It matters a lot how this handsomely produced, notably well-edited book is ingested. I don’t recommend reading it straight through. That will make it seem long and repetitive, with Stern frequently hitting on his favorite themes — which is to say, the ones that have the most to do with him. He likes asking about masturbation, money, making it big and psychotherapy, all of which demonstrate more narcissism than curiosity. It’s much better to pick the book up and choose interview subjects at random. And don’t do it on the basis of your pre-existing interest in the person. Vincent Gallo, one of the most loathed people in filmmaking, gives one of the best interviews here. The real standouts are people who are thrown off guard by the fact that Stern has found out so much about them. As he says in the introduction, doing your homework is essential to winning people over — and to pushing them toward places where they wouldn’t otherwise go. One case in point is Gwyneth Paltrow, whose section of the book is almost certain to change your impression of her, no matter what it was in the first place. Interviewing her in 2015, Stern gets her going by knowing which roles she turned down (“Titanic”?) and playing to her seldom-seen sense of humor, which turns out to be as good as his. He also brings her back to the days when she was nobody, Brad Pitt was a huge catch and their falling in love on the set of “Seven” changed her status. As ancient history, it’s adorable. Paltrow’s helpful hint on how to quiet an obstreperous husband will be one of the book’s big takeaways, even though these radio interviews aren’t technically news. But the noisy parts aren’t what matter. It’s the intimacy Stern establishes with his subjects that makes this collection worthwhile, as when Jon Stewart opens up about the father who abandoned his family. The stories Stern elicits are astonishing. When Stewart was 17, seven years after the split, the two met for a monthly visit and Stewart’s father asked, “What do you think about if I got remarried?” When teenage Jon said he wouldn’t object, his father replied: “Um, I got married and I have a 2-year-old.” Stern is no stranger to thin ice. On multiple occasions here, he asks a white person whether he or she would have sex with a black person. It’s unfortunate if authentic that these queries remained in the book’s otherwise slimmed-down transcripts. And even for his most ardent fans, his ways of talking about girls and hotness may no longer be part of his charm. (In the Trump interviews, he constantly wanted to know whether the future first lady was naked. Trump was willing to answer, but he was also notably protective of her from the start.) Stern has said that his 2015 Conan O’Brien interview is his favorite. Maybe that’s because it describes O’Brien’s crushing disappointment at not landing the “Tonight Show” hosting job and his reasons for staying at NBC anyway — but the choice says more about interviewer than interviewee. Look for standouts with Ozzy Osbourne, Joan Rivers, Courtney Love, Gallo, Michael J. Fox and Lady Gaga, for starters. And look for the one that isn’t here. The book includes a brief chapter on Hillary Clinton, who was wooed by Stern but was, he says, too afraid to face his questioning. Had she done so and revealed a softer, more likable side, she might have won the election. Or at least that is what Howard Stern thinks about “The Howard Stern Show.”<doc-sep>The following is an excerpt from Howard Stern Comes Again, the first book in over two decades from Howard Stern. In this selection, Stern reveals how close Hillary Clinton was to appearing on his radio show in the 2016 election, and why it didn’t happen. Read on below. Howard Stern Comes Again publishes Tuesday and is available for pre-order. — I don’t think I’ve ever tried harder to get a guest than I did with Hillary Clinton in the run-up to the 2016 election. As you know by now from reading this book, Donald Trump and I go way back, and had I endorsed him for president, publicly hitched myself to his candidacy and gone all in, who knows what might have come from it. Instead of writing this book, I might have been sitting on the Supreme Court. Chief Justice Stern. Imagine me in my custom John Varvatos robe, banging my gavel and picking the pubic hairs out of Clarence Thomas’s Coke can. Maybe I’d be chairman of the FCC, in charge of the government branch that tried to put me out of business. Think of the cosmic irony in that. Perhaps a cushy ambassadorship someplace warm, or at the very least I might have wrangled an invitation to Camp David. But I’m no sellout. I have been a fan of Hillary for nearly as long as I’ve known Donald. This woman has dedicated her life to public service, and that’s what I look for in a candidate. She was a first lady, senator, secretary of state. Her entire life has been in the service of our country. People would say to me, “You’re just voting for her because she’s the lesser of two evils.” I’d say, “No, I wanted her as president before I wanted Barack Obama.” I love Barack Obama, but I was a Hillary Clinton supporter going all