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Journalist David Carr Fact-Checks His Own Story

Hostile womanizer, award-winning editor, crack addict, bad parent, coke dealer, New York Times columnist — David Carr has been all of those, sometimes simultaneously.

But he doesn't know all the details — or isn't sure, after years of telling and retelling colorful anecdotes about himself, that he remembers them right.

So for his memoir The Night of the Gun, Carr put on his investigative-reporter hat to reconstruct his various sordid lives. He interviewed friends, ex-friends, family members and colleagues, all in the effort to document the man he has been, rather than the myth he's in the habit of spinning stories about.

Copyright 2023 Fresh Air. To see more, visit Fresh Air.

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