A Question of Paternity

David Tereshchuk leapt from a bleak childhood in a small town on the English-Scottish borders to a precocious high-flying career as a TV reporter, first in London, then in New York. During his years as a journalist, he managed to elicit revealing statements from tyrants and the oppressed, but there was one person he never persuaded to open up to him-his mother. He wanted to know just one thing: who his father was. It wasn't until he was in his 50s that she confided to having been raped, aged 15, by a priest - and even then, not all her information was reliable. Alongside his career, the search for his mother's abuser has haunted him, adding further layers of stress to a life already marked by alcoholism and insecurity. This is his astonishing story, one that deserves to sit alongside those of Tom Brokaw, Peter Jennings and David Brinkley. CARL BERNSTEIN Investigative Reporter, Co-Author, All the President's Men David Tereshchuk is one of the great reporters of our era, covering global conflicts and the leaders who have initiated them, from patriots to despots. Now, using the skills he has honed as an investigative journalist, he may have found his most important subject yet: the real story of what happened in his own young life. Tereshchuk's quest for truth, about both his immediate family and the stories he's covered around the world, resonates through the pages of A Question of Paternity, an exceptional memoir that is at once moving, shocking and undeniably heroic. NEAL ASCHERSON Journalist and Author, Stone Voices: The Search for Scotland The compelling, often heart-breaking story of one man's search for the stories behind the world's conflicts and for the dark secret of his own birth. He recalls and reflects on many scenes of horror, but the connecting thread is one of haunting suspense. It's his never-ending effort to find out who made his fifteen-year-old mother pregnant and became his secret father. CARY BARBOR Host, National Public Radio Book Club (WGCU Radio) Tereshchuk's vivid writing lands you smack in the middle of a fascinating and heart-rending quest.