Review
"With 'On Her Trail' John Dickerson has written more than a biography: it is a history of the time -- with rich new stories about John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson; a social dissection of elite Washington; it is -- and this may be the most captivating part of the book -- a personal confession of life with a mother almost obsessively driven in her career....
"The book is a mix of sold reportorial digging with a son's sometimes heartbreaking insights. It is bold, shocking at times, and brilliant."
-- Lesley Stahl
"Beautifully observed and richly reported, a family tale with a twist -- because it's written about the kind of family that normally wouldn't let secrets make their way outside the security fence. A tough and loving book by a gifted journalist."
-- Peggy Noonan
"Anyone who was a big fan of Nancy Dickerson will hate John Dickerson by about page 40. But by the time you reach the end of this poignant, sometimes funny, but always wise and human memoir-biography, you will love them both. John for his insight and compassion, and Nancy for the price she paid to blaze the trail for Katie Couric and Greta van Sustren."
-- Al Franken --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
Product Description
Growing up in the shadow of Nancy's fame, John Dickerson rarely saw his mother. This frank memoir -- part remembrance, part discovery -- describes a freewheeling childhood in which Nancy Dickerson was rarely around unless John was in trouble or she was throwing a party for the president and John was instructed to check the coats. By the time John was old enough to know what the news was, his mother was no longer in the national spotlight and he didn't see why she should be. He thought she was a liar and a phony. When he was fourteen, his parents divorced, and he moved in with his father.
As an adult, John found himself in Washington, a reporter covering her old beat. A long-delayed connection between mother and son began, only to be cut short by Nancy's death in 1997. In her journals, letters and yellowed newspaper clippings, John discovered the woman he never knew -- an icon in television history whose achievement was the result of her relentless determination to reinvent herself and excel. On Her Trail is a fascinating picture of the early days of television and of Washington society at its most high powered, and charts a son's honest and wry search for the mother he came to admire and love. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
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