Big Russ and Me: Father and Son: Lessons of Life, by Tim Russert from Parent Kid Books.com

Veteran newsman and Meet the Press moderator Tim Russert is known for his direct and unpretentious style and in this charming memoir he explains why. Russert's father is profiled as a plainspoken World War II veteran who worked two blue-collar jobs while raising four kids in South Buffalo but the elder Russert's lessons on how to live an honest, disciplined, and ethical life are shown to be universal. Big Russ and Me, a sort of Greatest Generation meets Tuesdays with Morrie, could easily have become a sentimental pile of mush with a son wistfully recalling the wisdom of his beloved dad. But both Russerts are far too down-to-earth to let that happen and the emotional content of the book is made more direct, accessible, and palatable because of it. The relationship between father and son, contrary to what one would think of as essential to a riveting memoir, seems completely healthy and positive as Tim, the academically gifted kid and later the esteemed TV star and political operative relies on his old man, a career sanitation worker and newspaper truck driver, for advice. Big Russ and Me also traces Russert's life from working-class kid to one of broadcast journalism's top interviewers by introducing various influential figures who guided him along the way, including Jesuit teachers, nuns, his dad's drinking buddies, and, most notably, the late New York Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, whom Russert helped get elected in 1976. Plenty of entertaining anecdotes are served up along the way from schoolyard pranks to an attempt to book Pope John Paul II on the Today Show. Though not likely to revolutionize modern thought, Big Russ and Me will provide fathers and sons a chance to reflect on lessons learned between generations. --Charlie Williams

Reviews:

Light nostalgia

This is a sweet book that brought back many memories of my own childhood in the 60's.I liked that. But this book was so much sweetness that I stopped believing it. I felt that the author did not want to say anything that might offend his father. Because of that, I began to get bored reading about these lives. It was definitely heart-felt, though. Too much so for me.

good intentions taken too far

Even though I am chauvinistically inclined to rave about anything involving Buffalo, New York, (especially a book that mentions one of my cousins several times) I would not recommend this book to anyone.

The first half of the book revolves around Russert's childhood. As nostalgic as I would love to be, the Russert's good-old-days Horatio Alger saga is too saccharine to digest. By sugarcoating everything, he missed the opportunity to put his life into any context other than his father and Russert's catholic schooling. (It is very interesting that even a drinking while driving story becomes nostalgic - because apparently beer did not impair driving ability in the good old days.)

In the second portion of the book, we are apparently supposed to be impressed with Russert's name dropping, and the humble way he tries to pretend that he is not name dropping.

Tim Russert Cleary wrote this book for his father. In that respect, it is a thoughtful and touching gift. Unfortunately, it has no a literary, historical, or cultural value for the rest of us. Leave it as an honorable personal gesture to his father; but do not bother to read it yourself.

It is no "Tuesdays With Morrie"

I was travelling on a long trip in the car and rented this book on tape. It is repetitive drivel about how great the author's generation and the one that came before him is. It is like listening to someone else's boring father talk about "you kids today" and "when i was your age". I returned the book after pushing myself through the first two CDs. I would only recommend it for people who need an ego boost and to reminisce about the "good ole days". Not for younger people looking for words of wisdom.

American Journalism: It's the Celebrity, Stupid!

This isn't a book about Big Russ or life lessons. It's a book about a Big TV Star. Tim Russert. But because he calls himself a journalist, he disguises this autobiography as a biography about his dad, borrowing heavily from the ideas of NBC colleague Tom Brokaw's "greatest generation" story. Only Brokaw already did it. And like Brokaw before him, Russert has at his disposal, an enormous media network, including tv, cable, radio and countless friends in the world of newspapers and magazines at his disposal, to market the book. All around a good deal both for NBC and Tim Russert.

What gives Russert the right to preash about parenting?

Tim Russert's recent performance on Meet the Press, where he had the audacity to challenge the emotional outburst of Mr. Broussard in the wake of Katrina brings into question just what the "life lessons" were that his father taught him. Aside from its callousness, it reveals fundamental flaws in Tim Russert's character that if attributable to his upbringing, beg the question, what right does Tim Russert have to laud his father's influence in his book, Big Russ and Me?

Mr. Russert's so called dogged journalistic pursuit of Mr. Broussard was founded in the findings of web blogs. Is that sound journalism? Was there anything to be gained by challenging the exact date and time of what was a tragic event? Is he such a shill for the white house that it is more important to desecrate the memory of someone's mother in order to protect the administration from blame?

No, nothing justifies Mr. Russert abusing the position he holds in the media except the selfish pursuit of trying to burnish his own image and make a name for himself.

Since that seems to be the rationale, than Big Russ has failed as a father and a parent, turning out a loathsome individual with little morality, honor or integrity. Why anyone would read a book that celebrates that sort of parenting is ludicrous.

Mr. Russert, you should be ashamed for yourself and the memory of your father. Most of America is.

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Big Russ and Me: Father and Son: Lessons of Life

Tim Russert

Miramax Books, 2005-05-11

Price: $13.95

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