From the opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal, this is Free Expression with Jerry Baker.

Hello and welcome to Free Expression from the opinion page of the Wall Street Journal.

I'm Jerry Baker, editor at large of the journal.

We're here for another week, another conversation.

I hope you're subscribing already to Free Expression.

If you're not, then get yourself off to Apple Podcasts to Spotify, wherever else you do your podcast listening and please do subscribe. This week, slightly different take on what's going on in the world. I'm delighted to be joined this week by a star of screen and stage and one of our more beloved, I would say, cultural figures,

Kelsey Grammer, the actor, most famous, I suppose, I should say, for his portrayal of the

psychiatrist Frasier Crane in both Cheers and then, of course, subsequently Frasier, a great comic

actor. These are wonderful, as I'm sure as you feel familiar with them.

Wonderful, extraordinary shows that had very long runs. And of course, Frazier has opened a kind of a sequel season some years after the first.

Kelsey is, again, also, as I say, a star of stage as well and some other films.

But Kelsey Grammer has an extraordinarily, I think it's fair to say, sort of complex life story.

As I said, I'd enjoyed great success professionally, but he's had some struggles personally, I think, again, no mystery about that. And

I'm talking with him today because he has written a new book. It's part memoir, it is part

conversation, part confessional, part self-examination, but also part celebration of most importantly his sister.

Those of you know the story of Kelsey Grammar will know that his sister, Karen, was brutally murdered at the age of just 18 when Kelsey Grammer was 20.

And this book that he's written, Karen, a brother remembers, is a remarkable account,

not just of his relationship with Karen when she was here, when she was in her all too brief

life when she was on earth, but the conversation that he's had with Karen, as he understands,

through a medium and the relationship that has continued with Karen of late long after her death and the book is a reflection on her life but on his life on their relationship

and of course on all of the things and questions that flow from that about religion and faith

and the meaning of life if you like and suffering and joy and all of those things and as I say it is a

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