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NEW YORK — Biographers try as best they can to walk in the shoes of their subjects. Charles Leerhsen took it a step further: He slept in the same French hotel room where Anthony Bourdain killed himself, earning a unique perspective — and pushback.
“There’s been some people who’ve criticized me, saying it’s ghoulish or that I’m the kind of reporter who goes through people’s garbage cans,” Leerhsen, the author of “Down and Out in Paradise: The Life of Anthony Bourdain” told The Associated Press. “But all the best biographers — I wouldn’t put myself in their ranks — but all the guys who win the prizes, they believe that you really need to go where the person was.”
Seeing what the chef, writer and TV host saw on his last day alive in 2018 is only part of Leerhsen’s exhaustive research for the book out this week, which included 80 interviews and material from Bourdain’s laptop, diaries and his final texts...
