Ghosts of War

"Eric's journey in his father's footsteps is a gripping journey of the self. Ghosts of War echoes with what strong journalism used to bring us: uncensored truth." - Tim Page, acclaimed Vietnam War photographer, filmmaker, and author In the 1960s, few living journalists were more famous than the Toronto Star’s Robert Reguly, who landed a series of international scoops and was right there in the Ambassador Hotel kitchen when Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated. But no story loomed larger in Reguly’s life, or in the world’s consciousness, than the war in Vietnam, which he covered from startlingly close range in 1967. Vietnam was the assignment of his lifetime and, in many respects, Robert’s undoing. It changed him and haunted him, as well as his family, for the rest of their lives. Half a century later, Robert’s son, Eric Reguly, himself an esteemed foreign correspondent, retraces his late father’s footsteps through Vietnam’s combat zones in an impassioned quest to better understand the complicated and distant man who raised him and guided him into journalism. Ghosts of War is a gripping, thoughtful book about two very different generations of war, journalism, and manhood. "This riveting book is a revealing and poignant portrait of the glory days of Canadian journalism, the courage of one of its heroes and the complex rivalry between father and son. Ghosts of War takes a clear-eyed view of the personal cost of reporting, the sense of justice and morality that drives it, the trauma that can surround it, and why it remains so essential today." - Geoffrey York, Africa bureau chief for The Globe and Mail