An Unexpected
Literary Podcast
Every week, host Adam Sockel interviews a popular member of the literary world about their passions beyond what they're known for. These longform, relaxed conversations show listeners a new side of some of their favorite content creators as well as provide insight into the things that inspire their work.
8 decades of curiosity with Laurence Leamer
Laurence Leamer, bestselling of nearly 20 books, turns 82 this month, and we spent a morning discussing the many stories he's told throughout those decades. We dissect the art of making a guest comfortable during an interview, exchange stories of interviews gone well (and wrong), and discuss his extensively researched new book, Hitchcock's Blondes
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[Music Playing]
Adam Sockel:
You are listening to Passions & Prologues, a literary podcast. For each week, I interview an author about a thing they love and how it inspires their work. I'm your host, Adam Sockel, and today's guest is Laurence Leamer. And this was such a wonderful and wide-ranging conversation.
Laurence is the author of nearly 20 books as well, including five New York Times Bestsellers and one Off-Broadway play. His new book is titled Hitchcock's Blondes: The Unforgettable Women Behind the Legendary Director's Dark Obsession.
The conversation we have, I say it's wide-ranging because Laurence opens up our discussion by basically saying, this month he'll be 82-years-old. And the pure fact that he still is just deeply, deeply passionate about writing and telling these stories is amazing.
So, we took this discussion and went all throughout his career, we broke down the various people he has talked about and written about, including Nancy and Ronald Reagan, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Johnny Carson, and so, so many others.
It was such a joy to get to talk to Laurence or Larry as he told me to call him, just about the very way that he found these stories and these people. And how he spends so much time researching people like the Kennedys and getting into Truman Capote and all these different people, and why he picks the projects that he does, how he does the research, how he goes about interviewing people.
As someone who asks questions and seeks information as a living, it was really fun to get to interview him and feel like I was kind of stretching that muscle of asking the right questions and getting him to open up. It was just a really great conversation.
He deeply understands the process of interviewing other people. So, I needed to be on my A game, and I think you'll really, really love this conversation.
His latest book, Hitchcock's Blondes, is about exactly what it sounds like. It is about the actresses who starred in many of Alfred Hitchcock's, well-known, amazing and classic movies. And for someone who has been written about and talked about so, so much over the years, it was a challenge for Larry to find a way to break down this particular person in a way that is unique and refreshing.
And so, taking that route of talking about the women and centering those actresses makes for just a truly, truly amazing book. I absolutely tore through this. I'm a giant cinephile, big old Hollywood nerd, so this was right up my alley.
If you are looking for a book recommendation to kind of pair with this, once you get done with Hitchcock's Blondes, I have another biography that I recommend you check out. It's Jim Henson: The Biography by Brian Jay Jones.
It is one of my favorite biographies ever written. It is also wide-ranging and just deeply, deeply researched about the life and times of the creator of The Muppets and Sesame Street, and so many other things that are still so important in our daily lives today. So, that is Jim Henson by Brian Jay Jones. I think you'll really, really love that if you are a fan of biographies.
If you want to get a hold of me, you can always reach me at [email protected], or you can find me on TikTok, Instagram or YouTube at Passions & Prologues. I love answering people's questions, giving book recommendations, and doing all that fun stuff there.
Okay. That is all the housekeeping. I'm going to whisk you off gently into this conversation with Laurence Leamer, author of Hitchcock’s Blondes on Passions & Prologues.
[Music Playing]
Okay. Larry, what is something you are super passionate about that you would like to discuss today?
Laurence Leamer:
Well, okay, at the end of this month, I'm going to be 82-years-old. Now, I can't believe that myself. I mean, I don't even know anybody's 80 … growing up who's 82-years-old, and I'm still writing. I'm doing a new book right now. I'm working as hard as ever. And I'm asking myself, how did this go on for so long?
Part of it is I was kind of obsessed. I mean, I wanted to be a writer, and I was going to be a writer no matter what. At one point, my first marriage ended, in part because my wife thought that I was just a failure. I wanted to do this, and it wasn't going to work out.
And a few months later than that, I was writing a book about Willi Unsoeld, who was a mountain climber who climbed Everest in 1963 and was the director of the Peace Corps in Nepal when I was there.
And he was a young man, he was a guide on the Grand Teton. And I felt I better climb that mountain just to … if I'm going to write this book. I didn’t have any money; I was living on credit cards. I couldn't afford to rent a car. I couldn't rent a taxi.
