrified by the humiliation that Darrow inflicted on Brian,

you're likely to say that Darrow caused Brian's death.

But I think there are more physiological reasons.

For one thing, as you mentioned, it was brutally hot. And Brian was on the witness stand

outdoors in the July heat. Second of all, as we saw, he piled potatoes and corn onto his plate. He was a diabetic, and his diabetes was probably not in control,

not just because of what he ate, but because he was always hungry, he actually looked very thin.

So the combination of the heat, the stress, the diabetes contributed, I think, to his death and his death.

It's just so uncanny that it would occur, but he never left Dayton.

He was able to get to Chattanooga and to get his rebuttal into the papers, but he never saw it when it was published because he died

in Dayton, which is a kind of shock, although H.L. Mencken, as usual, had his acerbic comment

about this. He said that God took out his bow and arrow, at Darrow missed and got Brian instead.

Whatever happened to, we've mentioned some of the trials. Brenda talked about the

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