Old White Man Writing

De: Joshua Gidding

Narrado por: Joshua Gidding

In this entertaining, literary, and subversive memoir, seventy-year-old writer Joshua Gidding grapples with the social and cultural changes in twenty-first-century America. In the process of re-evaluating his privileged background, the author explores his relationships with some of the people of color in his life, and begins to address the white guilt and complex feelings arising from an uneasy racial conscience. Leaning politically to the left of center, he nevertheless takes a nuanced approach to some of the most topical, timely issues of our age. Balancing themes of racism, entitlement, exceptionalism, bereavement, and biography, his approach throughout remains humorous and self-deprecating.

The events and reflections in Old White Man Writing are conveyed through two unforgettable characters: the author himself, who is the unreliable narrator of his own story, and a fictional alter-ego named Joßche, a German literary biographer with a titanium membrane in his skull—the result of a childhood bicycle accident. Joßche’s commentary, frequently interspersed throughout the story, keeps Josh honest (or at least tries to), giving way at the end to rather surprising results. Ultimately, the listener and both Joshes face a challenging question, whose roots run deep through our contemporary culture: In an age of increasing diversity, who gets to have a biography, who doesn’t, and why?

©2025 Joshua Gidding (P)2025 Joshua Gidding

Honesty at it's Highest

Something happens when people tell the true story... the complete story... the ugly parts, the lovely parts, the awkward parts, the embarrassing parts... and yes, even the parts the writer doesn't quite see himself. Such is the truth behind Old White Man Writing. Not all parts shine brightly on Joshua Gidding. Indeed some parts don't shine at all. However, all parts are there, and therein lies the power and wonder of Old White Man Writing.

Perhaps if every man, every woman were to publish their inward thoughts about their own lives, the world would have more peace, more harmony, greater brotherhood and sisterhood. Yes, much more and much greater!

-Robert Paul Favreau