An Evening with Lee Gutkind

An Evening with Lee Gutkind, by Kindra Mason

On Thursday, November 17, author of creative non-fiction, Lee Gutkind held a reading of his newest book Truckin’ with Sam at the Lyric Theater on Main Street. Gutkind has written two memoirs; Truckin’ with Sam is his second and he wrote it with his son, Sam Gutkind. His latest book is about life as a father and the responsibilities fathers have to their sons. Gutkind defined the word “truckin’” as a “way of getting out of life’s way and living spontaneously.” The journey started in the summer of 2003 and continued every summer until 2009. Lee Gutkind and his son went “truckin’” around the United States and went through almost every state and various countries around the world. During the trips Gutkind had the opportunity to bond with his son and learn more about him. Gutkind referred to himself as an “old new dad” because he became a father much later in life.

Gutkind read many excerpts from Truckin with Sam. The first was about a trip to Mt. Kilimanjaro where Sam was in an accident. The pair was planning on climbing the mountain to the top, but Sam was in a small accident and was taken to the hospital. Everything with Sam turned out to be okay, but Gutkind was not sure they should still climb the mountain. Sam was not willing to accept that and the two soon climbed to the very top of the mountain together. His second excerpt was about a time he watched his son, who was 13 at the time, fall down while he stood in line inside a coffee shop in New Jersey. He watched Sam pick himself up off the concrete and clean himself off. When Gutkind came out of the coffee shop he did not say anything about watching Sam fall down and Sam didn’t bring it up. Gutkind said this experience helped him to understand when to show emotion and when not to show it. On a later excursion to Tibet, Gutkind and Sam heard bursts of gunfire and later looked out the window to see soldiers with riot gear. At that moment he said to himself, “What have I done to him this time?” referring to putting his son in dangerous situations.

While many of the stories Gutkind read were about his relationship with his son, some were about the relationship he had with his own father. He talked about his father’s own attempts at intimacy with him and his father explaining things like breasts and the word ‘fuck’ as beautiful things. One story he read was about his coming to understand a woman’s period from seeing “buckets of blood” in the toilet left by his mother.

After the reading, Gutkind answered questions asked by the audience about different topics. One person asked if it was hard to publish his first book and Gutkind said it was harder to publish his most recent book in comparison. He said, “These days publishing is much more difficult.” Gutkind talked some about how he enjoyed living his life because he got to experience other people’s lives from writing about them and constantly being around them in the background. He said that, “When they trust you, they no longer see you.” The different books that he has written in the creative non-fiction genre have been the result of spending large amounts of time with different people.

Gutkind spoke about his pioneering of the creative non-fiction genre. He said that the word ‘creative’ was hated by journalists because they thought it meant the stories were made up. He said that he had to constantly defend creative non-fiction to his colleagues. Creative non-fiction is now the most popular genre in publishing. Creative non-fiction is now used in fields from medicine to law. The evening finished with a round of applause for Lee Gutkind.