In new memoirs, David Archuleta and Lindy West break with their pasts

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Arts, Books

4.2 • 671 Ratings

🗓️ 27 March 2026

⏱️ 20 minutes

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Summary

Singer-songwriter David Archuleta and writer Lindy West are both out with memoirs that deal with letting go of the past. First, Archuleta was the runner-up on the seventh season of American Idol. Underneath that success, he struggled privately with his queer identity and his relationship to the Mormon church. In today’s episode, he talks with Here & Now’s Indira Lakshmanan about his new memoir Devout. Then, Lindy West tells NPR’s Leila Fadel about Adult Braces, the cross-country road trip that reset the Shrill writer’s life, and how she opened herself to the idea of a non-monogamous marriage.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello there. It's NPR's Book of the Day. I'm Timbedermias. Today, two memoirs that deal with
0:08.6	letting go of something from the past. In a minute, we'll hear about Lindy West's adult braces.
0:14.6	But first, in the early 2000s, David Archiletto was thrust into stardom on American Idol. Each week, he appeared in the living
0:23.6	rooms of millions of people, and he'd eventually go on to come in second in the competition and enjoy a
0:30.1	pretty successful music career. But as Archoletta lived out his dream, he was dealing with the
0:36.9	secret. His inner turmoil is the topic of his dream, he was dealing with the secret.
0:43.9	His inner turmoil is the topic of his memoir, devout, losing my faith to find myself.
0:47.6	He spoke about it with Here and Now's Indira Lakshmanon.
0:54.0	Take yourself back to 2008 when American Idol was starting its seventh season. The reality singing contest was the
0:56.3	biggest show on television, spawning massive pop stars like Kelly Clarkson, Carrie Underwood, and
1:01.5	Jennifer Hudson. Each season starts with auditions when contestants sing before judges Simon Cowell,
1:08.2	Paula Abdul, and Randy Jackson, who determine who will go on to the next round.
1:13.2	One of the contestants that year was a shy teenager from Murray, Utah, named David Archuleta.
1:18.6	All right, so let's do it. What are you going to sing, ma'am? I'm going to sing Waiting on the World to Change by John Mayer.
1:23.2	Go for it. Me and my friends were all misunderstood.
1:29.3	They say we stand for nothing and there's no way we ever could.
1:35.3	He stumbles over the words a bit and then something extraordinary happens.
1:38.3	Randy Jackson starts singing along.
1:41.3	Just feel like we don't have the means to rise above and feed it.
1:46.7	So we keep waiting.
1:48.5	Waiting on the world to change.
1:51.7	We keep on waiting.
	...

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