Know Your Bystanders: Joe Keohane

We revisit the early issues of The American Bystander.

BY MICHAEL PERSHAN • Joe Keohane does it all: journalism, fiction, humor. He wrote The Power of Strangers about talking to people you don’t yet know, and—as part of S.E. Boyd—he is co-author of The Lemon, an acclaimed new novel that has received rave reviews from Bob Odenkirk, Paul Beatty, and Lee Child, thereby earning membership in the vaunted “Paulleebob Club.”

Joe is all over early issues of The American Bystander, and in Issue #7 he was featured in “Know Your Bystanders,” an interview column that we haven’t done in the magazine in a while. Maybe it’s due for a comeback?

Actually, I think Joe’s was the last “Know Your Bystander” we ran.

When introducing Keohane for the interview, Michael Gerber said “when you read his stuff, he sounds like a friend,” and their conversation is as warm and charming as you’d expect:

Where were you born, and did that have any bearing on the person you’ve become?

I was born in Boston to an Irish Catholic family of funeral directors. That combination accounts for 97% of who I am today. Though on some days it’s 110%.

What’s your favorite drink?

Manhattan, up. The perfect cocktail. A nation of so-called mixologists working a thousand nights in a thousand bars have never been able to top it. If vermouth isn’t available: three fingers of good bourbon on an empty stomach. You can have your opioids. For me, bourbon-on-empty’s the best drug there is.

By the way, what’s your idea of “a good bourbon”?

If I’m buying: Four Roses Small Batch; if you are, an 18-year-old Jefferson’s.

Continuing the theme, what’s your favorite toast?

“To the confusion of our enemies.” John Oppenheimer.

What are you interested in that most people haven’t heard of?

Civility, composure, wit and taste.

What’s your favorite activity?

Making my 18-month-old fall over laughing

And on they go, with Joe telling how he met his wife in a parking lot and about the time he was chased around Jerusalem by a gang of teens.

For today’s edition of what I’m determined to call Archival Load we’re sharing the “Know Your Bystanders” interview, along with one of Joe’s funniest pieces, “Eight NYC Bars You Need to Drink At Before You Die on Tuesday.” Let’s go!