This is fresh air. I'm Terry Gross. Today we're going to feature in interview

we enjoyed that few of our listeners heard because we featured it on a day that our show ended up being preempted on most stations

by the Katangi Brown Jackson confirmation hearings. The interview is with Frank Bruney.

He says that one night he went to bed believing he was more or less in control of his life,

but woke up to the realization of how ludicrous that was.

Before I tell you why, let me tell you more about Frank Bruney. He's a contributing opinion writer for The New York Times,

who recently stepped down as a full-time columnist. Prior to that, he was the Times Chief Restaurant Critic, a position he was offered,

after having served as Rome Bureau Chief and White House correspondent.

He also covered the candidacy of George W. Bush. He'd previously been the film critic for the Detroit Free Press and a Pulitzer Prize nominee.

He's written books about George W. Bush, about his passion for food and his struggle with his weight,

and the crazy-making process of applying to colleges and the fear of not getting into the right one.

You can see he's written about life from several perspectives.

Let's get back to why he woke up one day, realizing it was ludicrous to think he had control over his life.

That morning, after blaming his suddenly blurred,

smeary vision on a hangover, he realized the problem was his eye.

It was eventually diagnosed as a rare stroke in his eye that irreparably damaged his optic nerve.

The prognosis? His vision in that eye would never return, and he was at risk of having another stroke in his good eye.

His new memoir is about the emotional, physiological, and professional adaptations he's had to make.

It's called the Beauty of Dusk, Unvision Lost and Found. He's now a professor at Duke University.

Frank Bruney, welcome to Fresh Air. Let's get to your eye and to your new memoir.

You write on the first page, I went to bed seeing the world one way, I woke up seeing it another,

and you mean that figuratively and quite literally. How was your vision changed when you woke up in the morning?

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