Lean Out with Tara Henley

This summer, the glamorization of divorce has reached its apex. There are divorce rings, divorce parties, divorce albums, and divorce memoirs — all portraying the act of walking away from a marriage as inherently empowering for women. But our guest on today’s program argues that so much of the current divorce discourse is just narcissism disguised as feminism. Kat Rosenfield is an American novelist, cultural critic, and podcaster – and a columnist for The Free Press. Today, we discuss her essay for the online outlet, titled “Does Divorce Make You Hotter?”You can find Tara Henley on Twitter at @TaraRHenley, and on Substack at tarahenley.substack.com

It’s an election year in the United States. And so far, the media’s focus has not been on working people and what policies they want to see from their leadership. But our guest on today’s program has travelled across America interviewing working class voters — and she shares her insights on what the media is missing. Batya Ungar-Sargon is the opinion editor of Newsweek. Her latest book is Second Class: How the Elites Betrayed America’s Working Men and Women. The audiobook is out this month. Batya Ungar-Sargon returns to the show, in an episode recorded in April.You can find Tara Henley on Twitter at @TaraRHenley, and on Substack at tarahenley.substack.com

Lean Out is back from our annual summer hiatus — and we have a special episode for you today. Many of you know that Tara wrote “The Trust Spiral,” the 2024 Massey Essay on the state of the media, a partnership between Massey College at the University of Toronto and the Literary Review of Canada. Before Lean Out went on summer break, Massey College hosted a public discussion about this essay, and Tara was lucky enough to be interviewed by someone she greatly admires.Rudyard Griffiths is co-founder and chair of the Munk Debates. He’s also a senior fellow at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, and the executive director of The Hub.Special thanks for today’s episode go to Emily Mockler and Jonathan Rose and everyone at Massey College, to Kyle Wyatt and the team at the Literary Review of Canada, and of course to Rudyard Griffiths.You can find Tara Henley on Twitter at @TaraRHenley, and on Substack at tarahenley.substack.com

If you follow Canadian politics, you know that Justin Trudeau’s political career is now looking uncertain. He’s been polling badly for months, as a series of crises have rocked the country, including the cost of living, the opioid crisis, the housing crisis, healthcare, runaway immigration, and foreign interference. Our guest on today’s program has written a comprehensive biography of Trudeau as Prime Minister, based on interviews with more than 200 insiders, and the man himself — and today, he walks us through Trudeau’s journey from being a global media darling to becoming one of the most divisive figures in the country. Stephen Maher is an investigative journalist and political writer. His new book is The Prince: The Turbulent Reign of Justin Trudeau. You can find Tara Henley on Twitter at @TaraRHenley, and on Substack at tarahenley.substack.com

In times of war, civilians run from combat. But war reporters have the opposite reaction — they run toward it, putting themselves in danger to bear witness to these armed conflicts, and to try to make sense of our broken world. Our guest on today’s program spent years going to the frontlines, until one day, in June of 2020, the frontlines came to him. The near death experience that followed, he says, changed him forever. Sebastian Junger is an American journalist, the bestselling author of Tribe, Freedom, and The Perfect Storm, and an Oscar-nominated filmmaker. His latest book is In My Time of Dying: How I Came Face to Face With the Idea of An Afterlife — and it’s out this week.You can find Tara Henley on Twitter at @TaraRHenley, and on Substack at tarahenley.substack.com

2020 was a turbulent year in American politics, and in the America media. The editor of The New York Times recently conceded that the paper went “too far” during that time and said that it is now working to pull itself back from such “excesses.” Our guest on the program today was at the paper during that period — and left to report critically on what she calls “the revolution,” both for her new media company and for her new book, which is out this week. Nellie Bowles is an American journalist and co-founder of The Free Press. Her new book is Morning After the Revolution: Dispatches From the Wrong Side of History. You can find Tara Henley on Twitter at @TaraRHenley, and on Substack at tarahenley.substack.com

The failure of our elites to manage society has been a topic since at least the financial crash of 2008. But it is very much on the minds of many Canadians these days, as we face a series of cascading crises, from housing and opioids to the cost of living and heath care. A decade ago, our guest on today’s program wrote a searing indictment against the system of elite education — and now, with the release of its 10th anniversary edition, his critique is more relevant than ever.William Deresiewicz is an essayist and cultural critic, and the author of Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life. You can find Tara Henley on Twitter at @TaraRHenley, and on Substack at tarahenley.substack.com

Canadian politics have hit new low point. According to a recent poll, 70 percent of Canadians now believe that everything is broken in this country — and 59 percent said they are angry about how the country is being managed. Our guest on the program today has a new book about our Prime Minister, and the chaotic times we live in.Paul Wells is a Canadian political journalist, a frequent commentator on radio and television, and a fellow Substacker. His latest book is Justin Trudeau on the Ropes: Governing in Troubled Times. (You can listen to our previous interview about his last book on the trucker cris, An Emergency in Ottawa, here.)You can find Tara Henley on Twitter at @TaraRHenley, and on Substack at tarahenley.substack.com

The Lean Out podcast has covered lots of books in recent years. We have never covered a poetry book. But all it took was one read of a striking new collection of poems for us to know that we had to have its author on the show. The Canadian writer Stephen Marche said it best when he described this collection: “Like supremely eloquent graffiti written on the wall of a magnificent palace, except the palace is the world, and the world is on fire.” Michael Lista is a Canadian essayist, investigative journalist, and poet. His new book is Barfly and Other Poems.You can find Tara Henley on Twitter at @TaraRHenley, and on Substack at tarahenley.substack.com

As regular readers of this Substack will know, this spring Tara has been writing the Massey Essay on the state of the media — a partnership between Massey College at the University of Toronto and the Literary Review of Canada. You can read it here.The annual essay honours the legacy of the long-time CBC producer Vincent Massey Tovell. This year’s essay explores the collapse of public trust in the media. To mark the occasion, we are  presenting a series of encore interviews with some of the journalists that helped shape Tara's thinking for this essay. Including today’s conversation, which originally aired in November of 2023.George Packer is a staff writer at The Atlantic, and the author of ten books. You can find Tara Henley on Twitter at @TaraRHenley, and on Substack at tarahenley.substack.com