Cokie: A Life Well Lived

Roberts (My Fathers’ Houses) offers a moving testimony of the remarkable life and legacy of his wife, trailblazing journalist Cokie (1943–2019). Through depictions of her faith, family, work, writing, and friendships, Roberts shares engrossing anecdotes about his partner from their over 50 years together, as she “crash[ed] through glass ceilings... with her impressive mind, impish wit, and infectious laugh.” As the daughter of powerful Louisiana politicians—her mother, Lindy Boggs, succeeded her husband, Hale, in Congress in 1973 after his death in a plane crash—politics and current events were a second language for Cokie. She later parlayed that fluency into a career as a highly respected journalist who covered Washington, D.C., for NPR and ABC and was unafraid to speak truth to power and ask tough questions. In addition to the early challenges he and Cokie encountered dating as an interfaith couple—in the face of resistance from their Jewish and Catholic parents, respectively—Roberts describes with admiration how, notwithstanding the constant demands and stresses of work, Cokie managed to be a devoted friend in times of need, as well as an attentive wife and mother, and bestselling author of histories that restored significant women to their merited prominence in the U.S.’s founding. This loving tribute is likely to gain the celebrated journalist a whole new crop of fans. (Nov.)