I REMEMBER

The anchorman recounts his childhood in Texas, revealing his youthful ambitions and reminiscing about small town life in pre-World War II America

CBS network anchor Rather ( The Camera Never Blinks ) has not had a particularly good press, but that may change with publication of this autobiography, written with the author of Bay of Pigs. Born in 1931 into a family headed by a blue-collar worker and living on the wrong side of the bayou in Houston, the future newsman grew up during the Depression and World War II; with his father steadily employed, there was no actual privation. As a youth Rather suffered a long siege of rheumatic fever, then curable only by bed rest, which ended his dream of becoming a football star. He had a large, interesting and supportive extended family, its members recalled affectionately here. The book takes Rather to his departure for Sam Houston State Teachers College in Huntsville, Tex., leaving material for a sequel. The general effect is warm and engagingly anecdotal. The style, however, is strange: it consists almost exclusively of short sentences with no polysyllabic words, as if to reinforce the impression that Rather is just folks. Photos not seen by PW.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

An immensely appealing remembrance of things past from the anchor of CBS-TV's Evening News. A Texan and proud of it, Rather (who turns 60 next Halloween) grew up on the wrong side of the tracks in Houston during the height of the Depression and WW II. His hard-working father was gainfully employed (no mean feat in those hard times) as a ditch digger for a local pipeline company. Consequently, the Rathers had money enough for life's necessities, albeit never in abundance. By the author's elegiac account--told with the help of veteran author Wyden (Wall: The Berlin Story, 1989, etc.)--the extended family also had true grit and love to spare. While paying graceful tribute to parents, relatives, friends, and other influences, Rather offers an episodic and anecdotal account of his formative years. In addition to the sympathetic adults who encouraged him to stay in school with glimpses of a wider world, he credits the instinctive independence of the Rather clan with putting him on the road to success. During the pre-TV era when young Dan was coming of age, newspapers and radio were the only media. Print and broadcast reports of epic battles in faraway places with strange-sounding names were the first source of Rather's youthful aspirations to become a foreign correspondent. The obvious misery of the jobless and dispossessed also appears to have given his outlook an endearingly populist spin. In the meantime, the author experienced the joys, sorrows, and occasional hard knocks (including a year in bed with rheumatic fever) of a boyhood that, if a bit too impoverished to qualify as idyllic, was at least marked by more highs than lows. A prominent American's vivid and sensitive recollections of his deep roots in a past that is now all but beyond recall. (Eight pages of b&w photographs--not seen.) -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

In this memoir of his childhood years, Rather writes, "I'm happy I grew up in the times and places and with the parents, relatives, kids, coaches, bosses, and heros who populate my memories." Recollections of living in small-town Texas during the Great Depression and World War II with his extended family, schoolmates, and townsfolk fill Rather's book with anecdotes both engaging and warmly nostalgic. In a voice that is sure and strong from his years of broadcasting but also familiar and folksy as if he was telling his story from a porch rocker, Rather also describes his first work experiences and his long bout with and recovery from rheumatic fever. This is not the first autobiographical work from Rather; his best-selling The Camera Never Blinks ( LJ 6/1/77) effectively dealt with the inner workings of TV network news and set the stage for this successfully narrated preamble to his career. Recommended for popular collections. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 6/15/91.
- David Nudo , New York
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.