Where: Stargazers Theatre and Events Center, 10 S. Parkside Drive
Tickets: The presentation and book signing are free. A 4-6 p.m. reception with McCarthy is $40; 531-6333 ext. 2205, 476-2200, stargazerstheatre.com.
Of all the Brat Packers, Andrew McCarthys career has gone the furthest in both breadth and mileage.
The actor who appeared in Pretty in Pink, St. Elmos Fire and Weekend at Bernies went on to fill his Internet Movie Database page with dozens of acting, writing and directing credits in film, stage and TV and also branched out into a new career: that of an award-winning travel writer.
McCarthy, editor-at-large of National Geographic Traveler, is now touring to promote his best-selling travel memoir, The Longest Way Home, a book The New York Times called a long, strange trip in the direction of full-throttle love. His book tour touches down in the Springs on Tuesday for a Pikes Peak Library District-sponsored talk at Stargazers Theatre and Events Center.
I caught up with McCarthy at his home in New York. He was jetlagged from a long flight from Calcutta.
The Gazette: One of the key moments in The Longest Way Home involves the meeting with the National Geographic Traveler editor. He asked what the heck an actor would know about travel writing. I found your answer fascinating, that you know how to tell stories. Can you expand on that idea? How does the art of storytelling cut across these disciplines of acting, directing and writing, and why has storytelling been so central to your life?
Andrew McCarthy: I think storytelling is one of the unifying characteristics in human society. Every society tells stories, from the cavemen on. If my kids are jumping around the table at dinner and cant sit still, all I have to do is say, So, there was a man... and begin a story, and suddenly they sit still and lean forward. I tend to approach everything from the point of view of the story first, which is why I suppose I gravitated to directing from acting. As a director, your view is very objective. Youre responsible for telling the entire story, whereas with acting, you approach the story from a very subjective point of view. With the writing, its been the same, particularly in travel writing. Many times travel writing is guilty of describing a destination, when, in my opinion, the goal should be telling a story.
Gazette: In telling this story of your journey toward settling down, you create a sense of intimacy, and that intimacy also circles around your wife (then fiancé). Was there any negotiation about how much of Ds story to tell here, and how did she feel about that?
McCarthy: While my wife is mentioned often in the book, what I reveal, I think, is really just one facet of her-- not her full complexity. I tried to keep her as the emotional grounded center, and Im the fool racing around trying to sort things out. Someone said that the book was a love letter to my wife -- Im okay with that. She only had issue with one brief passage, which, because I desired a happy life, I cut.
Gazette: Your reasons for travel tend to be much different than the average tourist. When you talk about how you travel to more fully engage with your life, what do you mean?
McCarthy: I just returned from Calcutta, India. There is very little familiar to my daily life in Calcutta. I think taking ourselves out of our comfort zones and entering the world helps us shatter preconceptions we have, and it certainly makes me a better version of myself. More open, more curious, more compassionate, more interested. And I want to be all those things.
Gazette: Speaking of the average American tourist, how do you feel about them? How do you feel about mainstream travel?
McCarthy: Anybody who gets up off the couch and goes anywhere has my respect. That said, I do think Americans should get out of the country.
Gazette: Youve spent so much time off the beaten path. Are there any popular tourist destinations that you like?
McCarthy: I love lots of places. I love Rome, anywhere in Italy, really (just like everyone else). I love Hawaii. Places are popular for a reason.
Gazette: When I think about your book, it seems a less mainstream (and predictable) take on Eat, Pray, Love -- the idea of travel as a spiritual or emotional journey. Does that comparison make you cringe?
McCarthy: I really liked Eat, Pray, Love. I thought it was really, well-written. To appear off-handed and casually intimate, as if having a conversation with the reader, that is really difficult to achieve. The similarity is that they are both internal journeys played out in some exotic places in the world. I have no problem with that comparison.
