Life Stories #35: Andrew McCarthy

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photo: Chris Sanders Photography

In this episode of Life Stories, the podcast series where I interview memoir writers about their lives and the art of writing memoir, Andrew McCarthy talks about The Longest Way Home, which recently came out in paperback. In addition to his acting (and directing) career, McCarthy has in recent years carved out a place for himself as a travel writer for magazines and newspapers and, between the time he and his longtime partner decided to get married and the actual ceremony, he had several assignments lined up that took him away from the Manhattan apartment they share… essentially, he writes about how he went up the Amazon, to the peaks of Kilimanjaro and the streets of Baltimore, to confront himself and his fears about commitment.

But it wasn’t exactly a therapeutic journey, as I found out during our conversation:

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17 June 2013 | life stories |

Life Stories #34: Josh Hanagarne

photo: Suzy Steed/A Moment’s Reflection

My guest for this episode of Life Stories, the podcast series where I interview memoir writers about their lives and the art of writing memoir, is Josh Hanagarne, the author of The World’s Strongest Librarian. It’s a fantastic book with a lot of amazing stories bundled into it: Josh has Tourette’s Syndrome, so he writes about dealing with that, but that aspect of his life also overlaps with the story of his withdrawal from the Mormon faith of his childhood and early adult years and the story of how he zeroed in on weightlifting—and, from there, other forms of intense physical training—to cultivate a strong sense of self-control, and of course the story of his work as a public librarian in Salt Lake City. And none of these stories plays out the way you might expect.

Josh experienced a few instances of Tourette’s-related symptoms while recording this conversation; in many cases, I edited those moments out the same way I excise awkward pauses and “ums” and “you knows” from any other interview. At times, however, just as I can’t always get out every “um,” his vocalizations couldn’t be removed without affecting the clarity of what was being said, so you will hear some unexpected noises during the interview. We actually touched upon this point tangentially during our conversation, when he discusses how he handled his tics in the writing of the memoir, wanting to depict their effects honestly but not wanting them to overwhelm the text—at one point, he essentially says, unless I explicitly say otherwise, just assume any of the tics I’ve mentioned are happening on a regular basis, even if I’m not writing about them.

We also talk about the generosity Seth Godin showed Josh in the early stages of his writing journey, the fan mail he wrote to Cheryl Strayed, and how his library patrons are reacting to his celebrity moment—among plenty of other topics.

Listen to Life Stories #34: Josh Hanagarne (MP3 file); or download this file directly by right-clicking (Mac users, option-click). You can also subscribe to Life Stories in iTunes, where you can catch up with earlier episodes and be alerted whenever a new one is released.

10 June 2013 | life stories |