From Tom Brokaw, the bestselling author of The Greatest Generation, comes a powerful memoir of a year of dramatic change—a year spent battling cancer and reflecting on a long, happy, and lucky life.
Tom Brokaw has led a fortunate life, with a strong marriage and family, many friends, and a brilliant journalism career culminating in his twenty-two years as anchor of the NBC Nightly News and as bestselling author. But in the summer of 2013, when back pain led him to the doctors at the Mayo Clinic, his run of good luck was interrupted. He received shocking news: He had multiple myeloma, a treatable but incurable blood cancer. Friends had always referred to Brokaw’s “lucky star,” but as he writes in this inspiring memoir, “Turns out that star has a dimmer switch.”
Brokaw takes us through all the seasons and stages of this surprising year, the emotions, discoveries, setbacks, and struggles—times of denial, acceptance, turning points, and courage. After his diagnosis, Brokaw began to keep a journal, approaching this new stage of his life in a familiar role: as a journalist, determined to learn as much as he could about his condition, to report the story, and help others facing similar battles. That journal became the basis of this wonderfully written memoir, the story of a man coming to terms with his own mortality, contemplating what means the most to him now, and reflecting on what has meant the most to him throughout his life.
Brokaw also pauses to look back on some of the important moments in his career: memories of Nelson Mandela, the Dalai Lama, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the morning of September 11, 2001, in New York City, and more. Through it all, Brokaw writes in the warm, intimate, natural voice of one of America’s most beloved journalists, giving us Brokaw on Brokaw, and bringing us with him as he navigates pain, procedures, drug regimens, and physical rehabilitation. Brokaw also writes about the importance of patients taking an active role in their own treatment, and of the vital role of caretakers and coordinated care.
Generous, informative, and deeply human, A Lucky Life Interrupted offers a message of understanding and empowerment, resolve and reality, hope for the future and gratitude for a well-lived life.
From the Hardcover edition.
Being honest about yourself Tom Brokaw had every joy and luxury that most human beings would dream about. Then the famous day hits and you are told that you have a traumatic condition. You are anything but smart because you don’t understand what you have been hit with but you realize that you are not going to like. You don’t even know how you are going to survive and how the I act will play for you. Tom Brokaw was very fortunate to have a strong wife and very supportive and decisive family. Most tragedies don’t have a…
A profound look into the life of the great Anchorman Tom Brokaw. It’s a great read!! Tom Brokaw has always been one of my favorite news broad casters. This book is a journey into his struggles with cancer and how he accomplished his goal of beating cancer and not being “broken” by it.
“To remain unbroken.” Tom Brokaw, seventy-five, is one of America’s most revered newsmen. He was in Germany when the the Berlin Wall came down, interviewed Nelson Mandela upon his release from prison, witnessed the horrors and heroics of September 11th, and was on the scene during other transformative events both in the U. S. and abroad. He has been blessed with a happy marriage to Meredith, his high-school sweetheart and wife of fifty-one years. Tom and Meredith have three devoted daughters and five grandchildren…