Hey, it's Empire's Book of the Day. I'm Andrew Limbong. The revolutionary, Leon Trotsky,

spends a few weeks in exile in New York City. What he wanted to do while there was start a great

proletariat revolt. What ended up actually happening was not that. The new novel,

Bronstein in the Bronx, is espionage writer Robert Lattel's

fictional version of what went down. Lattel talks to NPR Scott Simon about why he paid special

attention to Troski's conscience and about his personal, familial connection to the story. After the break.

In the U.S., national security news can feel far away from daily life.

Distant wars, murky conflicts, diplomacy behind closed doors.

On our new show, Sources and Methods.

NPR reporters on the ground bring you stories of real people,

helping you understand why distant events matter here at home.

Listen to sources and methods on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.

A ship steams into New York Harbor in the first weeks of 1917 and a little boy named

Sergei tells his father Lev that some of the buildings look so tall they seem to scrape the sky.

They are built on the skeletons of workers, his father tells him, then adds,

you should be making revolution.

Lev Braunstein, whom history and the world would know as Leon Trotsky, is at the center of Robert Lattel's new novel,

Bronststein in the Bronx, said in the 10 weeks that the Russian revolutionary leaders spent in exile in New York City

just before Vladimir Lenin, the Bolshevik communists, took power in Russia.

Robert Lattel, who was written more than 20 espionage

bestsellers, including the company, joins us now from Morocco. Mr. Lattel, thanks so much for being

with us. Well, it's amazing that I am because I'd never used this kind of technology before, but it's

...