Can a Bad Man Be a Good Father?

Episode of The Daily · June 21, 2026 · 47 min

Michael Barbaro talks with writer Tom Junod about his charismatic, philandering father Lou and the secret half-sister Junod uncovered after his father's death.

Summary

On a Father's Day edition of The Daily on Sunday, Michael Barbaro interviewed magazine writer Tom Junod about his memoir "In the Days of My Youth I Was Told What It Means to Be a Man," which examines his father, Lou Junod. Junod read from the eulogy he gave at his father's funeral and described Lou as a handsome, sun-tanned, green-eyed man who modeled his manhood on 1930s movie stars such as Fred Astaire, Cary Grant and Clark Gable, served as a crooner in an Army show during World War II, and became a highly successful handbag salesman known for seducing women.

Junod described his father as attentive and loving yet terrifying, and recounted how he sensed an affair at age three and, at 16, discovered extreme pornography in his father's new Samsonite briefcase, a secret he kept from his mother. He explained that his 1996 GQ piece "My Father's Fashion Tips" was intended as a gift to his diminished, financially ruined father, and that during the reporting Lou disclosed that he had fallen in love only once, with a married woman, Peggy Monahan, who died after falling down the stairs of her Florida home.

After a woman at Lou's funeral declared "this was a man," Junod began investigating his father's secret life. Through the daughters of his father's Florida friend Frankie Klein, he learned that Peggy Monahan was rumored to have had a child by Lou. Despite being asked by Monahan's son Tommy to keep the secret, Junod approached Lizanne, who runs a food truck at the University of Connecticut, and an ancestry test later confirmed they were siblings. Junod said he was not angry at his father, crediting him with his love of music, language and writing, and described himself as "ambivalently still in love" with him.

Chapters

0:31
Introduction
Barbaro introduces Tom Junod, his career profiling flawed men, and his new book about his father Lou.
2:13
The eulogy
Junod reads from his eulogy describing his father's beliefs and larger-than-life persona.
5:54
A philosophy of manhood
Junod explains his father's maxims about masculinity, their roots in 1930s movie stars, and his wartime career as a crooner.
10:45
A loving but terrifying father
Junod describes his father as attentive and affectionate yet so overpowering that he often cried in his presence.
12:52
The legendary handbag salesman
Junod recounts his father's success selling handbags and his reputation as a driven philanderer.
15:35
The Samsonite briefcase
Junod describes sensing an affair as a toddler and discovering extreme pornography in his father's briefcase at 16, then keeping the secret.
22:52
Decline and the GQ story
Junod explains his father's financial ruin and his 1996 GQ piece written as a gift and an opportunity to question him.
26:01
The one great love
Lou reveals he loved only one woman, a married woman who died in Florida, a secret Junod left out of the article.
30:50
The funeral and the investigation
A woman's declaration at the funeral sets Junod investigating his father's life, leading to rumors of a child with Peggy Monahan.
36:59
Finding Lizanne
Junod contacts the Monahan family, meets Tommy, and approaches Lizanne at her food truck; an ancestry test confirms they are siblings.
43:01
Why he isn't angry
Junod reads a passage explaining how much he owes his father and says he remains ambivalently in love with him.

Key points

What was said, by whom, with the exact words. Timestamps jump to the moment.

