Father Figure

Summary

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Family Lore: “Father Figure”

Podcast: Family Lore (Audacy)
Host: Lloyd Lockridge
Guest: Tom Junod
Date: June 17, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode of Family Lore features acclaimed journalist and memoirist Tom Junod, whose quest to understand his father, Lou, forms the core of his new memoir In the Days of My Youth, I Was Told What It Means to Be a Man. Junod and host Lloyd Lockridge explore intergenerational secrets, the complexities of father-son relationships, the burden of family lore, and how trauma and truth-telling intersect across decades. The narrative touches on Junod's momentous encounters with figures like Mr. Rogers, but ultimately dives deeply into the mysteries and revelations surrounding his own family history.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

Introduction & Tom Junod’s Background

• Tom Junod’s Credentials:
  • Nationally respected magazine writer; 11-time National Magazine Award nominee
  • Known for influential profiles, including the famed Esquire piece on Fred Rogers (00:02:39)
  • His article inspired the film A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
• Recent Work:
  • Released a memoir focused on his turbulent relationship with his father (00:02:22)
• Tom's Core Identification:

  “My dad wanted me to be him, and I wasn’t him. But that doesn’t mean that I wasn’t identified with him… my father’s story was the central story of my life…” — Tom Junod (00:01:14)

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The Mr. Rogers Article & Professional Turning Point

• Aftermath of a Controversial Article:
  • Outed Kevin Spacey in Esquire, received backlash, experienced a crisis of confidence (00:04:34)
  • Offered the Fred Rogers profile at a career low point
• Encounter with Fred Rogers:

  “Fred had me figured out from the time I walked in the door… he was obviously trying to work on me in some way, even trying to minister to me…” — Tom Junod (00:05:26)

  • Rogers gently shows Junod that “you don’t always have to burn the house down” (00:06:14)

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The Real Father: Lou Junod

• Lou’s Persona:
  • Handbag salesman, WWII veteran, charismatic, imposing, overwhelming presence (00:08:39)

  “He was just like the overwhelming character. He was the overarching character. I mean, he had so much pizzazz, so much going on…” — Tom Junod (00:08:39)

• Philosophy of Manhood:
  • Lou believed he perfected manhood; his idea centered around appearance and charisma (00:09:24)
• Early Trauma and Family Secrets:
  • As a three-year-old, Tom witnessed his father's affair (00:09:49)

  “I was 3, and I was aware of it… is it possible that I really knew what was going on back then when I was this little kid’s age?” — Tom Junod (00:09:49)

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The Weight of Family Secrets & The Father Vow

• Impact on Tom’s Mother and Himself:
  • Lou’s repeated infidelities hurt both mother and son (00:10:49)

  “I grew up with my dad making my mom feel shitty, hence me feel shitty, because I was super connected with my mom…” — Tom Junod (00:10:49)

• Tom’s “Father Vow”:
  • Promised never to become like his father or allow his father to “shut him up” (00:12:12)

  “The father vow is this psychological term for the vow you make. I’m not going to be this person — that in many cases delivers you to the point of being exactly like that person.” — Tom Junod (00:12:22)

• Failed Escape:
  • Despite his vow, Tom ends up as a handbag salesman, repeating a pattern he had promised his mother he would avoid (00:13:37)

  “Here I was, a handbag salesman.” — Tom Junod (00:13:37)

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Pivotal Trauma: 1981 LA Handbag Convention Incident

[Segment begins: 17:06]

• Life-Threatening Experience:
  • Held at gunpoint in a hotel room for 45 minutes (17:37)

  “It was a huge .45 automatic that tilted my head to the side. And I was marched to the bed…” — Tom Junod (17:37)

  • Survives a situation where police later suggest most are killed (19:56)

  “Generally you get marched to the bathtub, you’re there for the purpose of being executed.” — Tom Junod (19:56)

• Father’s Response:
  • Lou’s advice for recovery is to have sex as a way to restore manhood (20:33)

  “Mikey knows how to make a man feel like a man… [but] she actually listened to that story.” — Tom Junod (20:33)

• Tom’s Own Path:
  • Returns to writing as a way of processing trauma; writes an essay on this experience, a turning point in his writing career (22:02)

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Writing as Truth-Seeking and the Role of Fear

• Writing Out of Fear:
  • Family secrets create deep-seated fear; writing becomes Junod’s way of addressing this (23:39)

