Tom Junod Finally Reckons with What It Means to Be a Man

How do you approach the gargantuan challenge of profiling your personal writing hero? This is the central tension John Hendrickson grapples with as he spends time with Tom Junod, famous for stories such as the pivotal post-9/11 piece, “The Falling Man” and “Can You Say…Hero?,” his profile of Mister Rogers. (Junod is perhaps infamous for profiles of Nicole Kidman and Kevin Spacey.) For Esquire, Hendrickson spends a few days with Junod in advance of the publication of Junod’s memoir, In the Days of My Youth I Was Told What It Means to Be a Man.

The book’s concerns hum beneath almost every magazine story Tom has ever written. There are glimpses of Lou Junod in Tom’s controversial probing of Kevin Spacey’s private life, in Tom’s fiery few days with Nicole Kidman, in Tom’s subconscious yearning for love from Fred Rogers. The memoir suggests Tom’s great project—in some ways his only project—has been reckoning with his dad’s version of masculinity. In magazines, Tom could explore this theme through other people, but to write a book about his dad would mean staring down the truth that the thorny saga Tom has been wrestling with is, in the end, simply the story of his own home.