Praise Be! Tom Junod Back in the Pages of Esquire
To the extent that I have a hero, it might just be Tom Junod.
He's the writer I wish I could be; I couldn't get enough of his stories when he was one of the voices that defined Esquire magazine under David Granger. He made me want to be a magazine writer.
I was too dumb (can't say "young" with that, sadly for me) to realize that wasn't likely to happen for me, but I read his work like it was some sacred text and that maybe, just maybe I would unlock the secret of how he does it.
I was devastated when Granger was forced out at Esquire and Junod chose to follow him; I respected it, maybe even more than the first time that happened (when Granger left GQ and Junod turned down some insane offers to follow him).
One of the coolest days (this will be so nerdy, so prepare yourselves for that fact) in the history of my inbox was a day when I'd reached out to Granger and said, "Sir, you don't know me, but — yada, yada yada — would you please pass my email along to Tom Junod and let him know that I'd like to reach him?"
Long shot of long shots, right?
Nope.
There came an email from Granger that basically said: Done.
And right behind it, just minutes apart, was an email from Junod. The lock screen on my phone had these two emails stacked on top of one another. Bam. Boom. I'm looking around like, "Is anyone else seeing this? How cool and official do I seem right now, based on nothing more than this screen?"
Junod was kind enough to email with me, and at one point, we even had a phone call. I remember in emails much later (I had already graduated from journalism school), he caught me up on what he was doing: He'd just stepped away on book leave, trying to finish up this book he'd been writing for a while. It was about his dad.
That book will finally publish next month, and I can't wait. Its publication also brought Junod back to the pages of Esquire, though not as a writer but a subject. Another fantastic magazine writer — John Hendrickson — had profiled him, and I loved reading it all in a glossy, physical copy of the magazine that, honestly, just hasn't felt the same since Granger, Junod, et al. left.
John Hendrickson
I loved this line from Hendrickson:
How do you write honestly about one of your heroes, about a man who has inspired and intimidated you in equal measure? Tom Junod’s name was once synonymous with Esquire and, really, with men’s magazines, period. His byline sits atop some of the most profound and provocative stories that Esquire and GQ have ever published. Like that make-you-cry Mister Rogers profile that became a Tom Hanks movie. Or “The Falling Man,” his search for the identity of a single person who plunged from the World Trade Center on 9/11. Presidents, preppers, pit bulls, pornographers—no topic seemed beyond Tom’s reach. He ran toward them all, often with success, sometimes with scandal.
I felt that same way, except I wasn't even writing about him. I was just writing to him, in largely informal emails. I was talking to him, on the phone, sort of like an interview but not really. It was scary. Not because he wasn't charming and polite and kind. But because I was desperate not to fuck it up, whatever "it" could be considered when you're just writing an email or having a quick phone call.
Please deem me worthy of this time spent on this email or call, everything in me screamed, betraying the cool I could only dream I possessed. That's why I loved this bit from Hendrickson even more:
Three days earlier, on a flight from New York to Atlanta, I was reading some of Tom’s old articles. It was a familiar ritual: wrists resting on the tray table, not wanting a piece to end.
Until several months ago, that was the only way I knew Tom: on the page, at a distance. Growing up, his writing was one of the reasons I dreamed of working at Esquire. I landed a low-level editor job at the magazine when I was 26. I was an insecure nervous wreck. One day, from the corner of my eye, I could see a tall, tan, skinny man gliding toward my desk. He stuck his hand out. “Hi, I’m Tom!” No shit you’re Tom. It was as if a guy in a Bulls jersey with 23 on the chest leaned in and said, “Hi, I’m Michael.” I recently shared that anecdote with Wright Thompson, one of Tom’s closest friends and a colleague at Tom’s current post, ESPN. “I have met the actual Michael Jordan,” Thompson told me. “And I was a lot more intimidated to meet Tom Junod.”
I can't wait to read this book. Not just because my hero wrote it. I'm excited because it's his first book, and it's this monumentally personal thing about his dad. I can bail water out of the boat just fast enough to stay afloat, when I think about the hole my father's sudden and untimely death blew in my life. It'll be three years in April, that sad anniversary landing about a month after Junod's book will come into the world. And I can't wait to dig into this writer — whose words, when strung together just so, hit me in the soul like a blues lick, one that brings out some guttural, reflexive "Unh!" — grapple with his father's legacy on his life and what it means to his conception of masculinity. If they weren't such a recent obsession, I'd say these topics were my life's work.
There's another reason, too. I want to say thank you to the part of him that tried to assure me he wasn't scary. When we were wrapping up that phone call all those years ago now, he called me by the wrong name as we signed off. Nothing comedic and unfathomable; something like Cory or Gary. I was still too awestruck to care very much, but sure, it stung. Might never talk to him again; wish the last thing he said to me wasn't somebody else's name.
But no matter. Still couldn't dull my shine. I was sitting there, in some post-euphoric comedown, marveling at my good fortune. And the phone in my hand rang.
It was Tom Junod.
"Cary," he said. "It's Cary. So sorry. Don't know why I messed that up. Just wanted to call you back to tell you I actually know your name and get it right before I said goodbye."
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