  “When you have that, I think it just builds fear… So there has to be a reason for that, and there might be a lot of words to describe exactly why that is, but I think fear is certainly a good place to start.” — Tom Junod (23:39)

• Return to Foundational Memory:
  • Earliest drive to truth begins with suspicion of father’s affair as a child, leading to later confrontation with Valerie Shockett, the woman involved (25:14)

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The Pursuit of the Truth: Valerie Shockett Encounter

[Segment Begins: 25:14]

• Confronting the Past:
  • As an adult, seeks direct confirmation from Valerie; after intense questioning, she admits to a five-year affair (25:14–27:22)

  “She said, ‘Well, I’m not gonna lie to you.’ Then she said, ‘Yeah, I had an affair with your dad for five years.’ It was just an amazing moment…” — Tom Junod (26:35)

• Significance:
  • Validates Tom’s lifelong feelings and ancestral role as secret-keeper and seeker

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Generational Secrets and Scandal

[Segment Begins: 29:37]

• Discovering Grandmother’s Tabloid Past:
  • Tom learns his grandmother was at the center of a sensational scandal in 1935 (30:14)

  “The great matriarchal figure in my life...was, you know, a scarlet woman in the newspapers of New York City in 1935.” — Tom Junod (30:14)

• Hidden Half-Sister and Family Bigamy:
  • Finds out about his father’s half-sister, abandoned at birth, and that his grandmother was a bigamist (31:12–33:02)

  “Grandma had a daughter from her first marriage that she abandoned, and that he has a sister, a half-sister, and that she’s probably still alive.” — Tom Junod (31:12)

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The Denial and Construction of Family Narrative

[Segment Begins: 31:49]

• Lou’s Denial:
  • When confronted, Lou insists past scandals “never happened,” sharply denying public record (31:49)

  “[Dad], I have newspaper stories that say it happened… ‘Listen to me. It never happened.’” — Tom recounting his father (32:23)

• Meaning of Discovery:
  • Tom interprets the revelation as the “explanatory secret” for his father’s larger-than-life persona and shame (34:30)

  “…there’s a forensic beginning and a ‘holy shit’ end. And it’s a fundamental reengineering of my self-knowledge because it’s a fundamental reengineering of my family.” — Tom Junod (34:30)

• Families as Stories:

  “Families are very much the story that is told… my idea of my family and also my idea of my father has changed.” — Tom Junod (35:57)

• Intergenerational Patterns:
  • Lou tried to erase his past, repeated it; Tom tries to accept and break the cycle (36:35)

  “Your father denies his past and repeats it and that you accept your past and stop it from repeating.” — Lloyd Lockridge (35:57)

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Acceptance, Honesty, and Legacy

• Striving toward Truth (Not Bitterness):

  “I work really hard to be honest in the book.” — Tom Junod (36:35)

• Considering Parental Perspectives:
  • Tom doubts Lou would appreciate the book’s revelations; feels sense of promise kept to his mother by becoming a writer (36:52–39:04)

  “This book was a promise kept rather than a promise betrayed… I think about my mom a lot in terms of the book, and I’m trying to make my peace with that and getting there.” — Tom Junod (38:35)

• Host’s Closing Reflection:

  “He hasn’t burned his house down. He’s turned the lights on. He’s found all the hidden secrets and repaired them with the truth… it’s the kind of fire that illuminates.” — Lloyd Lockridge (39:04)

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Notable Quotes & Moments with Timestamps

• Centrality of the Father’s Story:

  “My knowledge that my father’s story was the central story of my life was always there.” — Tom Junod (01:14)

• On Meeting Mr. Rogers:

  “Fred just… had me completely outmaneuvered from the very beginning.” — Tom Junod (05:26)

• On Family Secrets:

  “My job in the house was to keep my father’s secrets, but my job as my mother’s son was to find out what those secrets were.” — Tom Junod (25:14)

• On Discovery and Change:

  “There’s a forensic beginning and a ‘holy shit’ end… a fundamental reengineering of my self-knowledge.” — Tom Junod (34:30)

• On Promises and Legacy:

  “This book was a promise kept rather than a promise betrayed.” — Tom Junod (38:35)

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Key Timestamps for Important Segments

