As someone who commutes a fair bit to work each morning, keeping a healthy dose of digestible podcasts and audiobooks is paramount. I recently came across a series that I couldn’t stop listening to. A six-part audio documentary called “Reaching Out”. In fact, it’s one of the few podcasts where I found myself parked in my driveway listening to the end of the episode. I couldn’t leave the car.
It’s a story about two brothers, and a search for their biological father. Sayre and Connor are twins; they couldn’t be more different:
“The critical difference between you and Connor is this. Long ago you chose a freedom, that imparts stability and safety, that you pay for in unsubsidized loans, quarterly job reviews, happy hours with coworkers, boring party conversation, mid-century modern furniture, boxing classes and dental checkups. And Connor chose a kind of freedom that comes with land projects, one-off jobs at biker festivals, wide open mountain ranges, and that he pays for with a persistent smoker’s cough, weeks on remote weed farms, and being pursued in New Orleans by guy with a knife. Your brother thinks you are a judgemental normie. And you think he is a judgemental hobo.”
- Episode 1 Katabasis
The story unwinds told mostly from the recordings and narration of Sayre. At the core it’s a four-year long journey to find a father that abandoned them at birth. While that story and concept might feel familiar, there’s something about the way Sayre constructs almost a diary-like commentary of the things he has recorded along the way. As a listener you feel like you’re in the room and part of the conversation. Neither Sayre or Connor are afraid to get really vulnerable throughout this story. That might mean an argument over the phone or tears, or frustration, or genuine joy. The mix of emotions as the story progresses is unlike anything I’ve heard in an audio-documentary. And as the show progresses, you start to witness them confront truths they’ve hidden from each other and themselves.
Sayre takes risks both stylistically and personally to make this show feel unique and reflective of his real life. The series moves from the brothers' decision to ambush their father at his barber shop, through the contested origin stories of their conception and the slow reckoning with the man who raised them, to a final, ambivalent meeting in a LA suburb.
I don’t want to spoil anything else here, but I do want to warn that some of the subject matter is quite heavy and isn’t appropriate for younger listeners.
You can find the show for free wherever you get your podcasts or listen online here:
https://www.npr.org/podcasts/fis-1269164233/reaching-out