An actor originally from northern Michigan and a Central Michigan University alum returned to his home state recently to promote his latest role — as an author.
WCMU's Tina Sawyer sat down with Cadillac-native, Larry Joe Campbell, to discuss his new novel, "Remember That One Time?" Campbell is known for his role in the ABC sitcom, "According to Jim." He said a lot from his book is loosely based on his own life.
Editor's note: This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity and length. You can listen to this conversation by clicking the LISTEN button above.
Larry Joe Campbell: When I say it's about an aging, out-of-work actor people say, 'oh, it's a memoir,' and I go well, his wife leaves him on a trial separation. And so it is fiction. My wife Peggy and I are doing great. 28 years.
But it's about... (the main character) he spent half his life in Michigan, half in Los Angeles. His wife Sophie does leave, separating from him around the holidays.
He travels to Greenville, Michigan, north of Grand Rapids, where my brother in real life lives. He goes out, to stay with them, but they wind up leaving and what winds up is he loses his voice. His brother makes him work and they bring in wood and he takes a log to the throat, which happened in real life to a relative of mine. And resting is the only solution. I use that device in the book because then as he's left alone, he goes into town and observes all the eccentric people. He starts to realize, because he's so full of self-pity, starts to realize his own culpability.
Tina Sawyer: What is the takeaway from this book?
LC I think it's being honest with yourself, and I found that this was very therapeutic for me. My wife and I had been married a long time. And Peggy, you know we, you get into roles. And we both — and this is in the book too — we both hate conflict and we're both sensitive and we get defensive.
And when you do that, sometimes you feel you can't be honest with one another. And then, if you're not honest, you spend less time around one another because you're getting resentful and all that. And you start reading into the other person's body language and we were doing that.
This book just went, woah, put the brakes on that. What about YOU? Just accept her for who she is instead of an expectation of who you want her to be.
I think it's a book for everyone, I really do, but it is relationship centric on that. When you're in deep and you've been around one another for a long time, how do you keep it going? So my wife and I we never got to any sort of point where it was, ”uh oh!”
It's just the “what if” (creeping in), and that's when I thought, are you taking her for granted?
Life is too short. The Stoics call it Memento Mori, "Remember that you must die.”So this is temporary and I don't want to live in a place of resentment. I want to live in a place of presence, and that's not always joyful. I get that. And it's not always suffering. And most of the time, it's probably very mundane, day-to-day and that's okay, too.
Be present and enjoy it without the expectations. Just expectation, by definition, puts you in the future. And that was a big turning point for me, and to have it set in Michigan, that's everything to me.
TS: And what's next for you, Larry Joe?
LC: Well, I recur on "Animal Control," which is a great show on Fox. If that gets picked up, I get to go back and do some more seasons of that, but we'll see after that, you know?
Host: That was actor Larry Joe Campbell talking with WCMU's Tina Sawyer about his book, "Remember That One Time?" Campbell now lives in LA with his wife and five kids.