• 00:01:14 — Tom Junod describes his powerful identification with his father
• 00:05:26 — Tom on meeting Fred Rogers & personal transformation
• 00:08:39 — Description of Lou Junod, the bigger-than-life father
• 00:13:37 — Tom on ending up a handbag salesman like his father
• 00:17:06 — The 1981 LA hotel armed robbery incident
• 00:25:14 — Valerie Shockett confirms her affair with Tom’s father
• 00:31:49 — Tom confronts his father about family history; Lou’s denial
• 00:34:30 — Tom discusses how the family’s hidden truths shaped his identity
• 00:38:35 — Tom on his mother, writing the book as a “promise kept”

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Conclusion & Takeaways

Tom Junod’s narrative, as discussed in this episode, blends journalistic investigation with raw personal confession, illustrating how confronting buried family truths can explain, complicate, and ultimately help heal intergenerational wounds. Rather than tearing his family legacy apart, Junod’s memoir—like this conversation—reveals the redemptive, illuminating power of honesty and storytelling in the face of inherited complexity.

For further familial mysteries and revelations, tune in to Family Lore each week.

Transcript

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[Lloyd Lockridge]

This episode of Family Lore contains spoilers for the book in the Days of My Youth, I Was Told what It Means to Be a Man by Tom Juneau. Please take that into consideration before listening.

[Tom Junod]

My dad wanted me to be him, and I wasn't him. But that doesn't mean that I wasn't identified with him. I was hugely identified him to the extent that when I my brother called me to say that our dad was gone. And those are the words that he used. He called me at 12:31 morning. I picked up the phone and the first thing I heard were the words, Dad's gone. I mean, I hit the floor. I mean, I almost lost consciousness. So my identification with my father and my knowledge that my father's story was the central story of my life was always there.

[Lloyd Lockridge]

In this episode, we're going to hear from an acclaimed magazine writer and his lifelong journey to understand his father, his family history, and himself. I'm Lloyd Lockridge, and this is Family Lore. So to begin, why don't you tell me your name and what you do for a living.

[Tom Junod]

Okay. My name is Tom Junot. I am a writer, mostly for magazines for the last 35 years. But now I have a book out and it's called in the Days of My Youth. I Was Told what It Means to Be a Man. It's a memoir published by Doubleday, so

[Lloyd Lockridge]

some of you might recognize that name, Tom Junot. Simply put, Tom is one of the most respected magazine writers of the last four decades. He's been nominated for a National Magazine Award 11 times, which is a record, and he currently writes for espn. And in March of this year, Tom released a memoir. We'll be talking about that in a second, but before we do, I wanted to give you a little sense of Tom's background. Because if you don't think you're familiar with Tom Junod, you're probably familiar with some of his work. In 1998, Tom wrote a feature magazine article for Esquire about Fred Rogers, as in Mr. Rogers, called can youn say Hero? And in 2019, the article was adapted into a movie called A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, starring Matthew Rhys and Tom Hanks. Mr. Rogers, I'm here to interview you. It is so nice to meet you. And when Tom wrote the article that inspired this film, he was at a troubling inflection point in his career.

[Tom Junod]

Well, I mean, I was struggling on a bunch of different levels. I had just gone from GQ to Esquire, you know, with some fanfare and attendant notoriety. And then, you know, the first story I did for Esquire was definitely as an attempt to grab some attention. And that was the profile of Kevin Spacey, after which, you know, the fanfare and notoriety just turned into pure notoriety. And, you know, I was, you know, a golden boy. And then it just all just sort of turned to shit.

[Lloyd Lockridge]

In the fall of 1997, at the height of his powers, Tom wrote an article for Esquire called Kevin Spacey Has a Secret. And with heavy innuendo, Tom revealed that secret. The article was unpopular, to put it mildly.

[Tom Junod]

I outed Kevin Spacey while sort of pretending that I wasn't. It just didn't work on a couple of different levels. And then, you know, all of a sudden, I just got kicked in the teeth a bunch. You know, within a year, I had really lost a lot of confidence and pretty much stalled out as a writer.

[Lloyd Lockridge]

Going into the Kevin Spacey article, Tom had already developed a reputation as sort of a no holds barred writer. He would tell the truth, even if the truth was painful. But the way in which he revealed this particularly sensitive truth had backfired. This, of course, was long before numerous men had accused Kevin Spacey of sexual assault. The article that Tom wrote did a number on his reputation and his own self esteem. And as Tom was dealing with this crisis of confidence, his editor, Scott Emelianik, approached him with an assignment.

