Jodi Kantor

So that's what we did.

And that Hanukkah, we were exchanging gifts, and I got him what I thought was the perfect gift because he loved The New Yorker.

And so I went into the little gift shop at the New York Public Library, and I got him, you know, like those –

posters that are New Yorker covers blown up.

I got him one.

Which one?

I can't remember.

But what I do remember is that when I gave it to him, his face fell.

And he said, Jodi, I don't want to hang a New Yorker cover on my wall.

I want to write for the New Yorker.

And I was like, you're crazy.

Like, who talks like that?

How do you think that such a thing could be possible?

So that's kind of where he was at and where I was at.

And part of the reason I dedicated this book to him is that he changed my thinking and made me see more in myself.

But I'll tell you another story, which is that when I was a senior, I was kicked off the Columbia Daily Spectator.

I had like a fledgling little column in the Spectator.

This was the part of me that did want to be a journalist.

debbie to say that it was not good is an understatement like truly but it still didn't warrant uh what happened next which is that one day i opened the paper with like no warning and there's this column by this other student attacking me and attacking me in such an out of bounds crazy ugly way that i literally cannot say on this show what this kid said about me because it was so offensive

It was humiliating.