“That’s more about you though,” he says, kindly, “something from your family or childhood, maybe about not sharing your feelings.

If he was serious about finding the truth about relationships, he wouldn’t sell you the results. So, you wonder, for example, if maybe writing a relationship book about recovery isn’t a little self-indulgent (and, to be fair, some of the sexual exploits he describes as he’s trying to eschew monogamy do seem a bit, well, boastful). Which is essentially what The Truth is - written over the course of years, its arc feels deeply earned - but you’re not Strauss. And that to print your conversation would be tantamount to publishing your journal. And suddenly, you realize you’re not interviewing him so much as getting his advice. Questions about his book turn into questions about your own marriage. The cumulative effect of all this - his personality, along with the frankness with which he writes about his journey in The Truth, is you open up almost immediately. His day job is profiling rock stars for Rolling Stone, and his last book, Everybody Loves You When You’re Dead, a sampling of never-published interview tidbits that are endlessly illuminating, is a great way to encourage feelings of inadequacy in an interviewer. Like he’s been waiting to be your friend. Even over the phone, he connects with whomever he’s talking to. Hint: it’s about honesty.Īnd speaking of honesty: Strauss is an uncannily good interview - possibly because he’s an uncannily good interviewer. Still, Strauss understands better than most why men are the way we are, our desires and fears, and how we can live with them. “The book is called that, but really, it’s about finding your own truth,” he says, only sounding a little hippyish. There aren’t many hard answers, but that’s as it should be. The Truth doesn’t offer advice so much as show you what’s possible, along with the work necessary to get there. Strauss is the perfect kind of guru: honest, self-critical, and skeptical enough that you trust what he says.

The pickup artist neil strauss