In this moving and engrossing memoir, veteran television news producer Richard Cohen relates a life spent dealing with multiple sclerosis, first diagnosed when he was 25 years old and just getting started in the competitive world of broadcast journalism. As his career progressed, he struggled not only with the disease but the touchy question of how much of the truth about himself to share with colleagues and potential employers. Cohen spent much of his life running from the onset of the disease's symptoms from which his father and grandmother also suffered. Defiantly, he took challenging, sometimes extremely dangerous assignments in Lebanon, Poland, and on the domestic political campaign trail, even as his body deteriorated. But over the course of Blindsided, it becomes apparent that illness had actually built Cohen up even as it ripped him apart. Without the physical and mental toughness required to navigate a journalist's life while fighting back loss of eyesight and poor equilibrium, it's doubtful that the flaky kid we meet early in the book would transform into the award-winning professional Cohen eventually becomes. His marriage to journalist Meredith Vieira, every bit his equal as both newshound and deadpan cynical comic, gave Cohen the stable family life and children he needed when MS made it impossible to continue in a traditional news job. But two bouts with colon cancer in the late 1990s tested his resolve and his family's patience. While Cohen is both courageous and inspirational, Blindsided is not the overly sentimental clichéd tale that stories about fighting illness often become. He refuses to paint himself as the hero (except when making fun of his own failure to be heroic) and recounts in detail the strain that he put on his marriage and children. Stories such as this often end with the memoirist arriving at a state of peace and mental clarity but again Cohen remains more compelling and credible by offering no such pat answers. As with most people fighting to preserve their families, their lives, and their bodies, Richard Cohen's is an ongoing struggle. --John Moe


From Publishers Weekly
In 1972, when he was 25, Cohen, an up-and-coming television journalist, was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, a disease for which there is no cure. In this wrenching memoir, he tells how he has for the past 30 years succeeded in his determination to "cope and to hope." For a long time, he hid his condition from friends and co-workers, taking on dangerous assignments for CBS in Poland, Lebanon and El Salvador even though his mobility and vision were impaired. He became a senior producer at CBS, and although he eventually quit the station in 1987 because he felt it was pandering to commercial and political pressures, he worked as a producer for PBS, CNN and Fox until he left TV in the late 1990s to become a writer and teacher. In spite of his illness, he also married and had three children. He nearly lost his courage in 1999 when he learned that he had colon cancer, but after two operations and the realization that despair and anger would drive his family away, he come to grips with this, too. In painful detail, he chronicles the progress of multiple sclerosis - the increasing numbness in his hands and legs and the resultant falls, loss of vision to the point where he is now legally blind and, lately, mental confusion. Nevertheless, he writes: "These pages are not about suffering.... This book is about surviving and flourishing, rising above fear and self-doubt and, of course, anger." His wife, Meredith Vieira, a well-known television personality, has been portrayed in popular magazines as a martyr who bears a terrible burden. Cohen proves that nothing could be further from the truth. First serial rights to People magazine.Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.


From Booklist
In his mid-twenties, Cohen was an up-and-coming television journalist. He had been covering the Nixon presidency and was working on a documentary series hosted by Robert MacNeil and Jim Lehrer. Then he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, an affliction his father had been battling for decades, and he has spent the last 30 years discovering all sorts of interesting and frightening things about himself. Blindness came as something of a shock, waking up one morning and no longer being able to see out of his right eye (although the impaired vision didn't stop him from reporting on fighting in Beirut and El Salvador in the early '80s). Then there were the operations, the cancer diagnoses, the progressive physical deterioration. But, despite all this, Cohen's story is an uplifting one, primarily because he has such a realistic take on his own life. In the latter part of the book, he writes with great joy about his wife (television host Meredith Viera) and his children; ultimately, his is a story of overcoming adversity and not being beaten by it--a traditional-enough theme for a book, perhaps, but still an important one, if told in the right way. It is here. David Pitt
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


Book Description

Illness came calling when Richard M. Cohen was twenty-five years old. He was a young television news producer with expectations of a limitless future, and his foreboding that his health was not quite right turned into the harsh reality that something was very wrong when he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. For thirty years Cohen has done battle with MS, only to be ambushed by two bouts of colon cancer at the end of the millennium. And yet, he has writ-ten a hopeful book about celebrating life and coping with chronic illness.

