Burning Down My Masters' House: My Life at the New York Times Horror Book Review

BURNING DOWN MY MASTERS’ HOUSE is a memoir of the rise, transgressions and recovery of Jayson Blair, a former journalist at The New York Times turned mental health advocate, who details how he learned that he was the master of his house – but not before he burned it down and hurt friends, colleagues, damaged the reputation and brand name of America’s leading daily newspaper and cost the executive editor, Howell Raines, and the managing editor, Gerald Boyd, their jobs. Blair accepts full responsibility for his transgression in the memoir and notes that while the cost for him has been his reputation and a high-flying career in journalism, the cost of not learning the lessons he did about self-control, pride, substance abuse and mental illness can be their own be a death sentence for many. His hope is that his memoir can help others not fall from the precipice he dangled from for so long.  In this memoir, Blair recounts the details of his struggle with manic depression and its power to confer great advantages that are attractive to those who suffer from the illness at the same time it destroys them.