Review: Even This I Get to Experience by Norman Lear is a memoir of an old white guy who did some shit
Look, we all know that sometimes listening to the elderly is a tedious experience. Sure, they have lots of good experience and knowledge built up by years of struggle and heartache and plain old living. But most people, if given the time, just want to bitch about shit in a long ramble. At least in this memoir, television inventor and philanthropist Norman Lear has some celebrities in his stories.
Norman Lear started out as a baby, went to war, created monumental television series, and then decided to do some real good in this world. He's worked with everyone from Martin and Lewis to Rob Reiner and remembers it all with clarity and humor. He's also damn good at telling a story. The memoir he tells expands most of the twentieth century and is often fascinating, poignant, and hilarious.
He's the dude that created All in the Family. If that's all you know about Norman Lear, then that's all you need to know. Go to the internet, find clips of that show and understand that nobody had ever done that before. It's really and truly amazing it was ever on television, and that's including the current landscape. Add in all the other comedy and Lear's career dominates where most creators stifle.
If you can, get the audio read by the man himself. He's in his nineties, still alive as of this writing, and reads with clarity and skill. Just a delightful memoir.