Six ways HBO’s “Succession” hit me hard personally

Logan Roy, bully, entrepreneur, puppeteer

By Caitlin Kelly

If you haven’t watched Succession, this blog’s not for you!

If you have, you’re familiar with this filthy rich dysfunctional family — including three ex-wives and a young assistant who had so hoped to become the fourth Mrs. Roy, but — damn! — the old dude died right in front of her, in his private jet en route to Sweden to close a business deal.

I love this show, but some of its moments hit me hard personally, often echoing my own dysfunctional family.

Here are six:

It’s not a family in any meaningful sense of the word

Logan Roy has three ex-wives; one he dismissed to a psychiatric hospital; one, very English and very cowardly and the last, Marcia, whose venom comes wrapped in a husky French accent. He has four adult children, including one from the first marriage — Con, likely 10 to 15 years older than the rest, who has always felt unloved and excluded by his father. As the oldest of four adult kids of our own father, by two wives, and two affairs, with none of us who ever lived together, I’ve felt this as the only child of my father’s first marriage.

The daughter, Siobhan Roy (aka Shiv), always, always shut out of power

Logan Roy loves to play his needy and insecure children against one another

Painfully familiar. My father, now 94, has always favored his youngest, 23 years my junior and who refuses to have any relationship to me at all. The sister I haven’t met only shows up every few years and the brother closest to me in age has created huge success for himself — but our father never seems able to celebrate us.

Having someone die after you’ve just argued with them is haunting and painful

My last conversation with my late stepmother, who died at 63 on my husband’s birthday, was an argument. It was a truly terrible time, with a lot of long-repressed and ugly emotions finally blasting to the surface. When so much remains unaddressed for decades and any chance of reconciliation is suddenly gone, it is a terrible shock and leaves even deeper family wounds.

Kendall Roy, whose past conceals a terrible secret he fears might one day emerge

Money changes everything

We’re certainly not wealthy in Roy style — private jets, helicopters everywhere, multiple huge houses — but two of my male ancestors were very successful in creating their own business, and the money they made very much affected their offspring and how they view(ed) money. It’s a useful and familiar way to wield power, to bestow or withhold affection. It’s also weird to grow up around opulent spending (my maternal grandmother was a literal heiress) and never earn or acquire such means yourself. It was normal to have Granny’s chauffeur — Raymond — and her jewelers, Jack and Adrian — attend her annual Christmas party. So I get Tom Wambsgans’ admission, coming from a less wealthy family, that he actually does like money.

Tom Wambsgans, Shiv’s hapless husband

When a man as calculating and manipulative as Logan Roy dies, beware

I’ve never met my half-sister (5 years younger) and have no wish to. My two half-brothers have an off-on relationship. With no clear communication between all four of us, it’s quite something to navigate.

There’s so much the Roy “kids” still have to figure out — like what emotional intimacy and trust even look like

While the Roys are spoiled rotten materially, and are putative adults, there’s an awful lot about the real world they just don’t know and will finally and suddenly need to learn without their father’s protection and power. Surrounded from birth by bodyguards and helicopter pilots and maids and chauffeurs, paid people who say yes to almost everything, they also seem to have no friends anywhere. Every conversation is about getting, keeping or getting more money. Forget love or affection or the joy of something basic — like actually enjoying a pampered life in New York City, with every cultural richness literally on their doorstep. As Season Four progresses, its final season, they’re finally, for a while, able to love and support one another.

I finally, gratefully, have a relationship with one of my half-brothers. But that’s it.

As I always joke, there’s no Hallmark card for a “family” like ours.

Simple pleasures, spring edition

By Caitlin Kelly

Lilacs in bloom. SO gorgeous!

Birdsong! We live at treetop level and those birds start tweeting at 4:30 a.m.

Sandals!

Back to enjoying life on our 72 square foot balcony with Hudson River views

Convertibles!

Iris in bloom

Longer warmer days

Shorts!

