Steven V. Roberts

Cokie: A Life Well-Lived by Steven V. Roberts is a 2021 Harper publication.

This book is an homage to the journalist Cokie Roberts, written by her husband, Steven. It’s not a biography in the strictest sense of the word. It’s a remembrance of various areas of Cokie’s life- her marriage, motherhood, career, friendships and her faith and talent for storytelling.

This book feels like a labor of love- perhaps even a way of sharing the big parts of Cokie’s life that will help keep her memory alive in our hearts and minds, as it must for the author.

After reading this sweet biography of the warm, funny and highly accomplished Cokie Roberts, I don’t think there could have been a more apt title for this book. Cokie is a person I know I would have liked immensely, if I’d ever gotten the chance to get to know her. I didn’t always agree with her opinions- but I think we were on the same page about most things.

This book is certainly a celebration of Cokie’s life and all that she meant to her family, her friends and her colleagues, and though occasionally the mood became somber or melancholy, there were times I could almost feel Cokie’s spirit flowing through the author’s prose.

Cokie was a trailblazer, a fierce and determined friend, mother, wife and grandmother and I enjoyed reading Steven’s many fond reminiscences of her life.

4 stars… (more)

Cokie and Steve's personal reminiscences are mostly uninteresting, but they shine compared to the historical interludes and interviews with divorced couples. The historical stories are blandly re-told from collections of letters without any added value. The interviews are oddly summarized with fairly judgmental commentary. The awkward integration of all these sections is made even worse by the style in the sections about Cokie and Steve, which are written in a kind of screenplay-slash-dialog.

I really wanted to put this book down about 20 pages into it, but I forced myself to continue. And, in all fairness, some of the bits about Steve's family were pretty compelling. Final score: it's pretty bad, but at least there's not much of it.… (more)