And I was staying at a place called the Climbers' Ranch, which was just a bunch of bunk beds in these — it got a very rudimentary thing. I didn't even know that yet, because I was walking six miles to get there, and it was pouring rain.
And I thought, “What am I doing? I'm 35-years-old, I have nothing. I'm walking in the rain. This is just pathetic.” But I did keep on going. And it's all about persistence. I mean the difference between an amateur and a professional is persistence.
You only see other people's successes. You don't see other people's failures. They're hidden. And believe me, I've had as many failures as successes.
The other thing I would learn, I'm at the Columbia School of Journalism. And if a young journalist there ask me what's the most important thing, and I know this sounds sentimental and cliche, but I swear it's the truth, act honorably, act fairly to people. And in the short run, it's not going to work out maybe, but in the long run, it'll come back to you and that's the way you should behave.
Adam Sockel:
I love that so much for a variety of reasons. One, so my parents are in their mid-70s, and my mother was a teacher for 40 years before she retired. My father owned an insurance agency, a State Farm Insurance agency, for the entirety of his career, about four years.
Like I said, he is in his mid-70s. He still runs and plays racquetball and does all these things. And kind of the same thing that you were saying, like two things. One, if I were to ask him, how do you keep being active at this age? And he always says, the best way to keep moving is to keep moving. So, that persistence idea.
But something I was always struck by having my father be a salesman from the entirety of my life was, I got to work for him for a little bit after I graduated from college. I say, got to work. I had to, there was no jobs for me to have with a communications degree.
But I just was struck by that kindness he showed other people and it never felt like he was trying to sell them something. It always seemed like he just wanted to build a relationship with people and do right by them.
And I think, I want to kind of dig into that a little bit deeper with you, because the books that you write, they are so often kind of breakdowns of people and like your latest book, Hitchcock's Blondes, and you wrote about Truman Capote and all these different people.
And I have to imagine, and please correct me if I'm wrong, doing these biographies of these very famous people Arnold Schwarzenegger, I have to imagine creating those lasting relationships with people is fairly paramount to being able to get access to these types of people.
Is that kind of how you've been able to go from job to job, book to book and get this access to these people who might not otherwise be so willing to have conversations or their families?
Laurence Leamer:
Well beyond that, to anybody you talk to, you have to find some emotional connection. Even if it's serial killer, somewhere you've got to figure out to connect, like we've connected already. That's why we're having a great time. I'm not thinking about doing an interview, I'm just having a conversation with a great guy. That's what you have to do with an interview.
And well, now we're on interviews. The other thing about an interview is Jimmy Carter gave this infamous interview to Playboy, where he talked about sex in the head. And once they do that, the interview was all over. He was playing the great Jimmy Carter; he thinks the recorder was off. And he tells this intimate detail about himself.
So, having an interview lasts as long as possible, because after a while, everybody's going to stop playing the character they want to be, they start being themselves.
Adam Sockel:
Yeah, I totally agree with that. So, I used to at a previous job — the reason I'm doing this podcast now is because I used to interview authors every week for a previous company that I worked for. And it was very much the kind of by the books interviews where we would say tell us about your book and what inspired it.
And it was those questions that you as an author have gotten a billion times, and you'll get a million times more. And like you said, it was the longer I had a conversation with someone, once it got past 15, 20, 25 minutes, whether we were in person or on the phone, or over Zoom like you and I are now, I would both physically see and just in general, notice them relax and start …
And I'd be like, okay, this is the good stuff. This is the actual person that people want to know about. And I guess you talking about interviewing, one, I was very excited to talk to you, not only because I have adored Alfred Hitchcock for a long, long time. I was very lucky to have people in my life who introduced me to his movies when I was very, very young.
But also knowing all the people that you have interviewed and created these incredible books about, what for you is the most exciting part when you're diving into a new project, whether it's about people who are no longer with us, obviously Alfred Hitchcock, or talking about Truman Capote, or the life of Nancy and Ronald Reagan. What is the most exciting part for you in diving into a new project like that?
Laurence Leamer:
Well, look, I've written 19 books. And it's like living 19 lives. That's what's exciting about it. You're totally into this world. And I'm just entrenched by that whole process. It's not one thing, it's the whole thing.
Do I have writer's block? Well, to me, writer's block, what that means is writing is solving problems, when you're writing, and after you finish the research and you're writing, what are you doing? You're solving problems. You're sitting down in the morning that first problem to solve the next problem. And the writer's block is when you're solving the wrong problem or too big a problem, or a problem at the wrong angle.