[Tom Junod]

You know, he loved him some Fred Rogers because he had grown up with Fred and he had the idea that Fred Rogers was an American hero. And I was at the point in my career where he Thought like, wouldn't it be cool? Wouldn't it be sort of, you know, once again, that word, provocative. To have Tom bad boy, like the new bad boy, go out and profile this good guy. The thing that was so, you know, amazing about that whole experience is that just Fred had me. He had me figured out from the time I walked in the door. Even beforehand, you know, I thought I was pretty cool and pretty badass. But in his quiet way, Fred just, you know, had me completely outmaneuvered from the very beginning.

[Advertisement Narrator]

Right.

[Tom Junod]

And, you know, I had to decide what to do with that. You know, do I try to be confrontational? And I didn't try to be confrontational. I just let it happen because the process itself was really interesting to me. He was obviously trying to work on me in some way, you know, even trying to minister to me. He wasn't just being a nice guy. He was being a nice Presbyterian minister. And he saw something in me. I think he saw, number one, unhappiness. And then I think he saw, at the same time, something worthwhile. And, you know, I'll always be grateful to him for that. You know, Fred was like, sort of the first person who sort of let me know that you don't always have to burn the house down.

[Lloyd Lockridge]

The movie A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood tells this story, the story of a journalist whose life and perspective is changed by Mr. Rogers. But it also tells another story in the movie. The journalist character, which is based on Tom, has a deeply tumultuous relationship with his father, played by Chris Cooper. They begin estranged, and with the help of Mr. Rogers, their relationship heals. It's a good story, but it's not quite how real Tom's relationship with his real father actually was. That relationship is explored very deeply in Tom's new memoir. And that's what I wanted to talk about with Tom for this episode. The memoir is a story about family, about secrets, about the almost inescapably complicated nature of the father son relationship. Though in Tom's case, I think it's fair to say that the relationship was unusually complicated. And that's because Tom's father, Lou Juno, or Junaud, as he would pronounce it, was a highly unusual man. You describe your father as somebody who doesn't. It doesn't seem like he has a past like he. Like Athena sprung from Zeus's skull. Your father kind of just came into existence.

[Tom Junod]

American history began with my father.

[Lloyd Lockridge]

Yeah. And with his bravado and charisma, he could make you feel that way, right?

[Tom Junod]

Absolutely.

[Lloyd Lockridge]

On paper, Lou was a handbag salesman. He served in World War II. He started a family and bought a house on Long island and commuted into New York City, where he conducted a lot of his business. But in person, Lou was something more.

[Tom Junod]

You know, my dad was this not so much an overbearing character. He was just like the overwhelming character. He was the overarching character. I mean, he had so much pizzazz, so much going on in every aspect of him. The way he looked, the way he acted, the sound of him, the smell of him, like, with all his fragrances and sort of male perfumes. So he was this incredibly overwhelming character who would say from, you know, right at the go that he knew what manhood meant. He knew what it meant to be a man.

[Lloyd Lockridge]

And because I can't show you a picture of Lu Junnad, I'll just tell you he was a very handsome guy. He looks like Sean Connery or maybe the sixth member of the Rat Pack. And in Lou's opinion, being a real man was an art, an art that he had perfected, if not invented. And Lou's idea of manhood had many pillars, but integral to the architecture was looking good and appealing to women.

[Tom Junod]

I knew from a really, really, really early age that there was something amiss, there was something wrong, There was something different about him than any other father that I knew. And when I was three years old, my father carried out a flagrant affair with my friend Michael's mother. And I was 3, and I was aware of it. And, you know, I look at 3 year olds now, and I'm sort of like, you know, I kind of like, rub my eyes. I was like, is it possible that I really knew what was going on back then when I was this little kid's age?

[Lloyd Lockridge]

Tom's earliest memories of his father are colored by this knowledge. And as he got older, he saw how his father's behavior affected his mother, and he began to see how it would affect him.

[Tom Junod]

I mean, I grew up with my dad making my mom feel shitty, hence me feel shitty, because I was super connected with my mom. And it was very, very clear to her and to me what his life was and what his life was like. Extravagantly cheating on my mom. I mean, extravagantly. My father had a way of silencing my mom, which was to say, shut up. And the way he said shut up was different from the way he said everything else. My father had this wildly theatrical manner of speaking. Have you ever seen a body like this? I mean, you would look in the mirror and say that I mean, that was how I grew up. But when he would say shut up to my mom, all that would fall away. All his precise diction would fall away. And he would say, shut up. And she would. And I would. But I would say to myself, one day, one day I won't shut up.

[Lloyd Lockridge]

Tom actually made two promises to himself. He promised himself that his father would never shut him up. And he promised himself that he'd never become like his father.