the way back to 2008. I think she would have been a great president. I saw long before anyone else that it wasn’t going to be easy for her to beat Donald. I didn’t see her connecting. My audience spans the entire country, including the swing states. I know these people. They’ve been listening to me my entire career. I could tell that they were just not feeling Hillary and that they were really embracing Donald. As I said in this book’s introduction, I consider Donald Trump one of the best radio guests ever. He just knows how to connect with an audience. Hillary does not. I was talking to my agent, Don Buchwald, about this. I said, “If Hillary did the show, my listeners might appreciate her commitment to public service and her decency and humanity.” Don immediately became obsessed with this idea. We both did. We wanted to do whatever we could to make it happen. This wasn’t the first time we set our sights on a Moby Dick–type interview subject. In the early nineties, we tried to arrange an interview with Michael Jackson. He was looking to rehabilitate his image after the child molestation allegations, and his team reached out to us. They had the idea of me organizing some kind of rally in his honor in New York. I thought that was stupid and had my own idea of doing a TV sit-down with him at halftime during the Super Bowl. Don and I got as far as meeting Michael at his manager’s Central Park apartment. Michael walked in dressed in his full military getup and the tape on his nose. We talked for about ten minutes. I couldn’t stop staring at all the makeup on his face, which was practically dripping off. He was like the Elephant Man. After the meeting, we never heard from him again. I knew I probably shouldn’t get my hopes up about Hillary. I couldn’t help it. I really believed that by coming on my show she would win over the type of voters she so desperately needed. I also thought my time on AGT might have made me more palatable in her eyes. I had been so astonished and humbled by how the American public had come to embrace me, thanks to that show. Often before we taped an episode, I would go out in front of the crowd and warm them up. I would tell the story of how in 1985 the chairman of NBC, Grant Tinker, had fired me from my radio show on WNBC and then said over his dead body would I ever be allowed back at the network. “Well,” I’d tell the crowd, “now Grant Tinker is dead, and guess what? Here I am at NBC.” They would laugh and applaud, and it felt like a victory lap—like Rocky running up the steps in Philadelphia. Sure, a less fit and muscular Rocky. I punch my own meat but not in a fridge. Still, I was on top of my game. Even if Hillary wasn’t a regular viewer of the show, maybe word would get back to her that it might be time to reconsider her opinion of me. Thinking about the Michael Jackson Super Bowl idea and AGT, Don and I wondered if TV was the answer. Maybe Hillary would be more willing to do an interview on camera than on the radio. As fervently as I’ve championed the radio format throughout my career, I know there are still plenty of people who see TV as more desirable. There were a few big TV networks that had been after me to host an interview show. It wouldn’t be a regular thing, just a few specials. SiriusXM was cool with it, since it didn’t conflict with my radio show. But I’m very loyal to Sirius, and I wouldn’t consider doing one of these TV specials unless it was for a really big guest. Howard-Stern Credit: Simon + Schuster The head of one of these networks was a huge financial backer of Hillary. Don went to him and said, “You get Hillary, and we’ll get equal time with Trump. Then you’ll get two specials.” It would’ve been easy to get Trump for an interview. All throughout the campaign he had been reaching out to me. He even asked me to speak at the Republican National Convention. In my calculation, all I’d have to do is ask and he’d do it. So this network honcho presents the idea to Hillary. And she says no. This only makes Don more determined. He’s got a lot of connections of his own in the Democratic Party. Don went to them. He told them that we would even be willing to do a rehearsal before the show, so Hillary could see the line of questioning ahead of time. I wasn’t going to bring up Monica Lewinsky. The old me would have tried that. That would have been the first thing I said. Now I see how that could only be viewed as an attack. I wasn’t interested in that anyway. The interview would have been, “Who are you as a person? What makes you tick? Talk to me about your life as a young girl. What were your dreams? When did you first realize you wanted to be in politics?” I could have talked about her childhood for an hour. I wanted to get to know her as a human being. That Lewinsky stuff is pointless unless you get to know her first. Hearing her talk about the disappointments in her life? The audience would’ve fallen in love with her. I’m telling you, I was obsessed with this. I was Captain Ahab. I wanted it more than anything. I did all this research on her and discovered she liked gardening. I ordered a huge gift basket of gardening supplies, thinking I’d send it to her to break the ice. The basket was enormous. There was all sorts of gardening crap in there, like packets of seeds. Then I reconsidered. I thought that might be coming on a little strong. That’s not me. I don’t beg. What I did instead was agree to give an interview to the New York Times. They had contacted me a while before about doing a profile. I said no.