[EDITOR’S NOTE: The author, Bob Brody is son of I. Lee Brody and Aileen Brody]
Title
“Playing Catch With Strangers”
About the Author
Bob Brody is an executive and writer who lives in Forest Hills, Queens, in New York City. He and his wife, Elvira, have two children, Michael, a retail manager in Manhattan, and Caroline, a chef in Southern Italy.
Born in the Bronx in 1952, Bob grew up in Fair Lawn, New Jersey, and graduated from Fairleigh Dickinson University, where he served as editor-in-chief of the school newspaper, with a degree in English.
Bob is the author of Playing Catch with Strangers: A Family Guy (Reluctantly) Comes of Age (Heliotrope Books). His personal essays have appeared in The Atlantic, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal, among dozens of other major newspapers and magazines. He has contributed to The New York Times, The New York Daily News and Newsday every decade since the late 1970s. His articles have also appeared in Esquire, GQ, Reader’s Digest, Men’s Health, Family Circle and Glamour, among many other national and local publications. His coverage of the deaf community and hearing loss has received national awards.
Bob is also the author of Edge Against Cancer, profiles of 12 athletes who survived cancer to compete again. His blog, letterstomykids.org, urged parents and others to preserve personal family history in writing for the benefit of future generations, leading to interviews on “CBS This Morning,” Fox News and New York 1 News. He has given talks to promote the writing of personal family history and last year moderated a panel discussion about personal essays at the annual conference of the American Society of Journalists & Authors.
By day Bob is a senior vice president and media strategist at Powell Tate, a division of Weber Shandwick, a leading global public relations firm. He has practiced PR at agencies large, medium-sized and small for 26 years, representing clients ranging from solo entrepreneurs and venture capitalists to Fortune 500 corporations, federal agencies and Hollywood celebrities. His insights about the PR profession have appeared in PR Week, The Holmes Report and O’Dwyer’s.
The Book
The mother and father who raised Bob Brody were profoundly deaf. To compensate, his Nanna spoiled him silly, both for good and for ill. His boyhood education in the suburbs of New Jersey largely took the form of playing sports with his friends. Then, five weeks after he moved into New York City as a new college graduate, a drug addict stabbed him in the chest. Overall, his destiny appeared in doubt.
So go the opening pages of Playing Catch with Strangers: A Family Guy (Reluctantly) Comes of Age. But soon everything changed dramatically. Bob met the love of his life, a cute Italian girl from Brooklyn, after almost blowing his first date with her thanks to a drunken remark. They married and start to raise a son and daughter, only for something unprecedented – and unexpected – to happen.
Slowly Bob discovered that the world consisted of people other than himself, with needs and interests, in fact, other than his. Shocking! He stopped resisting responsibility with all his being and developed, around age 35, what eventually passed for an operative work ethic. He even took the leap, after freelancing for 10 years, of becoming gainfully employed again. He showed signs, against all odds and certainly long overdue, of finally resembling an adult.
Brody, whose personal essays about family and friends have appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic and many other publications, here chronicles – and celebrates – how he reinvented himself as that most miraculous of creatures, a true family guy from head to toe. “A gem,” said former CBS anchor Dan Rather. “Winning,” said Goodfellas author Nicholas Pileggi said. “Poignant,” said Phillip Lopate, editor of The Art Of The Personal Essay. “A delight to read,” said former Spin editor Bob Guccione Jr.
Print and Kindle Versions Available Now – www.amazon.com/Playing-Catch-Strangers-Family-Reluctantly-ebook/dp/B0716LCNL3/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1494362944&sr=8-1&keywords=Playing+Catch+with+Strangers+by+Bob+Brody