[Tom Junod]

I always swore that I was never going to be that. You know, I took what therapists call, you know, the father vow. The father vow is this psychological term for the vow you make. I'm not going to be this person that in many cases delivers you to the point of being exactly like that person.

[Lloyd Lockridge]

So Tom avoided following in his father's footsteps. He went to liberal arts college. He majored in English and wrote poetry interests that Lou probably would not have described as manly. And then he graduated without the slightest clue as to what he would do for work.

[Tom Junod]

I graduated with an English degree and I did really well, but I had no idea, you know, how to make a living. I wanted to write novels, but I had no confidence in doing that. I couldn't even begin to think of writing for newspapers because I knew I wasn't fast enough. I was painfully slow at it. So I did what my dad did and what my brother did. I became a handbag salesman. I moved to Dallas, Texas, from Long Island.

[Lloyd Lockridge]

And from Dallas, Tom would travel to various places in a four state territory. Texas, Arkansas, Oklahoma and Louisiana. He was on the road six days a week.

[Tom Junod]

It was a monster job in which I was adrift and alone most of the time. And I was also doing the job that, like, I promised my mom I wouldn't do. She did not want me to be a handbag salesman. I promised not to be a handbag salesman. And here I was, a handbag salesman.

[Lloyd Lockridge]

Tom Juneau, the kid who took the father vow, who promised himself he wouldn't become his dad, who promised his mother he wouldn't become a handbag salesman, had become a traveling handbag salesman. But then something happened. Something that brings up a question I think about from time to time. If you are really meant to do something, do you inevitably find your way there? Even if you take missteps, even if you try to go in the wrong direction, does God or your subconscious or the universe somehow pull you in the right direction? The direction of the thing you were meant to do? I guess I'm talking about destiny. Is destiny a real force? If you like me are inclined to say no, it's not, then what happens next might make you think twice.

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[Lloyd Lockridge]

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[Lloyd Lockridge]

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[Tom Junod]

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[Tom Junod]

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[Lloyd Lockridge]

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[Lloyd Lockridge]

It was 1981 and Tom was well into his career selling handbags, and in March of that year there was a big handbag convention in la. Tom's father Lou would also be at this convention and the event happened to coincide with Lou's birthday. So while in la, Tom and his father Went out to dinner to celebrate. After dinner, Lou dropped Tom off at his hotel. But after entering the hotel, Tom couldn't get into his room. For some reason, he couldn't get the door to unlock. So he walked on down the hall to the room of one of his

[Tom Junod]

colleagues, knocked on the door, went in, he opened up a bottle of Jack, lit up a joint. I was sitting there. I went to the bathroom and felt something at the side of my head. And it was a huge.45 automatic that tilted my head to the side. And I was marched to the bed where Steven, my colleague, was.

[Lloyd Lockridge]

Stephen was shocked. He didn't know this guy any better than Tom. He was just some random intruder who'd backed the two guys into a room at gunpoint.

[Tom Junod]

He was like, holy shit. The guy wound up staying in the room for 45 minutes with a gun on us, talking to us a little bit, threatening us a lot. And then, you know, at the very end, there was this moment where we thought he was leaving. We thought that we had made it. And then all of a sudden, he ordered us to get off the bed and to crawl to the bathtub in the hotel room and to keep our noses on the floor and don't look at him. And so he marched us into the bathtub and he had the gun on us the whole time. And then when we got to the bathtub, my colleague began begging for his life and our lives. He said, oh, Jesus, please don't kill us. And the guy lifted up his gun and said, don't Jesus me. I'm a God fearing motherfucker myself. And he lifted up the gun and he said, don't tell anybody for 15 minutes or I'll come back and kill you. And he left. And it was, you know, especially, you know, as I sit here talking to you about it, you know, I don't really talk about it very much, but sitting here talking to you about it makes me realize, you know, how big it was. It's not an easy thing to talk about.

[Lloyd Lockridge]

Even at the time, Tom didn't fully appreciate how close he had come to death. The cops who responded to the incident after hearing what had happened could not believe that he and his colleague were still alive.

[Tom Junod]

Because generally you get marched to the bathtub, you know, you're there for the purpose of being executed. And so, you know, I had to deal with that.

