Author Interview:

Five Minutes with....Charles Leerhsen

Charles Leerhsen, the author of current bestseller Down and Out in Paradise: The Life of Anthony Bourdain, has written for Sports Illustrated, Esquire, Rolling Stone, The New York Times Magazine, Smithsonian, Money, People, TV Guide and Seventeen. He has been an editor at SI, People and US Weekly, and spent 11 years at Newsweek, where as a senior writer he covered sports, entertainment, family stories and breaking news. At Newsweek he won the National Mental Health Association award for a cover story on alcohol and the family. Leerhsen's previous books include the New York Times bestseller Ty Cobb: A Terrible Beauty, the award-winning Crazy Good: The True Story of Dan Patch, the Most Famous Horse in America, the groundbreaking Butch Cassidy: The True Story of An American Outlaw, and the highly-acclaimed Blood and Smoke: A True Tale of Mystery, Mayhem and the Birth of the Indy 500. He has also co-written several best-selling biographies, including Press On! Adventures in the Good Life, with pioneer aviator Chuck Yeager, The Last Great Ride, with entertainment mogul Brandon Tartikoff and Surviving at the Top with Donald Trump. He is an adjunct professor at the City University of New York's Graduate School of Journalism.   (Bio and photo taken from Mr. Leerhsen's website.)

After the research is done, do you have a specific process that you follow when doing the actual writing?

  Well, the research is never really done; it continues after I start to write. At some point, though, I get a sense that I have enough to begin if I begin at a certain place — a place that is also calling out to me as a good starting point. After that I continue to listen to my feelings and instincts. I don't use an outline, though I certainly wouldn't look down on anyone who does.

When do you write?

  Prefer morning, when I am at my boldest and most optimistic. But as the deadline gets closer any time of day will do. The late afternoon is probably my least favorite time to work and my favorite time to nap.

Do you have a writing nook or do you write wherever/whenever?

  I don't have a particular spot although sometimes I wish I did. Technically my wife and I share a nice large office but she is a psychotherapist and so needs privacy with her clients, of which she has quite a few. I usually wind up writing on the dining room table, which in our apartment is downstairs — or in warmer months on a table in the back yard. When the writing isn't going well, I tell myself and others it's because I don't have "A Room of One's Own" but in my case that's just an excuse.

How many hours a day do you typically write?

  There's no typical amount of writing but as for hunching over the keyboard I do that for usually about 6 hours unless I'm on deadline or past it, in which case it might be 18 hours.

If you could give your younger self any writing advice, what would it be?

  I would tell myself to stop writing in my head so much and to write more on "paper," meaning the screen. Once you have words down you can edit them and editing is so much easier than writing.

What does literary success mean to you?

  To me literary success means satisfying myself and getting paid properly.

Who are your writing heroes?

  I have many writing heroes but The ones who come to mind first are S.J. Perelman, Christopher Hitchens and A.J. Liebling. 

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I would like to thank Charles Leerhsen for taking the time to answer a few questions about his writing process.  I believe much can be learned from successful writers and their writing habits.

Charles Leerhsen's website

 

Available Now:

Down and Out in Paradise:  The Life of Anthony Bourdain

by Charles Leerhsen

Simon & Schuster

Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

Anthony Bourdain’s death by suicide in June, 2018 shocked people around the world. Bourdain seemed to have it all: an irresistible personality, a dream job, a beautiful family, and international fame. The reality, though, was more complicated than it seemed.

Bourdain became a celebrity with his bestselling book Kitchen Confidential. He parlayed it into a series of hit television shows, including the Food Channel’s Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations and CNN’s Parts Unknown. But his charisma belied a troubled spirit. Addiction and an obsession with perfection and personal integrity ruined two marriages and turned him into a boss from hell, even as millions became intrigued by the ever-curious and genuinely empathetic traveler they saw on TV. Bourdain was already running out of steam, physically and emotionally, when he fell hard for an Italian actress who could be even colder to him than he sometimes was to others, and who effectively drove a wedge between him and his young daughter.

