Ann Leary Chats About Life in Connecticut, Westchester and Doggy Disputes in I-95 Exclusive

Ann Leary is the wife of Denis Leary and a New York Times Bestselling author with a new book out called "I've Tried Being Nice." Ann's new book is on store shelves and available for purchase on Amazon right now. She checked in with Ethan, Lou & Large Dave for the Thursday (6/20/24) edition of the I-95 Morning Show to promote the new book and chat about her years in Connecticut.

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Lou: Tell us about the new book and what inspired it.

Ann: "Well this is my fifth book, I usually write novels but this is a collection of essays, some of them have been previously published and what inspired it? The book is called I've Tried Being Nice, I'm a lifelong people-pleaser and I reached a certain age as many do, especially many women where I suddenly decided I had to, I could live with everyone in the world not loving me or maybe just being slightly fond of me or not liking me at all. So, they are essays about my life as a mother, a daughter, a writer, I was a volunteer EMT when I lived in Litchfield County so I write about that and many other things. I write quite a but about being on the sidelines of fame as you mentioned my husband is Denis Leary. We met when he was just an open-mic stand up guy and he became famous. So, I write about some of our ridiculous missteps on red carpets, kind of showing up in Hollywood not knowing what we were doing. I had a lot of fun writing it and Denis has actually showed up and done some events with me which was really fun going out and talking to people about it." 

Dave: You did say earlier that you used to be in Litchfield County, were you in Roxbury? 

Ann: "I was, we were in Roxbury for twenty years, yeah we loved it."

At this point in the interview, Large Dave referenced a story from the book about Ann's time in Westchester County, NY although he mistakenly thought the incident took place during her Roxbury, CT years.. The way it was described to me, Ann and Denis had a dispute with a neighbor over a dog issue. In the book, she if referred to as "Doodle Lady."

Dave: I want to drive through Roxbury on my way home tonight to Torrington to see if I can find "Doodle Lady." 

Ann: "That happened when we moved here to Westchester County and it's more suburban, a little more suburban. We live on a dirt road where everybody walks. In fact, the legal team at Simon & Schuster made me change the breed in the book because the lady that really ticked me off had a breed that is not very common. I had that in my early draft and the lawyers and my publishers were afraid of getting sued. They picked a doodle because everyone has doodles and no one would know who this person was." 

Lou: Just so we all know what you guys are talking about what is the whole "Doodle Lady" thing. I apologize but Dave is the only one who read the book, frankly he's the only one of us who can read. But, so the listeners know can you give us a little of the "Doodle Lady" story?

Ann: "Well I'm not allowed to say, I don't want to get sued. The reason I wrote about her is we have three dogs now but two of them are rather unhinged rescues and one of them is very dog aggressive. So Doodle Lady used to let her Doodle and her other dog run onto my property and risk getting in fights with my dog and I did the thing that I used to do all the time being a born people-pleaser, I would say oh it would be so nice if your dog wouldn't come on our property. She would also be nice and say oh, don't worry my dogs get along with everybody. Over and over, I'd see her on the road with the dogs unleashed, I'd roll down the window, smile, ask again and finally one day I had it. One of my dogs almost attacked her dog."

You can listen to our complete interview with Ann Leary below. We also discussed the semi-controversial circumstances that brought Ann and Denis together. Additionally, Ann told the story of the time she embarrassed herself at a celebrity event seated next to Moby.

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