Changing wool and cashmere for linen and gauzy cotton

New Birkenstocks

Making sun tea

Ditching heavy outerwear and packing it away for months

The pool opens!

Entertaining outdoors — grilling, barbecuing

Longer, brighter days

Thickly leafed trees offering shade

All the seasonal celebrations — weddings, commencements, graduations

Planning my birthday party (June 6 ), the first since 2017 in Paris

An hour and 19 minutes of me (podcast)

By Caitlin Kelly

Last summer in L.A. I meet a great guy who was driving an Uber, a freelance photographer, Mallury Patrick Pollard — who has created this really interesting podcast about creativity and how creatives live.

Here’s his work.

He decided on the spot to ask me to do one as well.

Here’s my podcast with him, 1:19. I hope you find it interesting!

An epidemic of American loneliness

My wedding day (first one!) in 1992…still very close pals with Marion, who I met in our freshman English class at

University of Toronto

By Caitlin Kelly

It’s now deemed so large a problem that U.S. Surgeon-General Vivek Murthy says it’s as damaging as smoking for our health:

From his recent essay in The New York Times, (my boldface added):

At any moment, about one out of every two Americans is experiencing measurable levels of loneliness. This includes introverts and extroverts, rich and poor, and younger and older Americans. Sometimes loneliness is set off by the loss of a loved one or a job, a move to a new city, or health or financial difficulties — or a once-in-a-century pandemic.

Other times, it’s hard to know how it arose but it’s simply there. One thing is clear: Nearly everyone experiences it at some point. But its invisibility is part of what makes it so insidious. We need to acknowledge the loneliness and isolation that millions are experiencing and the grave consequences for our mental health, physical health and collective well-being.

This week I am proposing a national framework to rebuild social connection and community in America. Loneliness is more than just a bad feeling. When people are socially disconnected, their risk of anxiety and depression increases. So does their risk of heart disease (29 percent), dementia (50 percent), and stroke (32 percent). The increased risk of premature death associated with social disconnection is comparable to smoking daily — and may be even greater than the risk associated with obesity.

I’ve blogged about this many times, but clearly it’s not just me!

I lived in Canada ages 5 to 30, with a year in Paris at 25 with 27 fellow journalists, ages 25 to 35; I was the youngest, at 25.

I never had a problem elsewhere making or keeping friends.

While I’m only in touch with three people from my Toronto high school and a few from university, I later made friends through my work, neighbors, friends of friends…

The photo above is testament to this…as Marion lives very far away from us in British Columbia but made the long journey to New York to join me then. We still email often and schedule long phone calls. Our lives have been very different (she has three daughters and two grandchildren) but also have some very deep issues in common.

In Paris, we all vaulted between English and French, our fish-out-of-water-ness much tougher for people from North America, India, Africa, South America and Japan than for the multi-lingual Europeans. Having had to leave behind home, friends, family, work, pets — everything! — for eight months, meant we became our own support group. There were some very awkward moments when our cultural differences — especially our haste — caused offense and we needed to apologize and explain. But some of the friendships we forged then remain so deep that decades later we’re still delighted to visit one another and stay in touch.

At 31, I moved from Montreal — where I had very quickly made two close female friends, both single, as I was then, who lived in the same apartment building — to small town New Hampshire. It was a nightmare socially: my then boyfriend (later husband) was a medical resident so he was gone a lot of the time and exhausted when home. There were no jobs and no ways I could detect to meet friendly people. There was no Internet then. The only people in our social circle were all married, pregnant or joggers….none of which applied nor appealed to me. I tried hosting a few people for meals, but only one reciprocated in my miserable 18 months living there.

I had never ever been so lonely and it very much damaged my mental health, which is one reason I insisted we move to New York.

Why does friendship feel so low-value in the U.S. ?

