My Last Eight Thousand Days: An American Male in His Seventies (Crux: The Georgia Series in Literary Nonfiction Ser.)

As founding editor of __Creative Nonfiction__ and architect of the genre, Lee Gutkind played a crucial role in establishing literary, narrative nonfiction in the marketplace and in the academy. A longstanding advocate of New Journalism, he has reported on a wide range of issues—robots and artificial intelligence, mental illness, organ transplants, veterinarians and animals, baseball, motorcycle enthusiasts—and explored them all with his unique voice and approach. In __My Last Eight Thousand Days__, Gutkind turns his notepad and tape recorder inward, using his skills as an immersion journalist to perform a deep dive on himself. Here, he offers a memoir of his life as a journalist, editor, husband, father, and Pittsburgh native, not only recounting his many triumphs, but also exposing his missteps and challenges. The overarching concern that frames these brave, often confessional stories, is his obsession and fascination with aging: how aging provoked anxieties and unearthed long-rooted tensions, and how he came to accept, even enjoy, his mental and physical decline. Gutkind documents the realities of aging with the characteristically blunt, melancholic wit and authenticity that drive the quiet force of all his work. As a journalist, Gutkind has covered such varied topics as baseball, mental illness, motorcycle enthusiasts, and robots and artificial intelligence. As founding editor of Creative Nonfiction, he played a crucial role in establishing literary, narrative nonfiction in the marketplace and the academy. In this memoir, he discusses his life as a journalist, editor, husband, father, and Pittsburgh native, framing his stories with his reflections on aging. A longstanding advocate of New Journalism, Lee Gutkind has reported on a wide range of issues and explored them all with his unique voice and approach. In My Last Eight Thousand Days, he turns his notepad and tape recorder inward, using his skills as an immersion journalist to perform a deep dive on himself.