Parenting & Families

The Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist and former White House correspondent wanted to be a great novelist; he became a reporter and memoirist instead. His newest book, The Good Times, details his career during his 20s and 30s. He joins Fresh Air to talk about his frustrations as a Washington reporter, a particularly memorable interview with President Johnson, and how his writing changed as a columnist.

As a child, the author traveled from her maternal home in Philadelphia to visit her father in North Carolina. He was a paraplegic as a result of a car accident. Campbell's new memoir details the complexities of their relationship.

The German-born writer's memoir documents her parents' involvement in World War II. Reichel grew up in Hamburg after the end of the war, as the country dealt with the guilt of its Nazi past. She says the pain of that history was felt by all citizens, even if it was deeply repressed.

Coppola has written the music for several films of his son, Francis Ford Coppola, including the Godfather I and II. He has written a new score for the silent film Napoleon; he'll soon conduct a live performance of that music during a screening at Radio City Music Hall.

The French filmmaker started making movies before the New Wave movement, and without having a vast knowledge of film history. Her latest, Kung Fu Master, is about forty-year-old woman who falls in love with an adolescent boy. Varda cast her son as the male lead.

Author and humorist Paul Rudnick sees shopping as a reward, a way of exploring different cultures, and an enjoyable activity in its own right. His new novel, inspired by his many shopping trips with his mother, is called I'll Take It.

Novelist Richard Price suffered from spinal cancer; surgery left him wheelchair-bound. Instead of taking pain medicine, he opted for hypnosis, which stirred long-forgotten memories of his early life. He turned those recollections into a new memoir, called Clear Pictures.

The feminist scholar looks at how women in dual-career partnerships are often responsible for most of the unpaid domestic work. Hochschild joins Fresh Air to discuss why men don't share this labor equally with their partners, and the toll this inequity takes on working women.

Film Critic Stephen Schiff reviews "Parenthood," a comedy starring Steve Martin and Rick Moranis, and directed by Ron Howard. Howard's previous films include two hits and a flop: "Splash," "Cocoon" and ""Willow."

Screenwriter and producer Lowell Ganz. He co-wrote the script to "Parenthood," the new comedy starring Steve Martin. He also co-wrote the script for "Splash," which introduced Tom Hanks and Daryl Hannah. Both films were directed by friend and collaborator Ron Howard. Ganz also was the supervising producer of the popular TV series "Happy Days," starring Henry Winkler as The Fonz.

Poet Li-Young Lee. He was born into a family of political refugees from China. They traveled throughout Asia for years to escape persecution. In the mid-60's his family moved to Pennsylvania. Lee's poems reflect his struggle with his Chinese heritage - a heritage to which he is bound but in which he never lived. His poems also reflect Lee's attempt to come to terms with the powerful and mythic figure of his father, who was alternately imprisoned and revered for his beliefs.

Biographer Michael Holroyd. His 1988 book "The Search for Love," on the early life of George Bernard Shaw, was called one of the "three great literary biographies of the century." Holroyd continues Shaw's biography in the second volume titled "The Pursuit of Power." In it, Holroyd writes about Shaw's hard-won battle for success in the London theatre. And he details Shaw's political battles for Fabian socialism and Irish Home Rule. Holroyd established his reputation as a biographer with a two volume book on the life of Lytton Strachey.

British novelist Margaret Drabble. She made a name for herself in the early 60's as one of the first woman writers to make domestic life the focus of her novels. But after the publication of "The Middle Ground" in 1980, Drabble took a seven-year break from fiction to concentrate on revising "The Oxford Companion to English Literature." Since then she has published two more novels, "The Radiant Way" and "A Natural Curiosity," which reflect a shift in focus to more external, societal concerns.

Dmitri Nabokov. Son of writer Vladimir Nabokov and a writer himself, as well as a translator of his father's works. He has just edited a volume of his father's letters dating from 1940-1977. The letters trace Nabokov's struggles beginning with his arrival in America from Russia, to his legal battles over censorship of his most famous novel, "Lolita."

Book critic John Leonard reviews "Isara" (ih-sare-ah) Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka's (wolly Soy-enk-ka) memoir about his father.

Poet Michael Ryan. Ryan's poems have earned him a Guggenheim Fellowship and a nomination for the National Book Award. He's just released his third collection of poems, called "God Hunger."

Book critic John Leonard reviews "Near the Magician: A Memoir of My Father, Edmund Wilson." It's a memoir of the great 20th century critic written by his daughter, Rosalind Baker Wilson.

Novelist Anne Lamott. Her latest novel, "All New People", is an account of growing up in a Northern California railroad town in the midst of the cultural dislocations of the 1960's. (Interview by Sedge Thomson)

Author Linda P. Brown is co-author of "Birthbond: Reunions between Birthparents and Adoptees--What happens After." In the 1960's BROWN gave up her own daughter for adoption. The book is based on interviews with 30 birthmothers -- from a variety of backgrounds -- who were reunited with their adult children. And it looks at the challenges these mothers face after the reunion. "Birthbond" is published by New Horizon Press, Far Hills, N.J. (Interview by Sedge Thomson)

Writer Le Anne Schreiber. A successful journalist at the New York Times, and their first woman sports editor, Schreiber left her career at the Times to go live in rural upstate New York. Then she found out her mother had cancer and was given only a few months to live. Schreiber kept a journal during the period of her mother's illness until she died. This journal served as the basis for Schreiber's memoir about her mother's death, "Midstream: The Story of a Mother's Death and a Daughter's Renewal."