How true crime documentaries helped Erin Lee Carr move forward after her father's death
When David Carr died, he left behind 1,946 pieces of digital correspondence with his daughter.
His death had been sudden: In 2015, he collapsed in the newsroom of the New York Times, where he served as the paper's renowned media columnist. An autopsy would later reveal he had lung cancer; he was 58.
And so in the wake of her father's unexpected death, Erin Lee Carr clung to every email, each G-chat they'd exchanged. She saw in him the same demons that plagued her - the call to alcohol and drugs, an unbridled need to achieve that he once described to her as a kind of birthright: "You are a Carr, and that is a complicated, wondrous inheritance. That means you are tough, you are smart, you are someone others want to be around. But it also means that mistakes of hubris, excess, and indulgence will stalk you."
When he died, she was 26, in the early stages of a documentary filmmaking career that he had helped her launch. He'd long been eager to help her find success, and she did not eschew his guidance.
He connected her with industry contacts he'd interviewed, like Shane Smith, the
