New York: Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, (1974) dj. Hardcover first edition - The story behind the story of a 12 week long experimental documentary on PBS, considered TV's first reality show. By time it was over, the Louds were divorced and TV had changed forever. "Before 'The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills,' before the Kardashians, before the idea of living large and unscripted on camera became a TV staple, there was a startling program on public television called 'An American Family' with a startling female character named Pat Loud. Ms. Loud was a California mother of five. She drank, she plotted her divorce, she adored, and accepted, her openly gay son. She did it all in Santa Barbara and all on camera in 1973. Loving, boisterous, witty, resilient and sometimes angry and hurt, she did not act like most women on television at the time. But she was ostensibly not acting at all. She was the first reality television star on the first reality show and she paid a price for breaking new ground. Critics called her materialistic and self-absorbed. Newsweek put Ms. Loud, her husband, Bill, and their children on its cover with the headline 'The Broken Family'." (NY Times) In this book, she gets to tell her own story. 223 pp. ISBN: 0-698105788.