I WISH I HAD READ THIS BOOK SOONER

This is a top autobiography. I don't usually care for biographies and delayed reading it even though it got a Pulitzer Prize and the author died last July. Someone loaned me the book and I loved it. It is chronological and begins with her parents' families, her birth and early life which takes the reader through college. Life really begins when she returns to the family and her father's struggle with the Washington Post.

It's an interesting window on a wealthy life style and the advantages. However wealth does not protect anyone from the emotional mishaps of life. She marries Phillip Graham who appears brilliant and wonderful but the seeds of tragedy have been sown already. Kathryn is candid all through the book but I sense there was even more painful events she only hinted at.

This is not just an autobiography but the story of a great newspaper and of our country through triumphs and sad events. The book covers Watergate and the frightening events for the newspaper. It was the one of the two most interesting parts of the book. The other was the union problems of the newspaper. When the pressmen's union went out on strike the paper was prepared for a week or two of everyone doing double duty of their own job and a union members job. It demonstrated the courage of everyone, especially Katherine, who worked to keep the paper viable. Katherine worked the classified ads taking calls, and she even wrapped the newspapers that had to be mailed. I believe this was the single most impressive part of the book.

In addition to her newspaper publisher career the book is filled with accounts of personal joys, struggles, tragedies and regrets. It is such a warm human story.