[Lloyd Lockridge]

And the other thing Tom had to deal with was his father's reaction to the incident. Following this near death experience, Lou took Tom out to Balboa island to see some Friends, Vinnie and his girlfriend, Mikey. Theoretically, Balboa island would have been a nice place to relax and unwind. And in fact, that's exactly what Lou had in mind. It's just that Lou and Tom had very different ideas as to what it meant to recuperate.

[Tom Junod]

My dad tried to deal with the trauma of it as best he could, which was to send me to Mikey's apartment. I think I went and I talked to Mikey about poetry, because I was that guy. And I came back, and my dad was like, so, what happened? And I said, nothing happened. We talked. You talked. What did you talk about? I don't know. Dad writing. Oh. And as I asked him, I said, dad, was something supposed to happen there? And he said, well, Mikey knows how to make a man feel like a man. And so his idea, like, for the best way for me to recover from what happened in the hotel room was to have sex with a woman that he thought was attractive and that he very well might have been having sex with himself. And I would like to say here, for the record, is that she was amazingly kind to me. She sort of knew that I didn't need whatever my dad was offering. I needed someone to talk to. I hadn't spoken to anybody about what happened in that hotel room, and she actually listened to that story.

[Lloyd Lockridge]

This type of experience seems to happen over and over and over again in the book, where your dad's trying to reach you, but his methods of reaching you are ineffective. They don't resonate with you. You aren't on the same page in that sense.

[Tom Junod]

I mean, he reaches out to me in not just kindness, but with an invitation to emulate him. And that is the great conflicting invitation of the book. Do you emulate this man or don't you? Like, I reject a certain sort of invitation from my dad to do this or to do that. I, at the same time, find another way. There was definitely a fork in the road. And, you know, I went back and wrote about it because, you know, I wasn't. I wasn't my dad. So that's how my dad dealt with stuff. And I dealt with it. By that summer, rolling a piece of paper into my brother's wife's IBM Selectric typewriter and banging out an essay, a nonfiction essay, about this. This moment. And that changed everything for me. And that piece of writing, it showed me the way. Till this very moment when we're sitting here.

[Lloyd Lockridge]

Yeah. It's interesting to me how you respond to fear. I mean, it sounds like your whole career as a writer is based on this moment where you're responding to fear. You write a lot about fear of your father in the book, and you respect those who don't fear him. And I guess I'm wondering to what extent is your endeavor to write this book and to be a writer in general based on that fear? Does that play a role?

[Tom Junod]

I think it does. I mean, I think it has to, right? I mean, I think that when you grow up with family secrets, and as the keeper of family secrets, I mean, I was the one, you know, other than my mother. I was the one who knew, you know, and when you have that, I think it just builds fear. And, you know, I'm in my 60s, man, and I've written a lot, and I've written about my dad, but I've never written at the core of him and me and us. So there has to be a reason for that. And there might be a lot of words to describe exactly why that is, but I think fear is certainly a good place to start.

[Lloyd Lockridge]

It's interesting to think about when, where, and how this journey started for Tom. In the memoir, it starts at his father's memorial. But Tom also says in the acknowledgments that when asked how long it took him to write the book, he says he's been writing the book his entire life. And while he admits that that response may sound glib, in his case, I think it's true, because the memory or the experience that started all of this happened when Tom was three years old. He believed deep in his bones that his father was having an affair with his friend's mother, a woman named Valerie Shockett. But he never had a definitive answer. And now that his mother and father were gone, there was only one person to ask.

[Tom Junod]

So Valerie was like the white whale for me. And I went to see her out in the California desert in 2017. She was old. She was not particularly healthy. And I knew that if I walked away from that without her doing the interview and talking to me about where I wanted to go, I knew I'd never get it. You know, I just did not take. I would. Refused to take a backward step. And she said to me, when I finally, because I asked her, I mean, I was with her for two hours asking her questions, and she said to me at the very end, she was like. Because I had asked her, I said, just tell me, did you have an affair with my dad? And she said, you just can't stand it, can you? And I said, no. She was like, why? I said, I was born to know you know, my job in the house was to keep my father's secrets, but my job as my mother's son was to find out what those secrets were. I was my mom's confidant. I was her ally. I was everything. And that's what I was there for. And that's why I'm still here. So I felt like I was definitely carrying out like a lifelong directive in my grilling of Valerie. And, you know, and I give her great credit, she said, well, I'm not gonna lie to you. Then she said, yeah, I had an affair with your dad for five years. It was just an amazing moment because she was a woman who had a. She had a deep Parkinsonian tremor. And it just went. It just went away for a while. You know, she looked 10 years younger. I felt 10 years younger. I mean, it was, it was a moment.