Adam Sockel:
Do you think that's part of what has kept … when we first started the conversation, you said you're so fascinated and passionate about just the longevity of the career that you've had.
Do you think that is part of why you are still passionate about wanting to write these novels? And as you said, as you approach/in your early 80s, do you think it is that idea of every single book you work on is going to be something entirely different?
Laurence Leamer:
Yeah. And you've got to have this kind of youthful passion. I mean, when you say that, I'm thinking about my former agent, being an agent is very tough because it's mainly bad news, most folks don't sell. Most folks that are out there don't sell them any copies.
So, you got to spend the whole day sending — and it's very hard to be up and to be successful, you have to be genuinely enthusiastic about your projects. So, my former, she just totally burned out. So, somehow, I've kept this excitement. It's not about the success or failure of each book, it's just the whole process that excites me.
Adam Sockel:
So how do you determine what you want your next project to be? Like for Hitchcock's Blondes, how did you decide when you first decided that you wanted to write about someone who obviously has been written so much about over the years and decades? What draws you to a specific project when you know, okay, I'm going to spend a year, 18 months, two years, however long it takes you to do research and write. How do you say, this is the thing I want to spend that time with?
Laurence Leamer:
Well, on this one, this is my editor's eye. She's terrific. Michelle Howry, it’s her idea. And I jumped at it, I thought it was a good idea.
Now, the book I'm working on now, Warhol's muses, Andy Warhol, writers, authors are either the most generous, too generous, too kind, or they are just the most miserable, selfish sobs. There's no mid ground.
And Scott Eyman, who actually has a book coming out later this month about Charlie Chaplin, gave me the idea for this one, and again, I thought what a great idea was. So, it depends on each one.
Adam Sockel:
So, having your editor say like, “Hey, you should write about Hitchcock,” was his work something that you were previously really interested in? Was it something that you were — I mean, I don't … familiar with is a lazy question because I think everyone who has a pulse in a Xena movie is somewhat familiar with Hitchcock's work.
But was his work something that you previously adored, or was it just like, oh, that would be an interesting person to cover?
Laurence Leamer:
No, for a person of my generation, I mean, Hitchcock was it. I mean, I knew his films and growing up, I watched Alfred Hitchcock Presents, the half-hour tellable which he introduced every week, and he acted like a fool sometimes. He'd be in a barrel seemingly naked. Scorsese wouldn't have done that, or Spielberg. That's Hitchcock.
Adam Sockel:
Yeah. That is something that I feel like doesn't exist in modern entertainment. Not only the Hitchcock Presents, I'm thinking about, there's this really interesting … on the Disney streaming tool, there's this really interesting documentary about The Imagineers, and they do the same thing where they talk about I don't know if it was the wonderful world of Disney or whatever it was, like Walt Disney used to basically host like a weekly show.
And yeah, I can't imagine like having access to that and being able to convey your interests for Hitchcock or Disney to be able to say, welcome into my world and have that many eyes, that had to be such a unique time to be or to know like, okay, every Sunday night I'm going to watch this thing.
Was it appointment TV for you to watch that Alfred Hitchcock Presents, or is it something you just kind of think back to?
Laurence Leamer:
My father was a professor and my parents hated television, so we couldn't watch television. And I still went to church. If I went to church, I could watch television later in the day. And we had to watch this thing called Omnibus. So, you probably didn't even know about it. It was on Sunday afternoon; your dad will know about it.
It was like intellectual television, and it was incredibly boring. And we have to sit there and watch that. So, that's why my brother's a professor. In fact, I'm sitting in his house right now, but boy, I didn't want to become a professor, that's for sure.
Adam Sockel:
Yeah. And so, I'm the youngest of four. I'm in my late 30s. I'm the youngest of four. And I was very lucky for a few reasons. One, speaking of Hitchcock, I remember my brother's best friend, he was applying to go to USC film school, and I was in my early teen years. And he, my brother's best friend literally shot his own version of Lamb to The Slaughter, a thing I had never heard of until I watched his, and when he basically told me he is like, “This is an Alfred Hitchcock story.”
And then kind of introduced me to all these different movies and everything. And I got to grow up being at my grandmother's house, and she always had Turner Classic movies or AMC on. So, I remember watching Shane and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, and all these different things that I normally wouldn't have otherwise been kind of seeing as a kid. Do you remember the first Hitchcock movie that you saw?