— precarious jobs force many people to prioritize work and income over everything else

— low-paid, non union jobs do the same

— a culture where so many people feel guilty if they’re not constantly being “productive”. Sitting for an afternoon with a friend, or several, over a glass of wine — as I’ve done joyfully in Paris, Croatia, Toronto and Montreal (and once in Manhattan!) — is seen as weirdly slothful

— a culture that fetishizes individual needs over everything else; few friendships seem to have the ability to weather/resolve conflict and move on

— people move around and lose touch

— the social triage of wanting to avoid COVID

— having Long COVID

— being exhausted by caregiving

— especially in a time of high inflation, few places exist that don’t cost money (like cafes, bars, clubs, restaurants) where people can just relax for a few hours in a quiet, attractive and welcoming environment and maybe strike up a friendly conversation with someone new

— if you didn’t attend any sort of schooling with someone, you seem not to exist. I find this so weird, especially since I arrived in New York at 31

— family takes precedence over everything after work, from feeding newborns to moving far away from old friends to live closer to grandchildren. Friends? An afterthought once all the usual ceremonies (weddings, christenings, graduations, etc) are done

— wealth is a huge dividing line. People with a lot of money seem to think the rest of us aren’t worth knowing. Whatevs

— racism

— politics, especially since 2016

— transactional “friendships” where, once they’ve gotten what they need from you, you’re dropped

— lack of curiosity. Without fail, my closest friends have lived outside their home countries and have traveled widely, whether for work or pleasure, people who, like me, have had a range of life experiences and faced the challenges of adapting to (and enjoying!) other cultures.

I am very aware these are generalizations and maybe too personal to me as someone who has never had one job here for more than a few years and made work-pals. Nor do we have kids, the way most people seem to make friends. My closest friends here I made through freelancing, two from church and one from spin class.

Canadians don’t fling themselves across the country the way Americans do, for work or education, and our social and professional circles are smaller, so maybe we just retain closer relationships for other reasons.

This has also been an issue for me because, as I’ve written here many times, I don’t come from a close or loving family, quite the opposite. We don’t do birthdays or holidays together or get together for special occasions. My late stepmother was clear she didn’t want me around much and my uncle and aunt, both long dead, lived in London and were busy with highly successful entertainment careers. My friends are my family.

Many of you might have very deep ongoing American friendships.

If so, I envy you!

I am really looking forward, in late June, to seeing old and dear friends in Toronto, my hometown I left in 1986, that I have known since my late teens — at university, through my work, friends of friends. I haven’t been back in a year. I even reconnected with one woman from Grade Five (!) a few years ago as she became a neighbor and friend of one of my good friends.

I’ll have lunch with four pals from high school there as well.

Can’t wait!

Do you ever find loneliness an issue?

How do you manage it?

What newsroom life is really like

Two weeks trailing HRH was…an adventure!

By Caitlin Kelly

The NYT’s columnist Maureen Dowd recently posted this lament for the good old days of newsrooms:

As Mayer recalled, when a big story broke at The Star: “You could see history happening. People would cluster over a reporter’s desk, pile into the boss’s office, and sometimes break into incredibly loud fights. There were weirdos in newsrooms, and fabulous role models occasionally, and the spirit of being part of a motley entourage. Now, it’s just you and the little cursor on your screen.”

If you have watched TV shows like Alaska Daily, about a small paper in Anchorage, or Borgen, or (a million years ago) Lou Grant or the Mary Tyler Moore Show or The Newsroom, or films like Spotlight (2015 Best Picture), All the President’s Men, Broadcast News, The Paper or The Verdict or….You might think you know what working in a newsroom is like.

Having survived three of them, The Toronto Globe and Mail for 2.5 years at age 26, the Montreal Gazette at 30 for 1.5 years and one brutal year decades later at the New York Daily News, lemme tell ya! My husband worked 31 years at The New York Times, in the main newsroom in New York City and, earlier, in its Washington bureau.

We know. Oh, we know. Jose worked many assignments with Dowd, including some huge front page stories.

