ABC: The Night of the Gun by David Carr

David Carr, former New York Times critic and media columnist, died on Thursday. He was 58. In honor of Carr, we are re-posting our Audio Book Club about his 2008 memoir, The Night of the Gun. 

The story of Carr's descent into alcoholism and drug dependency is, on the one hand, a typical addiction-and-recovery memoir. But Carr tries to add a new twist to the old genre by relying on his reporting skills, rather than just his memory, to reconstruct a more accurate personal history. Carr interviews his friends, family, and ex-girlfriends, and digs through his old medical records in search of objective truth. Does Carr succeed at leaving convention behind? The 45-minute conversation explores this question and many others.

Listen to more installments of Slate’s Audio Book Club.

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