Laurence Leamer:
I can't, but let me just say something total aside, the best bargain in America is the Criterion Channel. $90 a year of all these multi … it's just incredible all the films that are on that. But I don't remember which one it was.
Adam Sockel:
Yeah. Do you remember, did you have the experiences that people always talk about with Hitchcock movies, were you able to go see them in theaters? Or was it something that you were seeing kind of after the fact? Maybe on VHS.
Laurence Leamer:
Hey, I'm 81-years-old, I went to the theater, the streaming nonsense is new to me.
Adam Sockel:
What was that experience like seeing those films in the theater?
Laurence Leamer:
Well, that was such a central part of American life, going to the movie theater. I mean, as a kid, born in Chicago, and we'd go to the Saturday Matinee. I can remember walking to my father's house, university of Chicago, we'd walk down, I can't remember the name of the street for the theaters where you'd sit, I think it was 10 cents or a quarter, whatever, you'd sit in there with all the kids and watching that.
So, that's what it all began. It was just so exciting. And then going upstate New York, the drive-in, this place of wanting sex in movies, I mean, wow. Movies and sex together. What's better than that?
Adam Sockel:
So, when you're approaching a book like this about a person who, again, so much is known and written about and been shared already, can you kind of take me through the process of doing the research?
Because you have written books about people that are really considered the definitive aspect, kind of portrayal of them, whether it's Johnny Carson or the Reagans, or Truman Capote.
So, to go into a project like writing about Alfred Hitchcock in a way that is going to kind of cut through all the noise and get people's attention, what are you looking for in your research process to come at something like this from a different angle than maybe anyone else has done before?
Laurence Leamer:
Okay. First of all, we were talking about how authors are either too generous or just the most selfish sobs in the world. Well, in the first category is Patrick McGilligan, who's written the definitive biography of Hitchcock. It's just magnificent.
He gave me access. He spent years of doing the research. He interviewed all these people are gone now. And he let me have access to all of his research. And that was an incredible beginning to this book. I mean, to have that.
And again, he only used part of it in his books. I mean, he'd get an interview, and choose one thing, and I'd go through and find something else. So, that was absolutely crucial to everything.
And then that I'm writing about these women, that was my editor's idea. That was a new way of looking at it. And we're in this era, look early on, Hitchcock went to these new movie palaces in London. And who was the audience? The audience was overwhelmingly in women, beyond the women, the men that were there were often brought there by their wives or lovers.
So, Hitchcock knew he had to please women, he had to have characters that women would love. Well, as a writer, women buy most books. So, to write about these women, that's going to be the predominant audience. So, I was very conscious of that.
Adam Sockel:
Was it challenging to find that balance between kind of giving the spotlight to these women that either star in one or maybe two of Hitchcock's movies? Was it challenging to find that balance between spotlighting them and also keeping a focus on Alfred Hitchcock as well? Or wanting to portray him, honestly. But it can be kind of challenging, how did you find that balance between focusing on-
Laurence Leamer:
And that was the structural problem of the book. Because you go on chronologically to one actress and one film after another to interweave enough about Hitchcock. So, in the end, we have a full story of his life.
Adam Sockel:
How do you know when you're doing so much research, and I imagine this is another thing that you've learned over your entire career. But I always ask people who write nonfiction, how do you know when the research is done? And the writing is time to begin. How do you know when you're finished?
Laurence Leamer:
Redundant … when I've heard this before. That's the point.
Adam Sockel:
Yeah. And when you say when you've heard this before, do you mean in other-
Laurence Leamer:
In my research, somebody said that, or gosh, we've seen this too many times.
Adam Sockel:
Is there one of your books that was truly like people say a passion project. Was there one that you were like, okay, this is the thing that I want to dive in fully, not because of the market or because of recommendations. It's entirely kind of the, they say for directors, one for your heart, one for the people. Was there a book that for you, was the one that you were like, this is entirely for me?
Laurence Leamer:
Well, Ascent: The Spiritual And Physical Quest Of Willi Unsoeld. I told you I was walking on that road doing that book. Willie Unsoeld climbed Everest in ‘63 by the West Ridge where nobody had gone before and lost nine of his toes.
The following year, I was lost with him in the jungle when he took off his shoes. You could see just that one toe, wondered how he even could walk. He was one of the crucial people in the development of Outward Bound, that you should go out and risk your life physically.
When he was a young man, he was a climbing in India, and this mountain Nanda Devi, it’s the biggest — it’s named the Bliss-Giving Goddess.
