Pops: Learning to Be a Son and a Father

A deeply personal exploration of fatherhood, addiction, and resiliency from Craig Melvin, news anchor of NBC´s Today show. For Craig Melvin this book is more an investigation than a memoir. It´s an opportunity to better understand his father; to interrogate his family´s legacy of addiction and despair but also transformation and redemption; and to explore the challenges facing all dads--including Craig himself, a father of two young children. Growing up in Columbia, South Carolina, Craig had a fraught relationship with his father. Lawrence Melvin was a distant, often absent parent due to his drinking as well as his job working the graveyard shift at a postal facility. Watching sports and tinkering on Lawrence´s beloved (but unreliable) 1973 Pontiac LeMans were two ways father and son connected, but as Lawrence´s drinking spiraled out of control, their bond was stretched to the breaking point. Fortunately, Craig had a loving, fiercely protective mother who held the family together. He also had a series of surrogate father figures in his life--uncles, teachers, workplace mentors--who by their examples helped him figure out the kind of person and father he wanted to be. Pops is the story of all these men--and of the inspiring fathers Craig has met reporting his "Dads Got This Series" on the Today show. Pops is also the story of Craig and Lawrence Melvin´s long journey to reconciliation and understanding, and of how all these experiences and encounters have informed Craig´s understanding of his own role as a dad.