During her career, she covered the war in the Middle East, the aftermath of the Kosovo War, the 2002 Winter Olympics and every imaginable natural disaster from hurricanes, tornadoes, historic wildfires, and floods. Lin received an Emmy, a Peabody, the Alfred I. Dupont Award, and the Greater Los Angeles Press Club Awards for Excellence in both Investigative Reporting and her coverage of the Los Angeles Riots. She currently lives in Hawaii.
Lin applied the “Page 99 Test” to her new book, When News Breaks: A Memoir of Love and War, and reported the following:
It surprised me to discover that if readers open my memoir, When News Breaks, to page 99, they will gain a remarkably clear understanding of what the book is truly about.Visit Carol Lin's website.
Page 99 captures the emotional aftermath of my journalist husband's marital betrayal. In many ways, it answers the central challenge I face as the author: readers may assume When News Breaks is primarily about my journalism career or the fact that I was the first national television journalist to report the first attack on 9/11. Instead, it is a story about my complicated love for an older newsman, and the journalism careers that tested our marriage.
My husband, Will, had left his position as a television news executive to become communications director for an America's Cup syndicate made up entirely of female sailors. Meanwhile, I was a rising Los Angeles anchor and investigative reporter on the verge of receiving an offer from ABC News. Then ABC's chief investigative correspondent discovered that my husband had engaged in a high-profile one-night stand and intended to feature it in a story about the glamorous lifestyles surrounding the world of competitive sailing.
Page 99 begins after the America's Cup competition ended. Will and I return to the weathered beach house we had just purchased—our forever home, or so we assumed. It was a home that had withstood nature's fury since 1948. Its wooden windows, blistered by the salt air, spoke of quiet resilience. When we bought the house, all we saw was its potential. I recount the sellers' hope that their beloved family home would find the right owners. They asked our realtor whether she was certain the sale would go through. She reassured them with a simple observation: "Carol loves the house, and Will loves Carol."
But the scene that follows asks whether love alone can survive profound betrayal, whether we can survive and thrive through our own breaking news. In my writing program, I learned that every book orbits a single, essential question. Page 99 reveals mine: When is the right time, if ever, to let go of the things we love most?
--Marshal Zeringue









