In ‘The Definitive Oral Biography,’ Anthony Bourdain’s Friends and Family Remember Him With Affection and Honesty

Can you talk a bit about how you decided to organize the book?

Obviously chronology was the overarching organizing principle with, sort of, the five acts of Tony’s life. Then as I did more and more interviews, I would start to hear emerging themes. It was really interesting to talk to people who may or may not have known each other or known Tony at the same time and hear similar narratives and observations come to the surface. I let that be an organic process of hearing and collating the things that came up again and again and used them to organize chapters or to point out different themes throughout Tony’s life.

Unlike a lot of biographies, this one felt very balanced. For example, some of Tony’s earliest friends talk about how he disappeared from their lives when he got famous, and many people mentioned his challenging personality traits alongside their adoration and praise. Can you speak to that?

There are plenty of people with a platform that are only sharing the great, positive stuff in a way that’s lovely, but it’s not the entire story. [Tony] was very careful not to be pigeonholed into some sort of hero role. He was careful to distance himself from the idea that he was doing anything more than telling stories and providing a platform for people to tell stories.

I would never presume to speak for Tony or say what he might think or feel because he was so unpredictable in some ways. With that being said, I did try to bear in mind the fact that he was very deliberate about creating a certain image and about what he did and didn’t share. He wasn’t someone who only wanted to show you the shiny, polished side. He was willing to point out his own failures and shortcomings and not live up to the world’s ideals. That made me comfortable sharing the good with the bad.

One thing that really shone through was the way in which, as he gained notoriety, people didn’t want to demand his time, though he was often (to their surprise) happy to make time for them. Working for him over a period of time, how did you experience that?

Tony was very clear about if he liked something or someone or not. If he believed in someone, he would want to help them. He was very, very aware of his own dumb luck. He was clearly very talented, but there are millions of talented people who don’t get that lightning-in-a-bottle luck and circumstance and I think he was always acutely aware of that.