Only Son

From Barnes & Noble

The Barnes & Noble Review
In an impressive and emotional memoir, former national television news anchor John Johnson recounts how a poor African-American boy rose all the way to the top of his profession, only to deliberately walk away from the glitz and glamour.

Johnson grew up in serious poverty in New York City. Despite the obstacle of an abusive father, he was able to form a strong and nurturing bond with his mother, and her help in his education (she methodically read the classics to him) led him to a top-flight high school and college. From there, he moved on to a career as a successful producer and reporter for network television. When he was picked as an anchor, he seemingly had it all.

Meanwhile, his personal life was in chaos. Three marriages failed, and he was not the ideal father he had intended to be. When his parents fell terminally ill, he quit his coveted job to spend their last months with them -- a decision that led to some surprising reassessments of both his family and his own life.

Anyone who wonders why successful people sometimes choose to remove themselves from the limelight will find some fascinating answers in this heartfelt memoir. (Stephanie Martin)

Andre Watts

[A] self-probing, brutally frank, intimately revealing, lovingly told memoir...

Quincy Jones

...writes with honesty, eloquence and real heart about making peace with one's family and with oneself.

Lalita Tademy

...raw and compelling memoir...a complex look at both the inspiration and burdens generated by family...

Publishers Weekly

When Johnson discovered that his father had lung cancer, he quit his high-profile anchor position at WNBC to be by his father's side. This momentous decision impels Johnson to explore his own life specifically, the intense love-hate dynamic between his abusive father, "Black Jack," and his alcoholic mother, Irene in a narrative frightening in its emotional intensity. Those seeking a charming memoir of Harlem and Bedford-Stuyvesant in the 1950s and '60s, or a juicy expos of television journalism, had best look elsewhere. This is a close-grained and often claustrophobic portrait of one family's close-to-tragic life. The outside world, filled with gangs, schemers and racists, offers no escape for the Johnsons, and thus seems unimportant in their suffocating drama. Johnson does not overly elaborate on the links between his family's harsh living circumstances and his mother's depression, his father's frustration or his own unrelenting ambition; instead, he evokes a child's incomprehension. "His outbursts bewildered me because I did nothing to provoke them. I didn't smoke or steal or get anyone pregnant. I came home at the appointed hour. I toed the line in every way.... My father was like a foreign crossword puzzle. I couldn't read the clues, much less solve the damn thing." Thrust into a caretaker position at much too young an age, Johnson shouldered too much of the family's guilty weight a role that explains his relentless ambition, but which also crippled him emotionally. "I was the son of an alcoholic and a sexual predator, yet their message came through: I was to be something! I didn't become a mugger or a drug addict. Some good things must have happened in our household, and my dad was a part of them, too." Johnson, writing with Coplon (who contributed to Tina Sinatra's My Father's Daughter), has created an impressive portrait of tenacity, fury and ambition, and reconciliation within an inescapable family frame. (June) Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.