He was going to go back and when to get married and have a daughter and named her Nanda Devi. He did. And when he was 50, he decided he lived enough, he wanted to die. And there was an expedition back to Nanda Devi, where he went with his beautiful young daughter, Nanda Devi.
And the family decided if he wanted to die, that was okay. They got over there, he wanted to live, they got up to a few hours of the summit, and Nanda Devi got sick in the tent and died in the tent. They brought the body out.
He gave a prayer to such this world of such fragility and beauty that even my daughter's death is a measure of my belief and cast the body off the mountain side. And he came back and started giving this talk all over the United States about his daughter. And people thought, oh, how great he was. And people who knew him and really knew climbing thought he was depressed.
Four years later, he's a professor in Washington. He leads a group of students at Mount Rainier and the way he shouldn't have done, unprepared, because that was Willie, an avalanche came and he was killed, and one of the students was killed.
So that was a powerful emotional story I had. And his wife started cooperating with me, and after a few months, she decided she couldn't deal with this, and she wanted me not to do it. I went ahead with the cooperation of his mother and his closest friend.
Robert Redford came to my place in Washington, wanted to make a movie out of it. He went to Nepal and almost died. There were two scripts that never was made. But that, even telling this story to you this morning, brings it all back to me in so many ways.
Adam Sockel:
Yeah. I was initially going to ask you if you find it more interesting to write about people who are no longer with us, or people who are still around. But I have to imagine having that firsthand connection with these people. I imagine there's got to be nothing as exciting of getting that firsthand access to these people, I would imagine.
Laurence Leamer:
Yeah. Well, on this book look, all of the actors I wrote about on the — and Tippi Hedren is in her early 90s, and she's no longer doing interviews. Okay. So, I interviewed Tippi Hedren and Eve Marie Saint.
Eve Marie Saint, what brilliant technique did I use to get to her, I looked at her name basic on the internet, her phone number, and called her. And her publicist was not happy that I had done that. But what the hell? I mean, nothing wrong to do that. But she gave me a terrific interview, and she's 99-years-old now, and she lives by herself.
And the only sound I could hear was the lawnmower beneath the window on Wilshire Avenue. And you know what, and that’s what ended that section of the book.
Now, her daughter was not happy with me because I'm saying she's living alone, and she thinks it makes her look like a bad daughter. Well, I've got a daughter. If I'm living by myself when I'm 99, I'm going to be pretty happy about it.
Now, Kim Novak, I went through her manager and interviewed her, and it was to be about her making a vertigo, that was the subject. But as part of that she got involved with Sammy Davis Jr. During the middle of the making that film.
So, of course, I asked her about that. I finished the interview, it's Christmas Eve, and her manager gets in touch with me and says that they're going to sue me. That I'm this terrible person. I lied, I cheated. I talked about what I shouldn't have talked about.
And so, finally I calmed her down and we agreed that I'd let her fact check everything. I'd go over all the facts with her. Well, they never got back with me. So, I wondered what happened, what's going to happen? And I was kind of nervous about that.
And then today, this morning when I woke up, there was the email from the manager saying, it's just fine. She liked what I wrote about her.
Adam Sockel:
Oh my God. I have to imagine having so much experience, that type of stuff maybe doesn't worry you anymore, but if you were just getting started your career, imagine having someone basically like, we're going to see you for what someone else said to you, and if you print it.
Is it kind of like water off a duck's back at this point where you're like, okay, well, whatever's going to happen is going to happen, or-
Laurence Leamer:
There’s always somebody saying something like that. But I was sued, in my book, The Kennedy Women, I wrote about Judith Exner who had an affair with JFK, who was Sam Giancana, the Mafia chief's mistress as well.
And she met JFK in Las Vegas, on a weekend during the primaries. And she says in her book that she just met him there and they talked about religious philosophy. Well, that's the first and last time in his life that JFK ever talked about religious philosophy.
Anyway, Peter Lawford's manager I interviewed said that she was paid by the mob to go to Las Vegas and sleep with him. So, I don't know, how do I know which is the truth? So, I put both versions in my book. So, the reader can decide what the reader thinks. She sued.
And she got these two low life … Sirhan Sirhan, Bobby Kennedy's assassin. A lawyer, this kind of low life guy. And we’d go to these depositions, and I could tell she didn't like this. Her lawyer was such a slob. She was like an elegant dresser.