"Welcome to my world," writes Cohen, "where I carry around dreams, a few diseases, and the determination to live life my way. This book is my daily conversation with myself, a chronicle of the struggles in that exotic place just north of the neck. At the moment, my attitude checks out well. I do believe I'm winning."

Autobiographical at its roots, reportorial, and expansive, Blindsided explores the effects of illness on raising three children and on his relationship with his wife, Meredith Vieira (host of ABC's The View and the syndicated Who Wants To Be A Millionaire). Cohen tackles the nature of denial and resilience, the ins and outs of the struggle for emotional health, and the redemptive effects of a loving family. And while he may not have chosen to live with illness, illness did choose him. Written with grace, humor, and lyrical prose, Blindsided presents a life brimming over with accomplishment and joy in adversity.


About the Author
Richard M. Cohen is a former senior producer for CBS News and CNN, a three-time Emmy Award winner, and the recipient of numerous honors in journalism. He is a contributor to the "Health and Fitness" section of the New York Times and lives with his family outside New York City.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Richard M. Cohen was a twenty-five-year-old television news producer when he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. For thirty years he has battled MS, along with two recent bouts of colon cancer. In Blindsided he chronicles a life characterized by accomplishment and adversity.

As Cohen writes, "This book is about surviving and flourishing, rising above fear and self-doubt and, of course, anger." With honesty and humor, he explores the effects of illness on his relationship with his wife, Meredith Vieira (host of ABC's The View), and their three children. He tackles the nature of denial and resilience, the struggle for emotional health, and the redemptive effects of a loving family. Blindsided is about celebrating life and coping with chronic illness, seen through the lens of one man's inspiring story.

About the Author:

Richard M. Cohen is a former senior producer for CBS News and CNN, a three-time Emmy Award winner, and the recipient of numerous honors in journalism. He is a contributor to the "Health and Fitness" section of the New York Times and lives with his family outside New York City.

FROM THE CRITICS

The New York Times

Blindsided is a powerful memoir, tough in the way Cohen's old news bosses would have wanted it to be tough. It doesn't flinch and it doesn't whine. Its tone is more of self-horror than self-pity. Its incredulity matches Job's: ''Hast thou not poured me out as milk, and curdled me like cheese?'' — D. T. Max

Publishers Weekly

In 1972, when he was 25, Cohen, an up-and-coming television journalist, was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, a disease for which there is no cure. In this wrenching memoir, he tells how he has for the past 30 years succeeded in his determination to "cope and to hope." For a long time, he hid his condition from friends and co-workers, taking on dangerous assignments for CBS in Poland, Lebanon and El Salvador even though his mobility and vision were impaired. He became a senior producer at CBS, and although he eventually quit the station in 1987 because he felt it was pandering to commercial and political pressures, he worked as a producer for PBS, CNN and Fox until he left TV in the late 1990s to become a writer and teacher. In spite of his illness, he also married and had three children. He nearly lost his courage in 1999 when he learned that he had colon cancer, but after two operations and the realization that despair and anger would drive his family away, he come to grips with this, too. In painful detail, he chronicles the progress of multiple sclerosis-the increasing numbness in his hands and legs and the resultant falls, loss of vision to the point where he is now legally blind and, lately, mental confusion. Nevertheless, he writes: "These pages are not about suffering.... This book is about surviving and flourishing, rising above fear and self-doubt and, of course, anger." His wife, Meredith Vieira, a well-known television personality, has been portrayed in popular magazines as a martyr who bears a terrible burden. Cohen proves that nothing could be further from the truth. First serial rights to People magazine. (Feb.) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

An accomplished journalist and self-described "recovering network and television news producer" with three Emmys to his credit, Cohen has been fighting multiple sclerosis (MS) for decades and, on top of that, has had two bouts with colon cancer. "How much can one guy take?" one might ask. Cohen, married to View cohost Meredith Vieira and with three children, has wondered himself but here chose to focus on "surviving and flourishing, rising above fear and self-doubt and, of course, anger." Throughout, he shows a humorous side that is vulnerable, without self-indulgence and with acceptance and recognition of the inevitability of a progressive disease. As a result, Cohen has managed to put into words what many MS sufferers either can't or won't. A powerful and agonizingly frank description of a life with which many chronically ill people and their families will identify, this is highly recommended for all collections. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 10/15/03.]-Mary Nickum, Ivinss UT Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews