Make new friends, but keep the old: Andrew McCarthy explores the importance of male friendship.

On this week’s episode of Fully Booked, Andrew McCarthy joins us to discuss Who Needs Friends: An Unscientific Examination of Male Friendship Across America (Grand Central Publishing, March 24). In this memoir-cum-travelogue, McCarthy sets out to reconnect with some old friends and winds up on a cross-country road trip. By engaging the men he meets along the way on the topic of friendship, his understanding and appreciation of the institution grows.

McCarthy is the author of the New York Times bestsellers Brat: An ’80s Story, Just Fly Away, and The Longest Way Home. He is an award-winning travel writer who served as an editor at large of National Geographic Traveler magazine for 12 years. He has directed scores of television shows but is best known as an actor who appeared in such iconic films as Pretty in Pink and Less Than Zero. He lives in New York.

Here’s a bit more from our review of Who Needs Friends: “Actor-turned-author McCarthy, now in his 60s, begins with a comment from his son who says, offhandedly, ‘You don’t really have any friends, do you, Dad?’ McCarthy thinks, well, he has friends, but he doesn’t see them often. The resolve, then, that drives this narrative was to go seek out friends from his hell-raising, bibulous youth and beyond, driving up and down and across the continent to check in.…McCarthy notes, near the end of his narrative, that while he’s met many men who have had friends for decades, he has also met ‘men who have no male friends at all, who can’t even conceive of the idea.’ McCarthy finds hope for those friendless men when he concludes that those with whom he’s spoken allow that they’d ‘just never talked about thisbefore’ and might ponder doing something about it. Thoughtful and well written—and a good prompt to call an old friend.”

McCarthy and I discuss what he learned on the road, the challenges men face in discussing loneliness and intimacy, and how his friendships evolved through this journey. As a treat for listeners, he recommends a novel by a Nova Scotian writer. Follow @kirkus_reviews on Instagram, DM us the title of that book, and you’ll be entered in a drawing to receive a $100 Visa gift card, courtesy of Kirkus.

THANKS TO OUR SPONSORS:

Acadia by Sterling Nixon

Killing Hope by Stephen H. Arnold

Secrets That Sparkle (and Secrets That Sting) by Joy Stephenson-Laws, illus. by Nzephany Madrigal Uzoka

The Hollywood Illusion by Allegra Pope

The Messy Years by Alexandra Slater

Fully Booked is produced by Jessica Lockhart and Megan Labrise.