Tom Junod

You know, as I write in the book and establish in the book, I was terrified of my dad.

And I think that one of the ways that I found to sort of deal with that terror was to build up my dad in my head, to build this narrative.

And then what that led to eventually was this desire to find out his secrets.

And I think that the fact that I...

sort of built him into this colossus, sort of gave me finally permission to like find out what his, what he was hiding.

testament to the force of his personality because I'm not the only one.

Yeah.

I mean, a lot of people thought of my dad in that way when he, when he had you in the room or at the dinner table.

I mean, you never just said to yourself, well, you're just a salesman, dude.

It was never, it was never that you didn't, you could, you could think a variety of different things to sort of

get through the moment, but that was not one of them.

Yeah, when my father, you know, one of the biggest things that's ever happened

post-World War II was the creation of American suburbia.

And the way that my dad told that story was that the guy, the inventor, the Thomas Edison of American suburbia is Bill Levitt.

My father goes out on a drive from Brooklyn, goes to a house in Levittown.

Who's there?

It's Bill Levitt himself.

What is Bill Levitt to?

He allows my dad to get the house for much less than he would normally have charged.

And why?