{
  "id": 16874597,
  "title": "Pretending to Be Tony Shalhoub: On Co-Writing a Book in My Father’s Voice",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/10/28/pretending-to-be-tony-shalhoub-on-co-writing-a-book-in-my-fathers",
  "topic": "culture",
  "section": "Culture",
  "published": "2026-10-28T09:00:49.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Literary Hub",
    "slug": "literary-hub",
    "url": "https://lithub.com/pretending-to-be-tony-shalhoub-on-co-writing-a-book-in-my-fathers-voice/"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "For several years, my father and I have been collaborating on a memoir, a narrative penned in his first-person perspective. This undertaking compelled me to adopt the mannerisms of my father, Tony Shalhoub, a role he is not widely recognized for. Not the Tony Shalhoub portrayed as Adrian Monk, the obsessive-compulsive detective from Monk, or Abe Weissman, the irritable father from The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. The one I chose was the man himself. My father, whose handwriting I had mastered as a child, a skill honed through endless practice and forgery of his signature. Our book, We Thought They’d Never Leave: Musings on Food and Family, is a culinary memoir that delves into my father's upbringing in a Lebanese-American family of ten in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Structured around their annual family reunions, the book also features twenty cherished family recipes. Creating this memoir demanded placing myself in his memories, relationships, and experiences. For a year, I found myself embodying the role of a woman in her thirties striving to think and write as a man in his seventies, a man who was also my father. Together, we crafted a work that celebrated family, memory, and tradition. It was only fitting that we co-wrote this book. As a child, I penned spec scripts for shows like Friends, Gilmore Girls, and Will & Grace. I also wrote fiction, creating characters so vivid in my mind that I sometimes forgot they didn't exist. Before embarking on this journey with my father, I harbored some reservations. Would our edits be taken personally? Could disagreements over the writing escalate into conflicts between father and daughter? I am no stranger to the sting of \"constructive criticism\" when it's delivered by someone dear to me. However, our collaboration turned out to be surprisingly harmonious, even when we weren't physically present together. Our process entailed creating a list of stories my father wished to share, which he then wrote. I provided him with prompts, specific memories, or experiences I was keen to include. Unlike an interview where I would transcribe and compile his words into a book, this was a joint effort from the outset. We aimed to intertwine our collaboration into the fabric of the book itself. After all, it was a narrative about family, memory, and tradition. We discovered that our skills complemented each other. My father possesses an extraordinary memory for people, dialogue, and intricate details, while I excel at connecting seemingly unrelated ideas and constructing the larger narrative. We also shared a comparable work ethic. We encouraged each other's ideas, embraced necessary changes, and kept our momentum. This synergy was likely due to our shared lack of attachment to perfection. Having spent years as a copywriter, editing others' work and honing my own, and now managing a production company focused on writing and development, where collaboration is paramount, I believe my father's experiences in acting and executive production, where he gave and received notes, mirrored our working relationship. We recognized the goal was to elevate the book and adhere to our deadlines. However, as I delved deeper into writing about these individuals as my father knew them, I began to uncover insights about them that he might not have been aware of. Despite us co-authoring the book, each \"I\" referred exclusively to my father. I had the advantage of intimately familiarizing myself with his voice through years of listening. I could discern when his words echoed his authentic self and when they didn't. Nonetheless, impersonating someone's voice isn't the same as understanding their experiences. While I knew how my father spoke, I didn't necessarily grasp how he lived. Writing my father's memoir necessitated a unique form of imagination. I could craft scenes, develop characters, and find the right words for experiences, but I couldn't determine what truly happened or its significance to him. I was working with someone else's recollections, and this individual was on the other line, perfectly capable of correcting me if I strayed from the mark.",
  "summary": "For the past few years, my father and I have been writing a book together, a memoir told in his first-person voice. This has required me to do something I never expected to do professionally: imitate Tony Shalhoub. But not",
  "key_points": [
    "Father and son co-wrote memoir in father's voice",
    "Book \"We Thought They'd Never Leave\" features family recipes",
    "Collaboration revealed insights beyond father's recollections"
  ],
  "editors_take": "Blending professional narrative structure with personal memory transforms the memoir from a simple transcription into a collaborative preservation of family legacy and Lebanese-American heritage.",
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}