Growing Up with My Grandfather: Memories of Harry S. Truman

``We had not known each other very well,'' writes Daniel of his 88-year-old grandfather's death in 1972; hence, despite the book's title, readers are given disappointingly cursory glimpses of the president, who nevertheless brightens this tedious, self-indulgent recreation of the author's descent into alcoholism and drugs and rehabilitation. As his parents--mystery novelist Truman and retired New York Times managing editor Daniel--observe in their dutiful-sounding foreword, their eldest son was a ``good-time Charlie'' who remade himself. Born in 1957 into a notably accomplished family, the author was dogged by feelings of failure that were exacerbated by parents he considered undemonstrative toward him and their other three sons. Yet while he complains of the lack of parental hugs, he apparently does not recognize the love expressed by his father's willingness to risk humiliation in a group therapy session at his son's detoxification center (rather than participate, his mother went on a book tour). The author, a journalist in North Carolina and an occasional actor, married and the father of two, comes across as likable enough, even when one loses patience with his bleating against the way he was raised (including his mother's failure to breast-feed him). Photos not seen by PW. (June)