The House That Jack Built:
My Life As A Trailblazer in Broadcasting and Entertainment
By Hal Jackson with James Haskins

Hal Jackson—still on the air today—as a veritable tornado, zipping his way through American broadcasting for well over 60 years. After getting his start as a teenage sportswriter in Washington, DC, Jackson dipped his fingers into promotion, play-by-play announcing, basketball team ownership and community organizing before landing in radio, where his show, "The House That Jack Built," lasted for a solid quarter century on various stations. Breaking racial barriers seems like his favorite hobby; he's got a whirlwind of firsts under his belt, including being the first black network radio announcer, inductee into The Radio Hall of Fame, first host of an interracial network television show and first promoter of a black teen beauty pageant. The man is like a pop-culture Zelig; the photo pages of his new autobiography (Amistad Press), named after his radio program, show him grinning beside every major African-American entertainment personality of the 20th century, from Quicny Jones to Michael Jackson. The book—written with collaborator James Haskins—is a fascinating story on its own merits, but it lacks the soul you might expect from such an entertainment personality. Few personal anecdotes (and you know there must be some great ones) populate the text, either from his private life or from the dozens of music personalities he worked with. Instead, the book reads like a laundry list of milestones without any injection of warmth or color. And one wonders why a man whose laurel-laden career was based on being articulate and persuasive chose to use a ghostwriter. Luckily, considering his eventful life, Jackson's laundry list stands up decently on its own.

—Alison Fensterstock