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Hi, I'm Lindsay Graham, the host of Wondry's American History Tellers. In our latest series, we tell the stories of four presidential assassins and their targets.

Exploring how a single act of violence can change the course of history. Listen to American History Tellers on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts.

This is Rebecca Loe or Rebecca Loe! If you listen to suboptimal radio and you are listening to many Blazers on the NBC Scores Network.

It's unbelievable!

It's Roger!

Welcome to this pod special. Emphasis on the very word special to me anyway.

Because there's every regular listener who is now well aware. I have a book coming out next Tuesday.

June 29th, it's a memoir reborn in the USA. An Englishman's love letter to his chosen home.

And that Englishman is me, a newly minted American citizen. And I wanted to share a chapter of the book with you today.

Both to celebrate the release, which is honestly one of the most meaningful days of my professional career.

And also to offer up something to put you, a hope, in the perfect frame of mind for this July 4th weekend upcoming.

Because it's a piece that celebrates all that's good about this nation.

As you know, I grew up in Liverpool in the 1980s. Back when that magnificent port city was grappling for survival economically, politically.

And America, which I engage with via the raft of television shows, movies, bands, conversations, all stars and knockoff rebands was a true light in the darkness.

Gave me courage, tenacity, a sense of possibility. You know, what ballet dancing was to Billie Elliott.

A place where life was lived in glorious technicala. That's what America was to make as opposed to my life in Britain, which felt like it was lived in black and white.

It's true, the love boat fantasy island, hard to heart, Miami vice, the NFL, the Chicago Bears, the replacement Tuskadoop, public enemy, the Beastie boys.

And of course Tracy Chapman saved my life.

You know, I'm a kid who grew up with the Statue of Liberty and the Manhattan skyline painted on my bedroom wall.

And I ended up moving to live in that city, to have a family in that city.

And the idea of America that propelled me, it really is the story of my book.

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