<doc-sep>More important, the book implicitly raises thorny questions about responsibility, agency and forgiveness, especially in the context of #MeToo and its fraught narratives of personal downfall and potential redemption. This is a man who did incalculable damage during his barbarian days — are we ready to forgive him? Is this change of heart legitimate? Today’s cultural landscape, bracingly, often calls upon each of us to practice a kind of moral calculus in affairs of public reputation. These matters are ineluctably complex and subjective, and in this, at least, “Howard Stern Comes Again” is perfectly of its time.<doc-sep>
Simon & Schuster In "Howard Stern Comes Again" (to be published May 14 by Simon & Schuster, a division of CBS), SiriusXM satellite radio host Howard Stern writes about his broadcasting career, his roster of notable interviews, and his experience with psychotherapy, which he describes as life-changing. In the excerpt below, Stern explains what it took for him to learn to treat his celebrity guests as collaborators in an interview rather than as foils for his on-air antics. Don't miss Tracy Smith's in-depth interview with Howard Stern on "CBS Sunday Morning" May 12! I'm not proud of my first two books. I don't even have them displayed on my bookshelf at home. I think of them, and of the interviews I did with my guests during those first couple decades of my career, and I cringe. I was an absolute maniac. My narcissism was so strong that I was incapable of appreciating what somebody else might be feeling. I have so many regrets about guests from that time. I asked Gilda Radner if Gene Wilder had a big penis. Great question. Drove her right out the door. George Michael's band Wham! Everyone I worked with said, "Whatever you do, don't ask them if they're gay. Do not ask them if they're gay." Within twenty seconds, I asked them if they were gay. Eminem came on the show once then never again. Same with Will Ferrell. Possibly my biggest regret was my interview with Robin Williams. When Robin came on the show in the early nineties, I spent the entire time badgering him about how he had divorced his first wife and remarried his son's former nanny. I was attacking the guy, and he was justifiably furious with me. Years later, I realized I finally needed to apologize. I had already done this with some other people. I called them and tried to make amends. Some were gracious. A radio guy I had been awful to said, "You know what, man? I'm so glad you called. I actually felt bad for you that you were carrying around so much bitterness and ugliness inside, and I'm happy you don't have that anymore." Others were angry. A famous comedian I had bashed said to me, "I appreciate that you called, but I don't know if I could ever forgive you. I had to go through a lot of misery, because your fans were brutal." I didn't know what Robin's reaction would be. He could have hung up on me. He could have cursed me out. I had to do it. It took me twenty years to work up the nerve. I was in the midst of tracking down his phone number, and the next day he died. I'm still filled with sadness over his loss and remorse for my failure to reach out sooner. Telling Carly Simon how hot she was for a half-hour or spewing sex questions to Wilmer Valderrama – this ultimately led to nothing. It wasn't good radio. It was meaningless. It was just me being self-absorbed and compulsive about asking something that would provoke and antagonize. Those weren't really interviews. They were monologues. Instead of a conversation, it was just me blurting out ridiculous things. I had some real issues. Then I started going to a psychotherapist. This was in the late nineties. I had no idea how therapy worked. The only thing I knew about it was what I saw in movies and on television, where people would just sit there and tell stories. So that's what I did. My first session, I sat down in the chair and began telling the therapist anecdotes as if I was on the radio. I hit him with all my favorite routines. I did a thorough and involved set on the Stern family tree, complete with impressions of my family. I put together a few minutes on marriage, then moved into the pressures of the radio business, and closed with the trials and tribulations of raising a family. After I was finished with my stand-up, the therapist instead of applauding said, "There's nothing funny going on here. Quite frankly, some of this stuff sounds pretty sad." My first response was to get defensive. Who was he to say that? I could tell that story and laugh. I had done it many times. Gradually, after a few more sessions, I realized he was right. He was the first person who ever said to me, "I take you seriously."