I agree there are few places — maybe as an ER physician or nurse, or a firefighter — where adrenaline surges are a normal part of every working day. Whenever I walked up the rear ramp of the Globe’s parking lot, past the enormous satellite dish that would (!!) transmit all our words to printing plants across Canada later that day, my blood pressure always always rose.

It was exciting but terrifying.

What if the Toronto Star or CBC beat us? What if we got something wrong? Working in daily news always means the fear of someone else getting the “scoop” first.

Most newsrooms — whatever the medium — look the same. Rows of desks, some piled very very high with papers and magazines and documents. Few windows. Open plan so everyone can see if you’re there and working and an editor can (and does) yell at/for you from far away. Your co-workers work barely a few feet away from you, so forget any sort of personal or professional privacy. No smelly food! No loud conversations!

Managers get offices with glass walls so they can see what we’re up to.

Ideally, this fosters camaraderie and collaboration, and sometimes it does.

Despite the chaos of the industry — so many layoffs! — it retains a military hierarchy and chain of command, from interns to publisher. Mess with it at your peril.

The irony, of course, is that it’s called a newsroom when the news is never there.

It’s in Kyiv or Islamabad or Edmonton or Des Moines, and that’s the true strength and beauty of them — the immediate transfer of information, words and images that flow into and out of the editors’ desks in the newsroom. There’s often someone who does rewrite (I have!) which is wild…a reporter calls in with their story and reads it to you over the phone so you have to type really fast and accurately! I’ve also dictated my own stories by phone as well. Very 1940s!

A crucial — and unseen/unheralded — part of every functional newsroom are its editors, for copy, graphics, maps, illustrations and photos. There are also, depending on the size of the media outlet, lawyers who may review a story for accuracy and defense against a charge of libel.

I first worked in a time when our laptops were very slow, TRS-80s, with tiny screens and we had to transmit our stories to the newsroom using alligator clips you attached to the handset of a telephone. That’s if you could even find a phone on deadline! Research meant actually reading and speaking to sources as our only font of information — no Google!

Competing with a better-funded paper like the Toronto Star could be a nightmare, like the night there was a prison riot in a city 2.5 hours east of Toronto. The Star, of course, got reporters to the scene while I, sitting in the newsroom, had to update five editions with very very little material. We even had to ask a senior manager whenever we needed a new notebook.

But I really miss its wit and repartee….like the night I was banging away on deadline and an editor shouted down the room…”Where is it?!”

“Hey, you can’t rush perfection,” I replied. The Venus de Milo wasn’t made in a day!”

“Do you type like her?”

The Montreal Gazette was another world, with one key editor who was deeply Catholic so I was cautioned never to suggest a story about abortion. It was one-paper town (in English) — compared to three in Toronto. The metabolism was slower. It wasn’t a great fit for me.

The NY Daily News hired me without previous NYC paper experience nor work for a tabloid. At prior papers, 1,000 words was a warm-up; at the News, deemed a long feature. Its halls held enormous copies of legendary moments in history, their front pages, framed. No pressure!

It was a very male place, with a few star reporters who were women. The photo editor shouted at me, again in an open newsroom where everyone was his unwilling audience, when I dared to ask for some basic instructions. I explained to my boss — who told me the man had once thrown a radio at him.

Like that.

I broke several national stories and learned how to write tighter. I reported on a very different — much less affluent, much more diverse — New York than I’d ever known. Our stories were in Harlem and Queens and the Bronx, not the Upper East Side.

But the manager who hired me soon left, and my time there became extremely difficult. I won’t say more, but I’ve never worked in a newsroom since.

I miss them.

I do.

There is there, at its best, a tremendous sense of teamwork and accomplishment. For some.

There is, at its best, ready access to some of the smartest and most fun and boldest people you’re ever likely to meet — colleagues who’ve worked in places like Kabul and Kandahar, not just Kalamazoo.

I’ve signed up to be a mentor with Report For America.

I look forward to helping the next generation survive their newsrooms.