The Answer Is . . .

For thirty-six years Alex Trebek stood behind the Jeopardy! lectern and asked the questions. In The Answer Is..., published in 2020, he finally answers some, organising the book into short chapters that each take up a question he was asked over and over: about his childhood, his marriage, his politics, his moustache, his health.

Trebek writes about growing up in Sudbury, Ontario, his early broadcasting work at the CBC, the long run of Jeopardy! and the contestants and staff who made it, and the mechanics of a job he was careful never to describe as glamorous. The tone is dry, self-deprecating and unsentimental, and he is candid about the parts of his life he had kept private.

The book was written after his stage 4 pancreatic cancer diagnosis in 2019, and he addresses the illness directly and without self-pity. It reads as a plain-spoken accounting of a life by a man who knew he was running out of time to give it, and it is as much a thank-you to viewers as a memoir.