Much of the first 200 pages suggests a Hollywood biopic, with a lot of soft focus and camaraderie and heart-warming music. Obama wins a seat in Springfield, then an improbable promotion to Washington. He meets David Axelrod (who will be "Axe" the rest of the way), a former newspaper reporter who has become a political consultant and understands Chicago's complex racial politics. He runs for office, aiming too high the first time and losing. They marry and have two careers and two daughters but also work at remaining a romantic couple. They are soon involved, friends as well as co-workers, then lovers as well as spouses. We see her as a smart young lawyer, assessing the trainee who will become her husband. Soon he is back in Chicago, meeting Michelle Robinson at a law firm, working and making a life in the boom years of the 1990s.Įmbedded throughout this dense text are frequent valentines addressed to Michelle. Obama begins this account by briefly revisiting his rather aimless adolescence, but he moves swiftly on from college identity crises to community organizing in Chicago to Harvard Law School. For the truly faithful, some of these pages may have to be read through tears. There were also, as he puts it, plenty of people who never got past being "spooked by a Black man in the White House."īut for those who felt the magnetism and power of the first African American president, at any point in his career, this book should rekindle some of that feeling of discovery. To be sure, there were countless issues of policy on which to differ with the 44th president and many elements of his personality to judge for oneself. We hear his voice in every sentence, almost as if he were physically present and reading the book aloud.įor those who did not leap aboard the Obama bandwagon, much of his memoir will put them in mind of what put them off. Whatever one's feelings about this man, they are likely to be brought to the surface by this book. Reliving this history through Obama's eyes reminds us how differently others reacted to his rise - how offended they were when he drew vast crowds in Europe while still a candidate for president - collecting the Nobel Peace Prize just for getting elected. Or at least much of the world was able to. To a remarkable degree, the style of this latest retelling reflects the man we have seen over these years: Orderly, cautious, self-examining - yet eloquent in flashes so vivid that the world was immediately able to share something of his vision. Now, in A Promised Land, the man is approaching 60, recalling how his audacious dreams came true in 2008 and detailing the first 30 momentous months thereafter. A second volume discussed his rising political ambitions a dozen years later when The Audacity of Hope presaged his first run for the White House. Obama began his literary career a quarter century ago, recalling the struggles of his youth while still in his early 30s in Dreams From My Father. It is a continuation of the story that the "skinny kid with a funny name" had begun to tell well before the world was listening. They knew the mountain of memories compiled in these 700 pages would appear in a certain light, or shadow, depending on the voters' verdict.īut this is more than Obama's answer to four years of Trump's rhetorical assaults and policy reversals. The publishers of A Promised Land surely knew they were launching this sure-to-be blockbuster in the month when President Trump would either be reelected or rejected by the voters. One wellspring of that movement, of course, was electing Obama's successor. His ascent thrilled millions but also stirred a countermovement that is still on the march. Though his nature may be to seek consensus, he has tended to inspire partisan aspiration for some and equally intense resentment for others. The 44th president of the United States has always prompted extremes of reaction. That will impress some as stunning humility and strike others as "humble bragging" or downright disingenuousness. He tells us in this memoir that he has only watched the video of that night in Boston once, and he points out flaws in his performance.