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FROM THE CORNER OF THE OVAL

Name: FROM THE CORNER OF THE OVAL
Author: Beck Dorey-Stein
ISBN: 978-0-525-50912-7

A MEMOIR

by Beck Dorey-Stein ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 10, 2018

Gossipy books can be fun; if only this one had been better written.

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Politics and romance among Barack Obama’s staffers.

In 2011, 25-year-old Dorey-Stein moved to Washington, D.C., to spend a semester teaching at Sidwell Friends, the school to which presidents and Congress members send their children. Her job was “to help those hormonally charged stressballs chill out.” She suspected she wouldn’t live in “this ego swamp of a city” for long, however, even after she fell in love with Sam, a Californian who worked on the Obama campaign in 2008. Then she responded to a Craigslist ad for a stenographer position that turned out to be a job at the White House. For the next five years, she traveled the world with Obama, recording his speeches and interviews and releasing official transcripts. The author’s focus, however, is not politics but relationships, most notably her romance with Jason, a senior staff member she initially referred to as Jim Carrey’s doppelgänger. Jason cheated on his girlfriend with Dorey-Stein, and Dorey-Stein felt guilty about cheating on Sam. Before long, Jason cheated on the author, the author confided in female colleagues, a couple of whom Jason subsequently pursued, and on it went. Much of the book reads more like commercial fiction than political memoir, with lines such as, “my chest clenches as though my ribs are biting down on my heart.” Even readers who enjoy a mix of romance and politics may tire of the countless I’m-so-lucky, how-is-this-my-life exclamations and the effusive dialogue. (“We should hang out!” Dorey-Stein told Jason shortly after they met. “Definitely!” he replied.) The author does provide some interesting behind-the-scenes glimpses: jogging next to Obama on adjacent treadmills; Obama’s reminiscing aboard Marine One about the day he met Michelle; and a genuinely touching section on the 2015 shooting at the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, when, after the service, an emotionally drained Obama walked through Air Force One and uncharacteristically didn’t talk to anyone.

Gossipy books can be fun; if only this one had been better written.

Pub Date: July 10, 2018

ISBN: 978-0-525-50912-7

Page Count: 352

Publisher: Spiegel & Grau

Review Posted Online: April 10, 2018

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2018

Categories:

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THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS

FROM MEAN STREETS TO WALL STREET

by Chris Gardner with Quincy Troupe ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 2006

Well-told and admonitory.

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Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.

Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.

Well-told and admonitory.

Pub Date: June 1, 2006

ISBN: 0-06-074486-3

Page Count: 320

Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006

Categories:

GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BUSINESS

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BLACK BOY

A RECORD OF CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH

by Richard Wright ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 28, 1945

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This autobiography might almost be said to supply the roots to Wright's famous novel, Native Son.

It is a grim record, disturbing, the story of how — in one boy's life — the seeds of hate and distrust and race riots were planted. Wright was born to poverty and hardship in the deep south; his father deserted his mother, and circumstances and illness drove the little family from place to place, from degradation to degradation. And always, there was the thread of fear and hate and suspicion and discrimination — of white set against black — of black set against Jew — of intolerance. Driven to deceit, to dishonesty, ambition thwarted, motives impugned, Wright struggled against the tide, put by a tiny sum to move on, finally got to Chicago, and there — still against odds — pulled himself up, acquired some education through reading, allied himself with the Communists — only to be thrust out for non-conformity — and wrote continually. The whole tragedy of a race seems dramatized in this record; it is virtually unrelieved by any vestige of human tenderness, or humor; there are no bright spots. And yet it rings true. It is an unfinished story of a problem that has still to be met.

Perhaps this will force home unpalatable facts of a submerged minority, a problem far from being faced.