'Life on Delay' chronicles what it means to live with – and accept – a stutter

NPR's Book of the Day

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Arts, Books

4.2 • 671 Ratings

🗓️ 25 January 2023

⏱️ 12 minutes

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Summary

In 2019, John Hendrickson wrote a piece for The Atlantic about then-presidential candidate Joe Biden's life with a stutter. Hendrickson himself stutters – and in his new reported memoir, Life on Delay, he takes a closer look at his relationship with talking out loud. In this episode, Hendrickson tells NPR's Scott Simon about the physical discomfort that he and others experience when stuttering and how, beyond that, there are layers of mental work to be done to remember it's still worth it to keep speaking up.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, it's NPR's Book of the Day. I'm Andrew Limbaugh. I've spent years taking, say, a 30-minute
0:08.7	interview and whittling that down to a nice and tight and polished four minutes to put up on the radio.
0:14.5	Some days I had the whole afternoon to get it done. Other days, I only had a few minutes until
0:19.4	airtime with an editor breathing down my neck.
0:22.2	So I've got a certain relationship with speech and the passage of time.
0:27.0	Today's interview has me rethinking that relationship completely.
0:30.8	It's with John Hendrickson, whose new memoir is titled Life on Delay, Making Peace with a Stutter.
0:36.2	As you can tell, it's about him living with a stutter.
0:39.3	And one thing that he said that stuck with me was that his stutter,
0:43.0	for all the pain and issues that's caused led him to be a better listener.
0:48.9	In the U.S., national security news can feel far away from daily life.
0:53.7	Distant wars, murky conflicts, diplomacy behind closed doors on our new show,
0:59.2	Sources and Methods.
1:00.2	NPR reporters on the ground bring you stories of real people,
1:04.0	helping you understand why distant events matter here at home.
1:07.6	Listen to sources and methods on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.
1:13.5	I'm going to interview a writer who begins his new book with these words.
1:18.4	Nearly every decision in my life has been shaped by my struggle to speak.
1:24.3	John Hendrickson wrote a story for the Atlantic in 2019 about then-presidential candidate Joe Biden's life with stuttering.
1:32.9	John Hendrickson stutters himself.
1:35.6	His article sparked an outpouring of reaction, including from others who stutter.
1:41.2	He has put his experience, those of others, and lots of reflection, recollection,
	...

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