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Summary
Summary
The extraordinary life and legacy of legendary journalist Cokie Roberts--a trailblazer for women--remembered by her friends and family.
Through her visibility and celebrity, Cokie Roberts was an inspiration and a role model for innumerable women and girls. A fixture on national television and radio for more than 40 years, she also wrote five bestselling books focusing on the role of women in American history. She was portrayed on Saturday Night Live, name checked on the West Wing, and featured on magazine covers. She joked with Jay Leno, balanced a pencil on her nose for David Letterman, and was the answer to numerous crossword puzzle clues. Many dogs, and at least one dairy cow, were named for her. When the legendary 1980s Spy Magazine ran a diagram documenting all her connections with the headline "Cokie Roberts - Moderately Well-Known Broadcast Journalist or Center of the Universe" they were only half-joking.
Cokie had many roles in her lifetime: Daughter. Wife. Mother. Journalist. Advocate. Historian. Reflecting on her life, those closest to her remember her impressive mind, impish wit, infectious laugh, and the tenacity that sent her career skyrocketing through glass ceilings at NPR and ABC. They marvel at how she often put others before herself and cared deeply about the world around her. When faced with daily decisions and dilemmas, many still ask themselves the question, 'What Would Cokie Do'
In this loving tribute, Cokie's husband of 53 years and bestselling-coauthor Steve Roberts reflects not only on her many accomplishments, but on how she lived each day with a devotion to helping others. For Steve, Cokie's private life was as significant and inspirational as her public one. Her commitment to celebrating and supporting other women was evident in everything she did, and her generosity and passion drove her personal and professional endeavors. In Cokie, he has a simple goal: "To tell stories. Some will make you cheer or laugh or cry. And some, I hope, will inspire you to be more like Cokie, to be a good person, to lead a good life."
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Roberts (My Fathers' Houses) offers a moving testimony of the remarkable life and legacy of his wife, trailblazing journalist Cokie (1943--2019). Through depictions of her faith, family, work, writing, and friendships, Roberts shares engrossing anecdotes about his partner from their over 50 years together, as she "crash through glass ceilings... with her impressive mind, impish wit, and infectious laugh." As the daughter of powerful Louisiana politicians--her mother, Lindy Boggs, succeeded her husband, Hale, in Congress in 1973 after his death in a plane crash--politics and current events were a second language for Cokie. She later parlayed that fluency into a career as a highly respected journalist who covered Washington, D.C., for NPR and ABC and was unafraid to speak truth to power and ask tough questions. In addition to the early challenges he and Cokie encountered dating as an interfaith couple--in the face of resistance from their Jewish and Catholic parents, respectively--Roberts describes with admiration how, notwithstanding the constant demands and stresses of work, Cokie managed to be a devoted friend in times of need, as well as an attentive wife and mother, and bestselling author of histories that restored significant women to their merited prominence in the U.S.'s founding. This loving tribute is likely to gain the celebrated journalist a whole new crop of fans. (Nov.)
Kirkus Review
An adoring look at the trailblazing journalist who relentlessly promoted the women around her in a male-dominated field. Breast cancer claimed the life of Roberts, nee Boggs, on Sept. 17, 2019, a week after she and the author, her husband, celebrated their 53rd anniversary. Both of them were journalists--he had a long career at the New York Times and elsewhere--but Cokie's life was often more public, especially since she was the daughter of two influential members of Congress, Lindy and Hale Boggs. A graduate of Wellesley College, from whose ranks many other journalists would emerge, Cokie was staunchly Catholic. In the cultural milieu of the mid-1960s, her romance with the young, Jewish journalist Roberts was seemingly doomed, yet they persevered in the face of conservative families. At the time, it was assumed Cokie would follow her husband's career, which took them to New York and then Los Angeles. In LA, Cokie cut her teeth in a "one-man journalism school" run by her husband, who had to travel constantly while she took care of their children. Working as a stringer for CBS in Greece in the 1970s, she was on hand to cover the invasion of Cyprus, and TV executives began to show interest. She got her first full-time journalist job at NPR largely through the support of fellow Wellesley alumna Nina Totenberg and Linda Wertheimer. Eventually, Cokie turned her attention to politics on Capitol Hill, which was in her blood. She and her cohort changed the entire dynamic of the newsroom, insisting that it mattered how male politicians treated women. Her later career as an author of histories involved correcting the record about the Founding Mothers and Ladies of Liberty. The book is essentially a one-dimensional portrait, larded with quotes by friends and colleagues, very few of whom detract from the elegiac narrative, but it doesn't cloud the luster of Cokie's many accomplishments. An upbeat portrait of a productive life that was so important to journalists and women everywhere. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
In this adoring tribute to award-winning journalist, analyst, and writer Cokie Roberts, his multitalented, multifaceted wife of 53 years, veteran journalist Steven Roberts extols the skills and exposes the strengths she developed throughout her personal life and career. Readers learn of the bedrock values that supported Cokie in every endeavor, lessons gleaned as the child of the politically dynastic Claiborne family of Louisiana and from the marriage of her parents, Hale and Lindy Boggs, both of whom served in Congress. NPR listeners and Sunday morning show viewers long admired the uber-professional journalist and pundit who could provide keen insights based on her on-the-ground observations of war and legislative battles. What also emerges is her feminism and humanity and a rare blend of tough and tender that won her legions of loyal fans and the love of friends who counted on her heartfelt guidance through any crisis. An expansive personal companion to Lisa Napoli's Susan, Linda, Nina & Cokie (2021), Roberts' portrait demonstrates most clearly both the painful loss and the rich and enduring legacy of this pioneering journalist and compassionate human being.
Library Journal Review
Journalist Steven Roberts (My Father's House) writes lovingly and movingly of his 53-year marriage to Cokie Roberts, the journalist, author, and radio and TV personality, who succumbed to cancer in 2019. The daughter of politicians Hale and Lindy Boggs (U.S. Congressional representatives from New Orleans), Cokie was a writer of popular history who sought to insert the stories of women into the standard narrative, and she is also heralded as one of the "founding mothers" of National Public Radio. In this biography, her husband follows the same organizing principle she used in her 1998 best-seller We Are Our Mothers' Daughters; it's divided into chapters for each of the roles Cokie played in private and public life: wife, mother, friend, journalist, author, advocate. The book's theme is that Cokie's private life was as meaningful as her public life. Steven writes touching stories of Cokie's personal value system, her focus on motherhood, her Catholic faith, and her advocacy for women's rights; he also calls on personal reminiscences of Cokie from her family and friends. VERDICT Although at times bordering on the hagiographic, this is a highly readable and immensely heartwarming biography that should appeal to general readers interested in women's history, contemporary politics, media, and political reporting.--Marie M. Mullaney, Caldwell Coll., NJ
Table of Contents
| Introduction | p. 1 |
| Chapter 1 Wife | p. 19 |
| Chapter 2 Mother | p. 53 |
| Chapter 3 Journalist, the Early Years | p. 83 |
| Chapter 4 Journalist, in Full Flower | p. 113 |
| Chapter 5 Friend | p. 145 |
| Chapter 6 Storyteller | p. 187 |
| Chapter 7 Believer | p. 221 |
| Epilogue | p. 247 |
| Acknowledgments | p. 249 |
