As I Knew Him: My Dad, Rod Serling

According to his daughter, Anne, writer Rod Serling, the creator of the critically acclaimed television series, The Twilight Zone, was a caring, fun-loving father when he was not hard at work. Injured in combat during WWII, Serling turned to writing as a means of dealing with his trauma; consequently, his work had a strong moralistic streak that was, at times, fiercely critical of racism and discrimination. Having garnered the reputation of "TV's Angry Young Man" after seeing some of his work censored by the CBS Network, Serling turned to the sci-fi genre because, as he put it, "a Martian can say things that a Republican or a Democrat can't." Even as The Twilight Zone, which debuted in 1959, was in full swing, Serling managed to balance the hectic, if unhealthy, show business lifestyle, with quality time spent as a family man, best exemplified by family summers at their cottage in upstate New York. His death, due to heart attack at the age of 50, left the family, and in particular Anne, "floating through space where there is no logic, no gravity," but, as this memoir makes plain, in his life and art he is remembered fondly. (May)