I picked up You Never Know expecting a Tom Selleck memoir. What I got was a Magnum P.I. memoir, which is a distinction I wish someone had been made clear in the marketing materials for this book.
I like Selleck — Three Men and a Little Lady is a deeply underrated film and I will die on that hill, and his run on Friends is so good. So I came in as a Selleck fan. I just didn’t know that most of this book would be about a show I have never watched. But I’ve enjoyed plenty of memoirs outside my wheelhouse before (Andre Agassi’s Open is one of my favorite books of all time and I have watched approximately two minutes of tennis in my life) so I stuck with it.
Selleck makes clear from the start that he has no interest in discussing his personal life or personal thoughts. He wants to write about his work. Which is a strange choice for a memoir, but okay. Stranger still, he ends the book in 1988 when Magnum wraps, despite having had nearly 40 more years of career to speak of.
If you are a Magnum superfan, there is plenty here for you — the original pitch for the show, his beef with co-creator Don Bellisario, behind-the-scenes stories about every famous guest star. But even that content doesn’t fill a whole book, and you’ll sit through a lot of filler in the meantime. His favorite ice cream flavors (he only likes chocolate and vanilla!!). An unusual number of anecdotes about volleyball matches he has played throughout his life.
The highlight for me was the story of how he met his second wife, Jillie Mack. He was in London filming a movie and went to see Cats. And he just kept going on and on about Cats until you realize he is talking about it because that’s where he met her. She was playing Rumpleteazer. In a cat costume. In spandex and fur. And Tom Selleck saw her on that stage and thought, yup, that’s the one. I don’t think he means it to be a funny story. It is very funny.
Good on audio — his voice isn’t what it once was but is still nice to listen to. One flag: while his politics aren’t front and center, there are enough conservative asides — including several anti-union anecdotes — to be worth knowing about going in. Sigh.