So, I'm a kind of sloppy guy too, but not for this, I dressed almost in everything but a tuxedo. And I’d just come there and I didn't say a word. I just sat there with this little smile on my face. Just looking at her. And the fifth day, she takes the microphone, rips it off her head and throws it in my face, and says, F you. And that was the end of the lawsuit. After $400,000, by the way.
Adam Sockel:
Oh my gosh. And then, just because we've been talking about a lot of your different books. I mean, you also wrote about Mar-A-Lago, and I know there's a very angry, ornery person who was very mad at you as well, right?
Laurence Leamer:
You're looking at the man who's been banned for life from Mar-A-Lago. I mean, of course it ruined my life. I wake up in the morning, why can't I go to Mar-A-Lago?
Adam Sockel:
Are there any just moments about writing that story that — I can't even begin to start formulating a series of questions, but just what made you want to write about Mar-A-Lago?
Laurence Leamer:
Well, because I was living in Palm Beach. Basically, it shouldn't have been called Mar-A-Lago. That was a mistake, a publishing mistake. It should have been called The Sun Came. Because it's basically about Trump's life in Florida.
And how that experience in Palm Beach, which didn't — despised him and how he overcame that and the techniques he developed there, that helped him become president of the United States. That's what it was about. He in the end was not happy.
Adam Sockel:
Yeah. But is he ever happy? He doesn't seem like a happy person, ever.
Laurence Leamer:
No, as one of my friends said that worked in the Reagan … station, Trump is the luckiest man that ever lived, the luckiest. If you and I did what he did, we'd be doing this interview behind bars.
Adam Sockel:
That is absolutely true. So, I want to just ask one or two more questions about Hitchcock's Blondes, and you've been very gracious with your time, but when it is a book like this, is there something for you when you're thinking about all of these different actresses, and obviously there's a bit of a through line, but writing a story like this, is it different than writing just kind of a standard biography of someone?
Were you working on creating a narrative and a through line through this? Did it feel more like writing fiction or was it?
Laurence Leamer:
No, it's not. I don't consider myself a biographer. But I think traditional biography is getting kind of boring and just too much. I mean, do I want to read 900 pages about somebody? No. So, I'm a storyteller. So, it's got to be a story.
And each chapter has to have a beginning and a middle and an end and a dramatic ending. So, they all have it. And when I begin the book, even before, what I do is I always figure out the ending and then I figure what I can do to make the ending work.
The ending of this is the 1979 AFI tribute to Hitchcock, 1500 people in this room. He's 79, he's kind of pretty much out of it. His wife has had a stroke. They just carry her in sitting next to him. All these tributes, all these people coming forward saying these great things to him, he just looks down at the table. Absolutely no look, no emotion at all.
At then Ingrid Bergman was the master of ceremony, says “Hitch, Hitch when we made notorious the key, there was a key to the wine cellar that is the MacGuffin, the device that sets the story in going.
Cary Grant took that and kept it for 10 years, and it gave him all sorts of good luck. He gave it to me. I've had it for 10 years, and it gave me all this good luck and, and now Hitch, I'm coming down there and I'm giving this key to you, and I hope it gives you 10 years of good luck.”
So, at that point, everybody stands up. She comes down to the audience, she walks toward him. She hugs him. He doesn't like being hugged. But he absolutely liked that. And she hugs him back. And I say that he was not just hugging her, but he was hugging life itself. And that was that.
So, I had to make everything work. So, when the reader got that point, they say, wow, that's good. And the readers emotionally tugged when it comes to that point.
Adam Sockel:
Yeah. I loved this book so much. I absolutely tore through it. I have one last question for you. I always end every conversation by having the author who has come on, give a recommendation of any kind. It can be a book, it could be a Hitchcock movie that you like, just something you want to recommend to my listeners that you think more people should know about or be doing.
Laurence Leamer:
Okay. I'm reading this new biography, of Lou Reed. Lou Reed of Velvet Underground called The King of New York. And it is fabulous. In fact, you should have him on your podcast. The book is just terrific.
Adam Sockel:
That's perfect. Larry, you've been so gracious with your time. Like I said, I was so excited to get to have this conversation.
[Music Playing]
Laurence Leamer:
It's great fun.
Adam Sockel:
Passions & Prologues is proud to be an Evergreen Podcast and was created by Adam Sockel. It was produced by Adam Sockel and Sean Rule-Hoffman. And if you are interested in this podcast and any other Evergreen Podcast, you can go to evergreenpodcasts.com to discover all the different stories we have to tell.
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