One of my favorite writers working today is Drew Magary, a columnist for Deadspin and Gawker and a GQ correspondent. In Magary style, I often joke – in all caps, of course — that he is the TWAIN OF OUR TIMES. In the age of Tweets, Magary thrives on long form prose that is nakedly honest and blisteringly funny.
In celebrating a sort of macho young white male privilege, Magary gently undercuts it by exposing its contradictions — even as he spends 1,000 words ranking breakfast cereals.
So it was no surprise when Magary’s first novel, The Postmortal, deftly explored mortality and morality. In a different way, he has returned to those very themes now.
About a year ago, Magary emerged from a few weeks of light online output to bare his soul in a column called “Pain Is A Gift, And Other Notes From a Terrified Father During A Seven-Week-Premature Birth.” It was a new era for a writer once dismissed as a fratboy blogger who threatened the entire sportswriting establishment.
The story of Magary’s third child’s harrowing birth frames his new book, Someone Could Get Hurt: A Memoir of Twenty-First Century Parenthood, published by Gotham Books.
Previously aired on 6/14/13.
