I first got an offer to preview an advance reading copy of Who Is Alex Trebek? by Lisa Rogak from Net Galley in exchange for an honest review. Then I saw Alex on TV plugging his own memoir called The Answer Is . . . Reflections on My Life. Being a longtime Jeopardy! fan as I mentioned in Monday’s blog, I couldn’t decide which to read so I chose both. I got the first from Net Galley and ordered the second for my Kindle. It turned out to be a good decision.
Lisa follows a traditional biographical pattern of starting with the beginning of Alex’s life and going to the present. Alex takes a pattern from Jeopardy! and does vignettes that he calls chapters that begin with “The answer is . . .” followed by his topic for that segment. Example: “What Is . . .THE WILL TO SURVIVE?” in which he deals with his own cancer but also with the philosophical idea of what makes a person want to continue to live in hard circumstances.
Even for someone who doesn’t follow Jeopardy!, and I hear there a people like that, the story of the Canadian child of a father who had grown up in the Ukraine to become a ever-present TV host on American TV is fascinating in its twists and turns. Both books acknowledge Alex’s blemishes such as his aptitude for cursing and his virtues as exemplified in his strong charitable giving and service practices.
In the end, little conflict exists between the two volumes. Reading them both, which I recommend, is like looking at his life from the outside and the inside. I also recommend my order with the biography first and the memoir second. Who Is Alex Trebek? gives the framework of his life and The Answer Is . . . Reflections on My Life gives Alex’s perspective on that life with very few places where I felt like I had read this before. Any regular Jeopardy! watcher will want to read both for sure, and I think either would be of interest to other readers as well.