All That You Leave Behind

Starred review from February 25, 2019
Documentary filmmaker Carr addresses her addiction to alcohol and her father’s influence over her in this bold and incisive memoir. The daughter of the late New York Times journalist David Carr (1956–2015), Erin and her twin sister Meagan were born three months early to parents addicted to cocaine. The weight of parenthood forced their father to straighten himself out, while the girls’ mother disappeared from their lives. Erin began drinking in high school, and, like her father, she drifted in and out of AA meetings. But after her father, who was battling lung cancer, collapsed on the New York Times newsroom floor and died at age 58, Erin realized that life is precious, and she clung to his used reporter’s notebooks and continued to send her father daily text messages for advice. Erin writes honestly about her relationship with her father (“In order for our relationship to work, I had to learn to not take his darker moments personally”) as she delivers a clear-eyed view into multigenerational substance abuse and simultaneously celebrates the redemption of a father’s love. Readers can’t help but get caught up in Erin’s tragic and ultimately transformative story. Agent: Meg Thompson, Thompson Literary. (Apr.)
Correction: An earlier version of this review incorrectly stated the author's sister started drinking in high school.

February 15, 2019
Life with father isn't easy--not when father is the one-time drug addict David Carr, noted journalist and author of the searing memoir Night of the Gun (2008).Documentary filmmaker Carr delivers an affecting memoir of growing up under decidedly difficult circumstances--e.g., being left in a freezing car in her snowsuit while her father checked into a crack den to get high. But that's just part of it. Carr the elder turned his life around when it dawned on him that two unhealthy parents were not good for two budding daughters, even if he sublimated his addictions with too many cigarettes, too much coffee, and too much work in the quest for the Pulitzer Prize that, as a reporter and critic for the New York Times, always eluded him. The combination, plus the years of hard living, killed him: "58," writes the author. "Who dies that young? No one had ever prepared me for his dying that young." True, but he did prepare his daughter well for life as a writer, giving her the same lessons he gave to his many university students about being honest with oneself and working the phones rather than relying on email. "What will set you apart," he wrote, "is not talent but will and a certain kind of humility, a willingness to let the world show you things that you play back as you grow as an artist. Talent is cheap." Carr is relentless in describing the chemical failings that the world revealed to her, especially in reliance on alcohol, which she's quit. She's also very good in distilling the lessons her father taught her without being sentimental: "When it comes time to pimp your own stuff, you have credibility" is vintage Carr, in all its tough-guy-ism, and ought to inspire other young would-be journalists and writers as they pay their dues.A moving and unflinching paean to a man who died at the top of his game: "Sort of a mic drop, really."

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