A Question of Paternity: My Life as an Unaffiliated Reporter

PROBLEMS OF GENEALOGY AND PARENTHOOD FROM ENVELOPEBOOKS

David Tereshchuk leapt from a bleak childhood in a small town on the English-Scottish borders to a precocious high-flying career as a TV reporter, first in London, then in New York.

During his years as a journalist, he managed to elicit revealing statements from tyrants and the oppressed, but there was one person he never persuaded to open up to him—his mother.

He wanted to know just one thing: who his father was. It wasn't until he was in his 50s that she confided to having been raped, aged 15, by a priest – and even then, not all her information was reliable.

Alongside his career, the search for his mother’s abuser has haunted him, adding further layers of stress to a life already marked by alcoholism and insecurity.

This is his astonishing story, one that deserves to sit alongside those of Tom Brokaw, Peter Jennings and David Brinkley, and another revelatory title from EnvelopeBooks.

CARL BERNSTEIN

Investigative Reporter, Co-Author, All the President’s Men

David Tereshchuk is one of the great reporters of our era, covering global conflicts and the leaders who have initiated them, from patriots to despots. Now, using the skills he has honed as an investigative journalist, he may have found his most important subject yet: the real story of what happened in his own young life. Tereshchuk’s quest for truth, about both his immediate family and the stories he’s covered around the world, resonates through the pages of A Question of Paternity, an exceptional memoir that is at once moving, shocking and undeniably heroic.

NEAL ASCHERSON

Journalist and Author, Stone Voices: The Search for Scotland;

The Book of Lech Wałesa

The compelling, often heart-breaking story of one man’s search for the stories behind the world’s conflicts and for the dark secret of his own birth. He recalls and reflects on many scenes of horror, but the connecting thread is one of haunting suspense. It’s his never-ending effort to find out who made his fifteen-year-old mother pregnant and became his secret father.

CARY BARBOR

Host, National Public Radio Book Club (WGCU Radio)

Tereshchuk’s vivid writing lands you smack in the middle of a fascinating and heart-rending quest.

LAWRENCE BLOCK

Crime novelist, Matthew Scudder series

David Tereshchuk spent the past half-century chasing through every hot spot and hellhole in the world. Now he’s written a memoir and it’s everything I’d hoped it would be—and here’s the surprise: the richest story of many in it is his very own.

RICK MOODY

Novelist, The Ice Storm

Even-handed and reportorial but also deeply moving, complex and very sad. Tereshchuk is committed to the truth even when the truth is challenging. It’s refreshing to read a work so knowing, so honest, so wise.

DAVID W. DUNLAP

Newspaper Historian and Author, From Abyssinian to Zion

A harrowing journey, rich in detail, shaped by transcendent longing. I found myself engrossed by the account of Bloody Sunday.

David Tereshchuk (b. 1948) is a journalist working mainly in the broadcast media but also for magazines and newspapers (the Guardian, The New York Times, New Statesman). He spent two decades with British commercial television, reporting, producing and making documentaries, before moving to the US, where he worked for ABC, CBS, CNN, Discovery, A&E and The History Channel. His earliest work included coverage of sectarian violence in Northern Ireland, and then extended into international issues, especially in the Third World. Since 2012 he has been a producer and correspondent for PBS, concentrating on ethical issues. He broadcasts a weekly public radio dispatch of media criticism, The Media Beat, and writes an online column with the same name, at www.themediabeat.us. He has also advised global corporations, governments, non-profits and international organizations on their media and communications policies. A graduate of Oxford University, he has been a US citizen since 2002 and lives in New York City and Ireland. He has been honored by Britain’s Royal Television Society with its Social Documentary Award, and by the British Association for the Advancement of Science with its Television Award.