Down and Out in Paradise is the first book to tell the true and full Bourdain story, relating the highs and lows of an extraordinary life. Leerhsen shows how Bourdain’s never-before-reported childhood traumas fueled both his creativity and the insecurities that would lead him to a place of despair.

Now in Paperback:

Butch Cassidy: The True Story of an American Outlaw
by Charles Leerhsen
Simon & Schuster
Trade Paperback


From the publisher's website:

For more than a century the life and death of Butch Cassidy have been the subject of legend, spawning a small industry of mythmakers and a major Hollywood film. But who was Butch Cassidy, really? Charles Leerhsen, bestselling author of Ty Cobb, sorts out the facts from folklore and paints a “compelling portrait of the charming, debonair, ranch hand-turned-outlaw” (Ron Hansen, author of The Kid) of the American West.

Born into a Mormon family in Utah, Robert Leroy Parker grew up dirt poor and soon discovered that stealing horses and cattle was a fact of life in a world where small ranchers were being squeezed by banks, railroads, and cattle barons. A charismatic and more than capable cowboy—even ranch owners who knew he was a rustler said they would hire him again—he adopted the alias “Butch Cassidy,” and moved on to a new moneymaking endeavor: bank robbery. By all accounts a smart and considerate thief, Butch and his "Wid Bunch" gang eventually graduated to more lucrative train robberies. But the railroad owners hired the Pinkerton Agency, whose detectives pursued Butch and his gang relentlessly, until he and his then partner Harry Longabaugh (The Sundance Kid) fled to South America, where they replicated the cycle of ranching, rustling, and robbery until they met their end in Bolivia.

In Butch Cassidy, Leerhsen “refuses to buy into the Hollywood hype and instead offers the true tale of Butch Cassidy, which turns out to be more fascinating and fun than the myths” (Tom Clavin, bestselling author of Tombstone). In this “entertaining…definitive account” (Kirkus Reviews), he shares his fascination with how criminals such as Butch deftly maneuvered between honest work and thievery, battling the corporate interests that were exploiting the settlers, and showing us in vibrant prose the Old West as it really was, in all its promise and heartbreak.

On My Radar:

Butch Cassidy: The True Story of an American Outlaw
by Charles Leerhsen
Simon & Schuster
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

For more than a century the life and death of Butch Cassidy have been the subject of legend, spawning a small industry of mythmakers and a major Hollywood film. But who was Butch Cassidy, really? Charles Leerhsen, bestselling author of Ty Cobb, sorts out facts from folklore and paints a brilliant portrait of the celebrated outlaw of the American West.

Born into a Mormon family in Utah, Robert Leroy Parker grew up dirt poor and soon discovered that stealing horses and cattle was a fact of life in a world where small ranchers were being squeezed by banks, railroads, and cattle barons. Sometimes you got caught, sometimes you got lucky. A charismatic and more than capable cowboy—even ranch owners who knew he was a rustler said they would hire him again—he adopted the alias “Butch Cassidy,” and moved on to a new moneymaking endeavor: bank robbery. By all accounts, Butch was a smart and considerate thief, refusing to take anything from customers and insisting that no one be injured during his heists. His “Wild Bunch” gang specialized in clever getaways, stationing horses at various points along their escape route so they could outrun any posse. Eventually Butch and his gang graduated to train robberies, which were more lucrative. But the railroad owners hired the Pinkerton Agency, whose detectives pursued Butch and his gang relentlessly, until he and his then partner Harry Longabaugh (The Sundance Kid) fled to South America, where they replicated the cycle of ranching, rustling, and robbery until they met their end in Bolivia.

In Butch Cassidy, Charles Leerhsen shares his fascination with how criminals such as Butch deftly maneuvered between honest work and thievery, battling the corporate interests that were exploiting the settlers, and showing us in vibrant prose the Old West as it really was, in all its promise and heartbreak.