[Lloyd Lockridge]

Throughout Tom's quest to discover who his father really was and what his own life was really like, he arrived at another question. Because with a guy like Liu Junnan, there must have been a reason he was the way he was. In the book, Tom writes about how his father created the sense that he had no history. You may remember him saying, american history began with my father. Obviously, that was not true. Lou had a history, one he'd hoped to bury.

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[Lloyd Lockridge]

Today's episode is sponsored by NerdWallet's Smart Money podcast. Personal finance can feel like a pop quiz you didn't study for. This podcast is your study guide. On NerdWallet's Smart Money podcast, you'll hear from trusted journalists who explain the why behind major financial decisions. You'll get research backed insights and clear pros and cons. Whether you're planning a big purchase or just want to grow your wealth, make your next financial move with confidence. Follow NerdWallet's Smart Money podcast on your favorite podcast app. So in Tom Junot's new memoir, in the days of My Youth, I was told what it means to be a man. There are two big investigations happening. There's the investigation into Tom's personal history. And there's an investigation into Tom's family's history. And the big part of that second investigation is where did Tom's father, Lou, really come from? And Tom's journey to uncover his family story actually started when his father was still alive. Tom's grandmother, Lou's mother, had passed away, and the family had gathered for the wake.

[Tom Junod]

And when she died at the age of 95, I went back to my Aunt Liz's house, and my cousin Billy was like, I got a story for you. And I was like, what's that? He was like, our grandma was in the New York tabloids in 1935.

[Lloyd Lockridge]

This was news to Tom. He didn't know anything about it, but now he needed to know everything about it. So he went to the New York Public Library and started going through the newspaper archives.

[Tom Junod]

His mother, my grandmother, the great matriarchal figure in my life, the woman who ran the show that everybody lived to impress and delight, was, you know, a scarlet woman in the newspapers of New York City in 1935.

[Lloyd Lockridge]

So the scandal was complex, which is part of what made it so salacious. It's actually comically complex. This is how Tom describes the story he gleaned from his initial trips to the New York Public Library when his father was still alive. He writes, my grandmother's first husband's second wife killed my father's first sister's best friend in a love triangle that would have confused Euclid. All you need to know is that Tom's grandmother was involved in a sordid tabloid scandal and that his father had a half sister that Tom never knew about.

[Tom Junod]

And, you know, I found out that not only was Grandma sort of tangentially involved with this long running, front page, lurid tabloid scandal, you know, I find out that grandma had a. Had a daughter from her first marriage that she abandoned, and that he has a sister, a half sister, and that she's, you know, probably still alive.

[Lloyd Lockridge]

So after Tom conducted this research at the New York Public Library, he returned to Long island, and his father picked him up at the train station.

[Tom Junod]

And he says, you know, what were you doing in the city? And I said, well, I was looking in the library. I was looking about stuff about the family. And my father, you know, gets immediately formal, which is always a tell with my dad. He's like, oh, yes. And I said, yeah, I'm looking about family. May I ask what you were trying to find out about the family? And I was like, dad, you have a sister, and she's probably out there And I, as the journalist, I'm your journalist's son. I probably have the power to find her. Let's go find her. And he looks at me and he goes, it never happened. And I said, dad, dad, what do you mean it never happened? I was just in the New York City Public Library. I have newspaper stories that say it happened. And he looks at me and he goes, listen to me. It never happened. I'm a good enough reporter to know when somebody says that, you know, it's worth looking there.

[Lloyd Lockridge]

So after Tom's father passed away and while Tom was writing his memoir, ironing out his family history and seeking to understand his family's identity, he dove back into this story. Why did his dad say it never happened when obviously it did? So Tom embarked on a pretty challenging forensic mission. And among many other things, things you should discover for yourself when you read the memoir. Tom tracked down information about his grandmother's divorce to her first husband, the one involved with the tabloid scandal. And in doing so, Tom learned that his grandmother was still married when she exchanged vows with Louis Junaud Sr. As Tom writes, my grandmother was a bigamist. This means that Tom's father, Lou, was born out of wedlock to a woman who was at one point infamous for her infidelity. She was seen as a floozy, a homewrecker, a scarlet woman, to use Tom's words. And all of this was out in public view during Lou's most formative years.

[Tom Junod]

And, you know, when you look back, you know, my dad was 16 years old when all this was in the newspapers. And of course, you know, it shaped who he became.

