On Writing and Anthony Bourdain

My literary hero

Today is Anthony Bourdain’s birthday. He passed away seven years ago when he took his own life, This is a piece I wrote a year after his passing. He was and still is one of my biggest influences.

Many writers, both professional and aspirational, learned to write in a similar manner. In grade school, a teacher gives us the rudimentary lessons in how to form sentences.

And this is what most people focus on during their academic careers, as writing is a discipline of mechanics, with rules, grammar, and syntax. I was no different. I was not, and I’m still not, a natural writer, and I had to practice often to make my sentences sound somewhat human.

I spent more time with The Elements of Style than with most of friends.

This is, while boring, the ideal way practice, so that one can first become a functional writer, before becoming a good writer.

But, after a few years, and several thousand terrible, robotic lines of prose, a writer can move on to the more artistic side of writing.

This is an area I struggled with for a long time. I tried emulating the great authors I was reading, but the formal tone didn’t come natural. I was able to master academic writing, but there is little room for personality. When I tried writing articles and fiction, everything felt stiff and boring.

Until I found inspiration from another source.

I still remember the first time I saw him on television. He was brash, and he was in the middle of a cuss-filled rant about the French airlines, and my first thought was “oh wow this is not Great Hotels.” It was the first time I saw Anthony Bourdain on No Reservations.

And, as much as I liked the Samantha Brown and her trips around Europe, a job that to this day I am reproachfully jealous of, I was drawn to the aging punk rocker chef with the leather jacket and cigarettes. His show was different, and it even carried a parental warning, a first I believe for the travel channel. He swore. He said what was on his mind. He was witty and sarcastic, but kind to the people with whom he encountered.

He expanded my knowledge on food, travel, but his biggest influence on me was as a writer. I watched his show for years, and other than a few articles, I hadn’t read much by him. One summer I picked up Kitchen Confidential during a trip to the bookstore. It was the last book in the pile I was working through while at my cabin.

I kept putting it off, thinking other books would be more interesting, but once I picked it up I couldn’t put it down. It was enjoyable for one thing. The stories were interesting, and he led quite a life prior to penning the memoir, but it affected me one another level.

Bourdain’s book taught me about the other half of writing. He taught me about voice. The book was dripping with sarcasm, and it was written in a voice that was totally his own. It was raw, brutal, and it took no prisoners. The book taught me more than two years of writing classes had about owning one’s writing, and to not be afraid to inject my identity into my writing.

At the time, I wanted to write and I read all the right books, but Kitchen Confidential was different. He talked like one of my friends. He was the cool kid in class. It was suddenly everything I wanted to be as a writer, to have a voice unmistakably my own. He taught me so much and I will forever be grateful for it.

He taught me how to add personality to writing. To break the rules. He lit candle in me that I’d been struggling to set aflame.