Life Stories #21: Jacob Tomsky

photo: James Slater

This episode of Life Stories, the podcast where I interview memoir writers about their lives and the art of writing memoir, showcases Jacob Tomsky, who’s written about his experiences in the hotel service industry in Heads in Beds. We had a lot to talk about, from his decision to change his own name along with everybody else’s to why you should always tip the bellman—and a little something for the front desk wouldn’t hurt, either.

We also discussed working with his editor at Doubleday, Gerry Howard. I mentioned that it seemed like a great fit because Howard really “gets” working class literary voices, and Tomsky added that he’d been excited to work with Chuck Palahniuk’s editor because he had some wild stories to tell about the hotel trade. But that wasn’t the only reason; while another publisher who was interested in the book was very welcoming, Tomsky was actually a little intimidated by his meetings with Howard and other Doubleday brass—and he thought that fear was a sign he’d be pushed into coming up with something even better than what he’d already come up with. And the results, I’ll tell you, are pretty impressive.

Listen to Life Stories #21: Jacob Tomsky (MP3 file); or download the file by right-clicking (Mac users, option-click).

25 February 2013 | life stories |

Life Stories #20: Dara-Lynn Weiss

photo: Juliana Sohn

In April 2012, when Dara-Lynn Weiss wrote about her attempts to control her seven-year-old daughter Bea’s diet in order to get her to lose weight, there were a lot of vehement reactions; Jezebel, for example, described it as “the worst Vogue article ever.” So when Weiss wrote a memoir, The Heavy, expanding on her experiences and discussing the reactions to her original magazine article, I was interested in having a conversation with her for Life Stories, the podcast where I talk with memoir writers about their lives and the art of writing memoir.

So we talk some about the health issues that were involved, and the controversy that erupted over Weiss’s revelations about the dietary choices she made for her daughter, and her feeling that while some parents are applauded for their vigilance over what their kids eat in other situations, parents of obese children are often not given similar benefit of the doubt. But we also talk about why she now feels it was a mistake to let Bea pose with her in the photo accompanying the Vogue article, and about her surprise at Bea’s reaction when she successfully reached her target weight—and about the difference between eating the right foods and the right amounts of the right foods, and why the “food media” seems to focus on the former rather than the latter.

One especially positive aspect of The Heavy is Weiss’s desire to broaden our sense of the word “diet,” which has popularly come to mean a short-term plan for weight loss, to a more long-term strategy for healthy eating choices throughout life. Much of her memoir centers on the attempt to instill that kind of consistency in her daughter’s eating habits, but more importantly the hope that Bea would, as she grows older, have the maturity to make smart choices for herself.

Listen to Life Stories #20: Dara-Lynn Weiss (MP3 file); or download the file by right-clicking (Mac users, option-click).

5 February 2013 | life stories |