When Alec Brown, a middle-aged biographer, takes as his subject broadcasting pioneer Alec McGowan, host of television's very first wake-up show, "Morning," the project is marked by a sinister obsession. For intertwined with McGowan's life and the birth of the box is Brown's own family history. His estranged father, Chet Standish, was not only McGowan's best friend and "Morning" cohost, he was also the man who shot and killed McGowan on the air. Now dying of cancer, Standish is being released from prison into his son's care. W. D. Wetherell weaves together the story of McGowan's rise to television notoriety-back when the medium, and indeed the nation, seemed ripe with promise-and Brown's tenuous steps to better understand the love triangle that drove his father to violence. Morning is at once a riveting glimpse of an era gone by, a moving portrait of a family in turmoil, and a penetrating reflection on the rise of mass media.