Name: Tom Junod, journalist and author of In the Days of My Youth I Was Told What It Means to Be a Man
Start: 2026-04-07T16:30:00-04:00
Location: University At Albany

Tom Junod, journalist and author of In the Days of My Youth I Was Told What It Means to Be a Man

Tom Junod, celebrated magazine journalist, UAlbany graduate (Class of 1980), and winner of two National Magazine Awards, will join us for a conversation about his new memoir, In the Days of My Youth I Was Told What It Means to Be a Man (2026).
The book explores his relationship with his father, “Big Lou” Junod, a traveling handbag salesman “who dominated every room he entered, worshipped the sun and the sea, his own bronzed body, Frank Sinatra, and beautiful women.” Junod disentangles his memories and feelings about a charismatic, philandering father who tried to mold his son in his image, the many secrets he hid, and ultimately, the true meaning of manhood. Ayad Akhtar called it, “a deeply affecting search for truth, as brave as it is beautiful.”
Tom Junod
4:30 p.m. Tuesday, April 7, 2026
University at Albany
Multi-Purpose Room
Campus Center West Addition
1400 Washington Avenue
Albany NY 12222
Free and open to the public.
Books will be available for sale.
A signing will follow the conversation.
More about this event: https://www.nyswritersinstitute.org/tomjunod-2026
Praise for In the Days of My Youth I Was Told What It Means To Be A Man
“Tom Junod’s long-awaited memoir is a brilliant addition to the literature of fathers and sons, a gorgeously written, unexpectedly suspenseful saga that somehow navigates the agonizing paradox at its core: I am my father’s son, Junod declares proudly, and yet I’m also very much not my father’s son. The squaring of that paradox—in Junod’s reporting, in his heart—makes for a haunting, unforgettable read.”
—J.R. Moehringer, New York Times bestselling author of The Tender Bar
“There is no question that Tom Junod has mastered the art of looking outside himself. But here he startles with a propulsive, emotional look inward, an intense examination of his charismatic, maddening father and, ultimately, of himself. The result is deep and brooding, a beautifully rendered portrait of family, masculinity, and what it means to find your own way in the world.”
—Susan Orlean, New York Times bestselling author of The Orchid Thief and Joyride
“Tom Junod has always been a dazzling writer, but in this book he turns his powers on the hardest subject of all—the secrets and lies and complicity at the heart of a family. His family. The result is a sort of shocking detective story, a deeply affecting search for truth, as brave as it is beautiful.”
—Ayad Akhtar, author of Homeland Elegies and winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama
“This extraordinary memoir is a fabulous evocation of time lost and time found. It’s a Springsteen song with a Proustian theme. Beautifully written, wild and revelatory, it exposes the broken tailfins at the end of the American dream. All the truths and all the lies compose a sad love song that will take your breath away. Junod searches for his father but finds himself, and consequently the rest of us, braided together in the hope that we can rescue something from the broken parts.”
— Colum McCann, author of Twist and Let the Great World Spin, winner of the National Book Award