From USA Today:WASHINGTON — Quinn Bradlee (pictured) was born with more than a few advantages. He has famous parents, former Washington Post executive editor Ben Bradlee and journalist Sally Quinn, and grew up in a historic mansion here in tony Georgetown. An ivy-covered life of fancy New England prep schools and summer houses were his for the taking.
But he had a hole in his heart at birth. And that was only the beginning.
After years of medical problems, Bradlee, 26, was diagnosed with velocardiofacial syndrome (VCFS), a genetic disorder. Harvard, the alma mater of his father, grandfather and great-grandfather, was not in his future.
Not that it has slowed him down.
He has written a refreshingly honest memoir, A Different Life: Growing Up Learning Disabled and Other Adventures (Public Affairs, $24.95), in which he talks about everything from his overprotective and hard-charging mother — "she can be a little high-strung at times" — to feeling as if he's always fighting an uphill battle.
Bradlee's voice, both poignant and humorous, rings true, that of a young man struggling to figure out who he is and where he fits in.
Socially awkward, he talks about how cruel kids can be and how girls rarely pay any attention to him. (He dictated his story to co-author Jeff Himmelman, who massaged Tim Russert's Big Russ and Me into book form.)
"I just hope people who pick up this book will know who I am," he says, acknowledging he had no idea what he was getting himself into when he decided to write a book. "I've always thought of myself as this kid who is always going to be different. The guy not getting a girlfriend." (He reports happily that he does have a girlfriend.)
Talking about classes he took at an upstate New York boarding school for learning-disabled students, he relates a story about a Shakespeare class. "I don't remember Othello that well, but I do remember Iago. At one point he says, 'I am not what I am.' I wrote that down in my journal. I think most LD (learning-disabled) kids could relate to that."
Ben Bradlee, who won fame as the editor who oversaw the Post's Watergate coverage, concedes he was "just stunned" that his son wrote a book. "I didn't think he could pull off a book," says Bradlee, 87, who has his own reputation for brutal honesty. "A first-time book from an LD kid?"Even Quinn Bradlee understands his father's reaction.
"I have always had trouble reading a book, so I never thought I'd write a book," says the newest author in the family. "But maybe I was supposed to write this book."
Ben Bradlee says he couldn't be prouder, but he wasn't thrilled with his son's use of profanity. "But then again, I have been known to use some of those words. I think it helped sell him as just one of the boys."
Neither parent saw the book until it was done.
"If I had my way, I would have taken out some of the facts about how hysterical I was on occasion," says Sally Quinn, 68. "But it is painfully honest. He's honest about us and he's honest about himself. If you're going to pretend, it's not going to work."
She says she would have "killed" to have had this book when her son was in and out of hospitals, before the VCFS diagnosis when he was 14, before she knew what was going on. (Quinn is Ben and Sally's only child; Ben has three children from two previous marriages.)
Their son's recently launched website also will come in handy for people struggling with learning disabilities.
FriendsOfQuinn.com, intended for students and their parents alike, is part of Healthcentral Network (healthcentral.com). He recently began working there as webmaster of his new site, which tells his own story. He hopes it will be inspiring for others "that I'm happy and doing well."
He also hopes it will become a Facebook-like site for learning disabled students. In
addition to the social networking, the site offers resources for the learning-disabled, including treatment options, side effects of medication and tips on everything from the best schools for the learning-disabled to dating.
It is very much his website, just like the idea for the book was his. He bristles at any suggestion he is riding his parents' coattails, despite the fact high-powered family friends — Jim Lehrer, Bob Woodward, Tom Brokaw — wrote glowing blurbs for the book.
"I don't want to end up being a mama's boy or daddy's boy," says Bradlee, who now lives in a group house next door to his parents.
When his mother suggested that A Different Life could be a play-off, a sequel, to his father's best-selling memoir, A Good Life, Quinn Bradlee quickly disagreed.
"It has nothing to do with my dad's book," he says. "I do live a different life."
