cover image Rough Draft: A Memoir

Rough Draft: A Memoir

Katy Tur. Atria/One Signal, $28 (272p) ISBN 978-1-982118-18-1

MSNBC journalist Tur (Unbelievable) returns with a high-flying account of her unconventional, globe-trotting life in journalism. As the daughter of helicopter journalists Bob and Marika Tur, who famously captured both the O.J. chase and the Reginald Denny beating, Tur lived an extravagant youth in the 1990s. But it was far from stable; while her dashing dad was “always the hero,” she writes, he was also a threatening man known for his violent fits of rage and abuse—“It’s a miracle you can walk straight,” a news director later told Tur after realizing who she was. As her parents’ star fell in the aughts, Tur eclipsed them, rising from the Weather Channel in 2009 (“My prep work involved... watching the movie Twister”) to working as a foreign correspondent and eventually landing her own show on MSNBC. In writing that’s by turns introspective and bitingly funny (“Journalism is the world’s best career for avoiding your own problems”), she offers readers a candid look at her growth as both an anchor, learning to hold “power to account,” and as an individual finding her way through life’s vicissitudes—from supporting her father through their gender transition to parenting her own children with CBS Mornings coanchor Tony Dokoupil. Fans will find it a thrilling ride. (June)