Life on Delay: Making Peace with a Stutter

A NEW YORKER BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR • USA TODAY BOOK CLUB PICK • ONE OF AUDIBLE'S BEST BIOS AND MEMOIRS OF 2023 • “A raw, intimate look at [Hendrickson's] life with a stutter. It’s a profoundly moving book that will reshape the way you think about people living with this condition.”—Esquire • A candid memoir about a lifelong struggle to speak.

“Life On Delay brims with empathy and honesty . . . It moved me in ways that I haven’t experienced before. It’s fantastic.”—Clint Smith, author of the #1 New York Times bestseller How the Word Is Passed

“I can’t remember the last time I read a book that made me want to both cry and cheer so much, often at the same time.”—Robert Kolker, best-selling author of Hidden Valley Road

In the fall of 2019, John Hendrickson wrote a groundbreaking story for The Atlantic about Joe Biden’s decades-long journey with stuttering, as well as his own. The article went viral, reaching readers around the world and altering the course of Hendrickson’s life. Overnight, he was forced to publicly confront an element of himself that still caused him great pain.

He soon learned he wasn’t alone with his feelings: strangers who stutter began sending him their own personal stories, something that continues to this day. Now, in this reported memoir, Hendrickson takes us deep inside the mind and heart of a stutterer as he sets out to answer lingering questions about himself and his condition that he was often too afraid to ask.

In Life on Delay, Hendrickson writes candidly about bullying, substance abuse, depression, isolation, and other issues stutterers like him face daily. He explores the intricate family dynamics surrounding his own stutter and revisits key people from his past in unguarded interviews. Readers get an over-the-shoulder view of his childhood; his career as a journalist, which once seemed impossible; and his search for a romantic partner. Along the way, Hendrickson guides us through the evolution of speech therapy, the controversial quest for a “magic pill” to end stuttering, and the burgeoning self-help movement within the stuttering community. Beyond his own experiences, he shares portraits of fellow stutterers who have changed his life, and he writes about a pioneering doctor who is upending the field of speech therapy.

Life on Delay is an indelible account of perseverance, a soulful narrative about not giving up, and a glimpse into the process of making peace with our past and present selves.

JOHN HENDRICKSON is a senior editor at The Atlantic. He previously wrote and edited for Rolling Stone, Esquire, and The Denver Post. His Atlantic feature “What Joe Biden Can’t Bring Himself to Say” was named one of the best stories of 2019 by Longform. He lives in New York City with his wife.