Lone Star: The Extraordinary Life and Times of Dan Rather [Hardcover]

Alan Weisman has come as close as anyone to unraveling one of the big mysteries of the television age: who is the real Dan Rather? Weisman has devoted much time, energy, and talent to that question, and this book is a fascinating read.
--Robert Pierpoint, former CBS News correspondent

There is no career in modern television journalism that is more fascinating, complicated, controversial, or accomplished than that of Dan Rather, and there is no one who has focused the attention of colleagues, TV writers, competitors, and, of course, critics to a similar degree over the last twenty-five years. Alan Weisman's lively account of this remarkable life explains why the quest to understand Rather has remained so vital and important.
--Verne Gay, television critic, Newsday

This book is an attempt to take a few steps back from Memogate and examine the whole picture -- the scope and breadth of Dan Rather's life, career, and times. If he mattered enough to be watched by untold millions of people for fifty years on television, then his story matters enough to be told as fully as possible.
--From Lone Star: The Extraordinary Life and Times of Dan Rather

* Dan Rather refused to be interviewed for “Lone Star: The Extraordinary Life and Times of Dan Rather,” telling author Alan Weisman that “there's nothing in this for me.”
Not so. This short, pugnacious and highly entertaining biography thumps many of Rather's enemies, of which there is no shortage.
Weisman, a retired CBS News writer and producer, takes a brief look at Rather's rise from humble Texas stock. Rather grew up sickly but tough in the same Houston-area neighborhood that produced racing legend A.J. Foyt. His struggle with rheumatic fever led to one of his lifelong mottos: “Never stay down.”
Rather had a wolverine's tenacity from the start and sometimes got more credit than due, as when Walter Cronkite hailed him for first reporting Jlól