On Her Trail: My Mother, Nancy Dickerson, TV News' First Woman Star

John Dickerson's kind and honest account of his mother, Nancy Dickerson, makes a fine read. His book is no "Mommie Dearest." He exposes the hypocrisy of the male dominated Washington media world of the sixties and seventies when men and women were held to vastly different standards. Dickerson, like his mother, is smart and knows he is not likely to be "a perfect parent." His mature sense of humor informs, entertains and forgives. This is a "must-read" for working parents who know how difficult it is to have a job and kids.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book on many levels. As someone who is catching up on my history of politics while paying closer attention to the present-day administration and world events, I loved the bits of history woven into this wonderful, messy, realistic story of a son's relationship with a famous, influential mother. As a mother of young sons who has struggled with the issues of work and raising a family, hearing a son's point of view was particularly compelling. John doesn't give any easy answers to the modern conundrum of how to balance work and family, nor does he place the responsibility solely on women; he makes it an issue for all parents, male and female. As he says near the end of the book: "Our story should not be mined for any confirmation about whether a woman should choose work or family. Those aren't the lessons I was looking for. I have tried to figure out my role as a person and a parent, figure out how to get the balance right between achieving something durable in the public realm and doing something important and genuine in the private one. How do I avoid the anxiety, indecision and regret of getting the mix wrong? I don't see that task any differently for my wife just because she's a woman who works and is a mother.... [We] have a better chance of balance than Mom did, in part because of what Mom and other women did to allow women the choice to shape a broader identity." No mother would want her child to take the path John did to find peace with his mother, but as a woman I can appreciate the agony of the choices Nancy Dickerson had to make between doing something she absolutely loved and needed for self-fulfillment, and taking care of the people she loved. There are no easy answers here for how to strike that balance, but it does make a case for every person's right to make a difference in the world, in a way that he or she chooses. Hopefully the decisions are less painful for all involved now than they were 30 years ago because we have more options and more social acceptance of broader life roles. Read the book for the insider's look at politics in the 60s and 70s, for a great story of a teenager who rebels against his mother and then finds his way back to her, and for a look at a strong lady who did a lot of good in both small and large ways.

On Her Trail is a wonderfully written, beautifully constructed book. John Dickerson's memoir is no mere chronology of life with his famous mother, it is a carefully drawn portrait that makes us feel about Nancy Dickerson exactly as he does at various stages of his life. It's brave for an author, and braver still for a son, to capture his subject from unflattering angles, but the overall effect is far from harsh. In fact, just the opposite. Dickerson's tone is intimate, but this book never reads like it was written from a psychiatrist's couch. Instead, it is an honest, accessible story of the journey we all take to understand our parents as complete human beings. That Dickerson's mother was a beloved figure from a time when we liked to keep our icons one-dimensional made his journey more challenging, perhaps, but Dickerson proves more than equal to that challenge. This is a very readable book, regardless of which Dickerson you're a fan of. Enjoy!

I would definitely recommend this book for anyone 1) who is interested in politics and media or 2) who likes unusual and engrossing memoirs. And if you fit both categories, then you will really love it. Dickerson finds a nice balance between telling us about his mother the network star and his mother the mother. I was not only emotionally engrossed in the downs and ups of the author's relationship with his mom, but I also learned a lot about politics and the press in the JFK and LBJ era.

On Her Trail is a must read for anyone with an interest in Washington society, the mechanisms of national political life, women's history, or the evolution of modern journalism. It is also a model of supple, elegant story-telling. Journalist John Dickerson has laced his biographical memoir with wit and pathos, turning the book into a real page-turner. He traces his painful but intertwined relationship with his mother, tv news pioneer Nancy Dickerson, a role model for generations of ambitious women inspired by her career as a female national network news correspondent. Dickerson uses the tools of his trade to explore his mother's life from many vantage points. By telling "both sides of the story," he recalls his "Mom" through the eyes of an emotionally neglected child while sustaining empathy for her throughout his narrative. Anyone who has read John Dickerson's columns at Slate Magazine [...], knows he is a master of Washington's elite ethnography: analyzing the unspoken rules of the game and the skills of politicians attempting to negotiate these rules. He got his initial training at Merrywood, his parent's mansion, opening doors for galas frequented by Washington's leading power couples. As the book progresses, we flash in and out of Nancy Dickerson's adventures on Capitol Hill and on the presidential campaign trail---experiences compared and contrasted with those of her son, for many years a Time political and White House correspondent. I got an almost visceral exposure to the way news is gathered and had many laughs and tears along the way.