Erin Lee Carr

Erin Lee Carr is a New York-based director, producer and writer. Her memoir is All That You Leave Behind.

From the transcript of the author's NPR interview with Scott Simon:

SIMON: I have thought in my mind if there's a nice way to phrase this, and I'm afraid I can't, so let me try anyway, OK? Addiction damn near killed your mother and your father, and it damn near ruined the lives of you and your sister. Wasn't that enough to warn you away from drinking?

CARR: I think it's a good question. I think that there's, one, a genetic component to this. But the first time I tried cocaine, it really felt like a part of my DNA had been completed. And later, I realized because that's how my life started. That would make complete sense.

So what I can offer you is what I learned about my dad through what he told me, through "The Night Of The Gun" - it did stop me at certain moments from really developing the addiction into something that was like his. Like, I was really lucky that not only was there this really intense example of what addiction looked like, there was what sobriety looked like. You know, for me, I need to be very clear that for the majority of my life, my father was a sober man.

SIMON: You talk in the book - you did find sobriety hard.

CARR: Yes. I mean, the...[read on]

--Marshal Zeringue