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EPISODE 359: What's in the briefcase?

Tom Junod’s range as a magazine writer is planetary, spanning a 9/11 jumper and Nicole Kidman and Mr. Rogers.

But ever since I saw that 2019 Mr. Rogers movie with Tom Hanks, which was based on the story of Junod’s reporting for Esquire, I’ve been wondering how Tom J. truly felt about how he was portrayed in the film, himself.

Tom Junod saw this movie and sobbed, it turns out.

But it wasn’t because his life story had been butchered.

He was sobbing because there was something in that dramatization that split open a part of his life he’d never sufficiently investigated:

His father, Lou.

Lou Junod was a man whose fictions have now inspired a work of stunning nonfiction, authored by his son, titled In the Days of My Youth, I Was Told What It Means To Be a Man.

The book speaks to how Tom reported some of his best magazine stories, as you’ll see… and what it means for a journalist to really find out the truth.

YOUTUBE SPOILER ALERT:

Thanks,

Pablo