Author and musician Michael Leviton.
Roeg CohenAll families have their own quirks. But the Leviton family’s biggest quirk was perhaps quirkier than most: His parents, rebelling against their own upbringings, instilled a practice of extreme honesty. Growing up learning to always tell the truth presented some pretty big challenges out in the real world for their son, Michael Leviton. Namely, he had "nutty and troubled" friendships, he says.
“I was continually making fun of everyone’s behaving normally. Which is a really bad way to be as a kid,” he says. He remarked on his classmates' his teachers' lying, which happened to be normal behavior. “I had social problems getting along with people. But I was having a great time.”
After moving at 22 to New York, where he struggled to hold down jobs, Leviton had to unlearn his childhood habits in order to live as an adult—in other words, he had to learn to “lie.”
The epiphany that he had to change came after a 7-year relationship, which was defined by truth-telling, came to an end. “It was poisoned by honesty,” he recalls. “I made a New Year’s resolution to be less honest.” But it wasn’t easy: “So much of the world rewards you if you follow a certain script and act in a certain way. But it felt horrible to me.”
Leviton, 40, has been writing and telling stories about his upbringing for years; his family story even became a This American Life podcast segment. Last month, his memoir of growing up, To Be Honest, was published by Abrams Books.
Leviton's book, "To Be Honest," was published in January by Abrams Books.
Abrams BooksHow did a family obsessed with honesty take an honest public accounting of their private lives? Not too badly, Leviton says. “I was pleasantly surprised I didn’t get a deluge of hatred,” he says. “The only thing that surprised me is how few disputes there are over what happened. The only thing that can explain that is that my family is honest.”
A musician, photographer, and writing teacher, Leviton also hosts The Tell, a monthly storytelling event (in non-pandemic times) at the Jane Hotel in New York’s West Village. In the spirit of storytelling, he shared with Penta his favorite “talking movies”—films in which the characters do nothing but talk.
Gray’s Anatomy (1996). “ Spalding Gray was the first person I saw tell stories on a stage. As a teenager in the ’90s, I went to a few of his performances; once he just took questions from the audience and answered with stories. Gray loved to linger in the most uncomfortable areas of his experience and would go from hilarious to dark and back within seconds. To my teenage self, this was what honesty looked like.”
My Dinner With Andre (1981). “Playwright/actor Wallace Shawn and director Andre Gregory had a conversation so great that they wrote it down to reenact it as a movie. It’s wild that this movie managed to be so enthralling. I suspect we’re expected to relate to Shawn as he politely listens to Andre’s unnerving theories and experiences, quietly deciding whether this guy is disarmingly brilliant or dangerously disturbed. But I always saw myself as Andre, raving and appearing crazy without even noticing.”
Public Speaking (2010). “Fran Lebowitz is one of my favorite talkers and this documentary about her by Martin Scorsese features many of her greatest rants, as well the origin story of how she ended up like this. The movie features a clip of a conversation with Toni Morrison, a close friend of Lebowitz’s, who describes her as ‘always right, but never kind.’ Lebowitz laughs and says that’s exactly why she’s able to be right: because she isn’t kind. I don’t agree that she’s always right, but I can’t help but find her bluntness inspiring and, more importantly, incredibly entertaining.”
American Boy: A Profile of Steven Prince (1978). “In 1978, Martin Scorsese filmed the eccentric New York character Steven Prince telling his best stories. It’s shot to simulate hanging out with him, which I love. Prince’s stories and delivery are bizarre and funny and beautiful, but this movie is perhaps most notable for Prince’s too-weird-to-be-made-up story about saving the life of someone OD-ing by stabbing an insulin syringe directly into their heart. If this sounds familiar, it’s because Tarantino stole it for one of the most famous sequences in Pulp Fiction.”
Betty Tells Her Story (1972). “This is my favorite talking movie. It’s unique in many ways: first, it’s the only one that features a talker who isn’t involved in showbusiness. Second, the movie consists of just one story told twice. When I heard about this, I couldn’t imagine how it worked; it turned out to be one of the most special things I’ve ever seen. Third, there’s no editing, minimal camera movement. I don’t know how this movie came about, how they found Betty, why they filmed her telling the story like this; it’s mysterious. But this is the one I watch whenever I need a good cry.”
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February 13, 2021 at 03:14AM
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Great Escapes: ‘To Be Honest’ Author Michael Leviton’s Favorite ‘Talking Movies’ - Barron's
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