Charlie LeDuff returns to his hometown Detroit after 20 years and finds everything different. He questions this "difference" in his new novel "Detroit: An American Autopsy."
Charlie LeDuff, a TV and print journalist spent 12 years with The New York Times and finally returned to his hometown Detroit after 20 long years. The journalist and now author was shocked to find that everything was different in Detroit and questions what happened to it in his new novel "Detroit: An American Autopsy." The book is inspired from incidents that occurred while he grew up in a blue-collar family in Detroit, his losing a sister to the streets and all the reporting he's done of the city since he returned.
LeDuff clarifies that though the title may sound like a dirge to the city, it isn't. However, the author also states that the city is close to being dead. LeDuff says that shifting from Los Angeles back to Detroit was a step he and his wife found necessary to take for the sake of their daughter. The couple wanted their daughter to be in touch with her roots, get to know her grandparents, her uncles and aunties and her 20 odd cousins.
The author reveals that his sister, who was lost to the streets, was a beautiful girl and every boy's dream. However, she got mixed up with the wrong guys and started doping. Soon she got lost in the streets and took up prostitution. Then suddenly one day she cleaned up her act and started working in a restaurant. Finally, depression got to her and that's when she went back to the streets and was killed.
LeDuff says that though he's been to many dreadful places like war zones and crime scenes, the place where his sister died is one place he could never find the courage to return to.
The author also says that according to him, there are two rules of journalism. "Get it right; and don't be boring. Because if you're boring, you're dead. I'll say it this way: [The] press is written into the Constitution like the judiciary, the executive and the legislative, except they didn't leave us any money. We have to find our own money to do it. So if people don't want to purchase your product, you're dead. So I like Borat; I like Jackass; I like Charles Kuralt; I like Colbert; I like 60 Minutes. I like kitty cats and YouTube. Put them all together, shake it up, and give me something - give me something smart and give me something entertaining. That's my mantra."