[Lloyd Lockridge]

In the book, Tom grapples with the notion that he and his dad didn't have much in common. But now that Tom had uncovered the truth about his grandmother, this was no longer true. Tom and his father Lou did have something in common, something deeply important. They were both kids with secrets.

[Tom Junod]

To go into the archive and find, like, what you think is, like, almost like, not just the secret of your family's life, but the explanatory secret of your family's life. You're always wondering why your dad is a certain way. Well, here's one answer. So is that forensic work or is that holy shit work? And for me, everything in this book, there's a forensic beginning and there's a holy shit end. And it's a. You know, it's a fundamental re engineering of my self knowledge because it's a fundamental re engineering of my family. You know, families are very much the story that is told and what I grew up being told by my father at the dinner table, and my brother was told the same, and my sister was told the same, was that, you know, hey, dad, tell us about your father. I didn't have a father, dad. Dad. What do you mean? What do you mean you didn't have a father? He calls up and asks for money. I didn't have a father, and I didn't know what that meant until 2018. And, you know, my idea of my family and also my idea of my father has changed.

[Lloyd Lockridge]

Yeah. The beginning of the book, I was wondering how much bitterness would be kind of infused throughout. And I don't see bitterness. I see honesty and acceptance of the truth, pursuit of the truth and acceptance of the truth. And that's sort of the philosophy, it seems, of the book and maybe of you as a person. It's interesting to me that your father denies his past and repeats it and that you accept your past and stop it from repeating. That's what you've done in a way. Right.

[Tom Junod]

Listen, it's certainly what I've tried to do. I think I mentioned the term the father vow. Anybody who's made the father vow sort of knows that it's easier said than done. So I work really hard to be honest in the book.

[Lloyd Lockridge]

Do you give any thought to what your dad would think of this book?

[Tom Junod]

I think of the irony of it. You know, my dad really wanted to be a celebrity. And I mean, I think I say in the book that my father's celebrity was that people mistook him for a celebrity. You know, he's a celebrity in this book. And the thing that's really interesting about having a book out about my dad is that some of the book's intrinsic gravitational pull is my dad's gravitational pull. My father's charisma carries. The reader carries part of the book. You know, I get that all the time. You know, whenever I post pictures of my dad, people are like, oh, my God, you know, look at this guy. But I'm not going to kid myself. I'm not going to lie to myself. I'm not going to say, oh, dad's happy up in heaven because he's famous. Or, you know, or the subject of this book. I don't kid myself about that. The question that I think of more often is what my mom would have thought of the book. And once again, I can't kid myself about that either. My mom was very, very aware of. Of what other people thought of her. And I think that my mom was deeply deeply embarrassed that she had a husband who was famous for being a lothario. And I think I say in my acknowledgments, I was like, mom, I know you'd be mortified, but at the same time, I think I used the words, this book was a promise kept rather than a promise betrayed. Well, the promise that's kept is the promise I sort of made to her. You know, I'm not a handbag salesman. She didn't want me to become a handbag salesman. She wanted me to be a writer. And I think that there's a part of me that says that she knows that I did an okay job with this and that I wrote about it truthfully and with love. I think about my mom a lot in terms of the book, and I'm trying to make my peace with that and getting there.

[Lloyd Lockridge]

And for me, that answer helped bring Tom's story into focus. Earlier in the episode, when Tom was talking about that turning point in his life when he met Mr. Rogers, he said that Fred Rogers was the first to show him that you don't always have to burn the house down. And as I read Tom's memoir, I wondered, is he going to burn his own house down? You should read the book and decide for yourself. But in my view, he's done just the opposite. He hasn't burned his house down. He's turned the lights on. He's found all the hidden secrets and repaired them with the truth. And don't get me wrong, he's still playing with fire. But it's not the kind of fire that consumes. It's the kind that illuminates. Thank you for listening to Family Lore. If you have stories you'd like to share about your family, please email [e-mail] that's familylorepodmail.com family lore is an Odyssey original podcast. It is written and narrated by me, Lloyd Lockridge. Our executive producers are Leah Rees, Dennis and I. Our lead producer and sound editor is Zach Clark. Our story editor is Katie Mingle. Additional sound, editing, mixing and mastering by Chris Basel and production support by Sean Cherry. Special thanks to Maura Curran, Josephina Francis, Kurt Courtney, Hilary Schuff and Laura Berman. Thanks again for listening to Family Lore and if you have time, we'd love for you to rate and review the show.

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