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Drew Magary, The All-American Id

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.

A lifelong resident of the Capital Region, Ian joined WAMC in late 2008 and became news director in 2013. He began working on Morning Edition and has produced The Capitol Connection, Congressional Corner, and several other WAMC programs. Ian can also be heard as the host of the WAMC News Podcast and on The Roundtable and various newscasts. Ian holds a BA in English and journalism and an MA in English, both from the University at Albany, where he has taught journalism since 2013.
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