Tom Junod
Junod says his father's ideas about manhood were modeled on the movie stars of the late 1930s rather than on his own father.
“As best as I could tell, it was modeled on the movie stars of the late 1930s”
Listen from 7:14 · Masculinity
Tom Junod
Junod says his father was in many ways a good, attentive dad even though he terrified him.
“He was actually a really good dad in a lot of different ways. He was attentive. He was prescriptive”
Listen from 10:54 · Fatherhood
Tom Junod
Junod argues that the word 'philanderer' is accurate but too mild to describe his father.
“And I guess that's the right word. But it seems almost too mild for what he was”
Listen from 15:27 · Infidelity
Tom Junod
Junod says what distinguished his upbringing from others with macho fathers was that his father was constantly pursuing sex.
“I had a macho dad who was forever on the make. And that was the difference”
Listen from 20:40 · Masculinity
Tom Junod
Junod explains he did not tell his mother about his father's secrets because he believed it would have destroyed his parents' marriage.
“But then I knew that it was the nuclear codes to my family. I mean, I don't think my parents' marriage would have survived”
Listen from 20:42 · Family secrets
Tom Junod
Junod says he wrote the GQ article as a gift meant to make his father the celebrity he never became.
“The reason I did it was as a gift to him. I wanted to make him the celebrity that he never was”
Listen from 23:12 · My Father's Fashion Tips (GQ article)
Tom Junod
Junod recounts that his father lost his fortune through gambling and bad stock market investing.
“He was a terrible gambler and he was even worse, he was even a worse investor in the stock market”
Listen from 23:36 · Fatherhood
Tom Junod
Junod says he withheld his father's private revelations from the GQ piece and published only grooming and dressing advice.
“I spared him, and I put in the secrets that he wanted everybody to know. The secrets of grooming, the secrets of hygiene, the secrets of dressing”
Listen from 29:53 · My Father's Fashion Tips (GQ article)
Linked moment · 33:24Skip to 33:24 using a listen link in the info box.
Tom Junod
Junod describes his ethical hesitation about contacting the Monahan family, whose lives his father had disrupted decades earlier.
“40 years ago invaded this family's life. And it had a tragic ending. Do I presume to do that again?”
Listen from 33:24 · Family secrets
Tom Junod
Junod says he was driven to find his possible half-sibling because he understood the damage his father's secret life had done to both families.
“because I knew what my dad's secret life had done to my family. And I had an idea what my father's secret life had done to the Monaghan family”
Listen from 35:09 · Genetic genealogy and unknown siblings
Tom Junod
Junod says approaching Lizanne's food truck was the most frightening moment of his journalistic career.
“nothing ever in my entire journalistic career scared me more than walking up to Lizanne's food truck and introducing myself”
Listen from 39:11 · Genetic genealogy and unknown siblings
Tom Junod
Junod explains he contacted Lizanne despite her brother's request because he believed the decision to know should be hers.
“And I didn't think ultimately it would be anybody's decision but hers”
Listen from 39:36 · Genetic genealogy and unknown siblings
Tom Junod
Junod says finding his half-sister settled his long-unresolved feelings and knowledge about his father.
“I felt like I had settled finally what I'd never been able to settle in my life, which is my feelings about my dad and my knowledge about my dad”
Listen from 42:49 · Fatherhood
Tom Junod
Junod argues his father may not have been a good man but was an elemental one whose influence left no room for anger.
“He might not have been a good man, but he was an elemental one”
Listen from 44:14 · Fatherhood
Tom Junod
Junod says he could not have written the book without loving his father and remains ambivalently in love with him.
“That's where it is I am ambivalently still in love with my dad”
Listen from 46:22 · In the Days of My Youth I Was Told What It Means to Be a Man

People

In the conversation

Michael BarbaroAmerican journalist and host of The New York Times podcast The Daily
Tom JunodAmerican magazine writer known for profiles in GQ and Esquire, author of the memoir "In the Days of My Youth I Was Told What It Means to Be a Man"

Discussed

Lou JunodTom Junod's father, a handbag salesman and World War II Army crooner
Peggy MonahanMarried woman described as the great love of Lou Junod's life, who died in Florida
LizannePeggy Monahan's daughter, confirmed by ancestry test as Tom Junod's half-sister
Frankie KleinLou Junod's best friend and wingman in Florida
Zsa Zsa GaborHungarian-American actress with whom Lou Junod claimed an affair
Clark GableAmerican film actor whose screen persona Lou Junod emulated
Cary GrantAmerican film actor whose manner of speaking Lou Junod emulated
Fred AstaireAmerican dancer and actor whose style of dress Lou Junod emulated
Frank SinatraAmerican singer whose songs were sung at Lou Junod's funeral

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From the publisher

The writer Tom Junod has spent a career crafting profiles for men’s magazines like GQ and Esquire, often of famously complicated men like Norman Mailer, Kevin Spacey and Tony Curtis. But another man loomed behind Junod’s interest in these figures, informing his own sense of masculinity and manhood: his father, Lou. Lou Junod was handsome, charismatic — a man who seemed like a celebrity, even though he wasn’t famous. He was also mysterious, a keeper of secrets that have continued to reverberate through his son’s life. On today’s episode, Michael Barbaro talks with Junod about his new book, “In the Days of My Youth I Was Told What It Means to Be a Man,” which is part memoir and part detective story, as well as a powerful meditation on fatherhood.

Summary, chapters and key points were generated from the episode transcript on September 29, 2026. Quotes are checked word for word against the transcript.

Categories: Relationships·Books·Parenting