Our guest is our friend, Barry Friedman, the Tulsa-based writer and comic, who's also a longtime commentator for this public-radio program. His son, Paul, died a few years ago from a drug overdose -- at age 24. And while Barry was devastated by this tragedy, as any parent would be, he was not really surprised. Paul's death, as Barry notes in his new book about his son, had been foreshadowed for years. Barry joins us to discuss his moving, unsettling, and perceptive new book, which is meant not as eulogy but as an elegy. And as the writer Dave Barry has noted: "It's a wonderful book. This is a haunting, achingly honest account of an experience every parent fears more than any other -- the death of a child. Friedman is a superb writer; this compelling, compulsively readable book will stay with you long after you finish it."
"Four Days and a Year Later: An Elegy" by Barry Friedman
