The Times of My Life and My Life with The Times
 Max Frankel
 (Reviewed by The Editor - Rebecca Brown)
 1999 Random House NY USA
  ISBN: 0679448241
Amazon's Value Price is: $29.95

In this distinctive memoir, The New York Times's top correspondent tells his life story the way he lived it - in tandem with the big news stories of our time. From his boyhood in Nazi Germany to New York & immigrant life & beyond international boundaries as a roving reporter.
 
This is an extraordinary autobiography - lean in language, replete with insights from the Fourth Estate & complete with the front pages of The New York Times that affected this writer.

The black & white photos of his family & his progress from bare baby upon a bear rug to the three generations of merchants standing at their store front door moments before Hitler's troops took over; from clean, chubby first grader to nationless passports; from Pop after he finally made it to America from Siberia to the english teacher who ignited the author's passion to read by exciting him to write, a skill & a trade that molded him into the formidable reporter & editor he was to become.

From his early years as a student journalist at Columbia University, to his years in the military & Viet Nam to his wedding & his parents in their formal clothes; from the couple's flight to the Soviet Union to be the first second reporter ever sanctioned by the Presidium & later his interviews with Khruschev, Castro & trailing a president into China.

Max Frankel's sapience into the people & workings of the forty-year Cold War evoke a time only infrequently remembered yet somehow, as I read his fast-paced takes, memories flickered by. I find it remarkable how much I was affected by the headlines, reporting & photos of The New York Times, perused in London at a friend's home whose stepfather was with the American Consulate.

The second batch of photos has him back in America at last & includes those of his children, young & grown. Happy candid shots of himself with his colleagues & his new wife at The Times's fabled offices.

I enjoyed Max Frankel's observations & insights into both his trade & the people about whom he reported. Perhaps I'm too sedated by the unctuousness of television anchor men because when Max Frankel discusses someone like Richard Nixon during his presidency or the ascension of Ronald Reagan, who loathed reporters & especially those from The Times, I am mesmerized by the lack of wool over my eyes. Max Frankel tells it like I like to hear it, detached & with clear language & historical perspectives.

This is a fascinating review of the past sixty years - the highlights as seen, recorded & remembered by someone to whom presidents, premiers & dictators spoke, revealed their strategies & reviled their counterparts. It's all politics, a wonderful American success story, with a hearty dash of the personal thrown in to the stew & a fine tasting brew it is.
(12/19/99)

Rebecca