A moving portrait of a presidency and its top speechwriter.
A pertinent chronicle of the making of a president’s messages.
Keenan, who served as Barack Obama’s chief speechwriter, makes an absorbing book debut with an insider’s view of the pressured, often “fucking terrifying” workings within the White House, where he and his staff routinely put in 12-hour days, holed up in the basement “Speechcave,” crafting the president’s public statements. While focusing on 10 days in June 2015, when he worked on several high-stakes speeches, Keenan recounts his entire career, beginning in 2002, when he became an intern for Sen. Ted Kennedy, through to his promotion to Obama’s chief speechwriter in 2013. The author’s first chance at speechwriting came with Kennedy, whom Keenan praises as a public servant “of the old breed who saw politics as a noble calling, an effort that kept differences of philosophy from becoming barriers to cooperation.” When Obama entered the 2008 presidential race, Keenan’s speeches for Kennedy earned him a place in the campaign—and on Obama’s staff. In 2011, assigned to write Obama’s eulogy for those killed in the shooting that wounded Gabby Giffords, Keenan admits, “I was terrified. It would be my first prime-time, nationally televised speech” and one that “needed to stand as a surprising, hopeful, and even joyous celebration of the way the people who died had lived their lives.” The speeches that occupied him in June 2015 were equally significant: responses to the Supreme Court decision on the Affordable Care Act, same-sex marriage, and the shooting at Charleston’s Mother Emanuel Church that killed nine people, including the pastor, Clementa Pinckney. Keenan portrays Obama as a perfectionist with clear aims for tone and content. Multiple drafts, edits, and rewrites resulted in the soaring rhetoric for which the former president was noted. In his eulogy for Pinckney, “Grace was what Obama wanted to talk about…the quiet grace that sets a louder example than any shout of hatred.”
A moving portrait of a presidency and its top speechwriter.Pub Date: Oct. 4, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-358-65189-5
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Mariner Books
Review Posted Online: July 25, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2022
A philosophically rich critique of state violence and mass apathy.
An Egyptian Canadian journalist writes searchingly of this time of war.
“Rules, conventions, morals, reality itself: all exist so long as their existence is convenient to the preservation of power.” So writes El Akkad, who goes on to state that one of the demands of modern power is that those subject to it must imagine that some group of people somewhere are not fully human. El Akkad’s pointed example is Gaza, the current destruction of which, he writes, is causing millions of people around the world to examine the supposedly rules-governed, democratic West and declare, “I want nothing to do with this.” El Akkad, author of the novel American War (2017), discerns hypocrisy and racism in the West’s defense of Ukraine and what he views as indifference toward the Palestinian people. No stranger to war zones himself—El Akkad was a correspondent in Afghanistan and Iraq—he writes with grim matter-of-factness about murdered children, famine, and the deliberate targeting of civilians. With no love for Zionism lost, he offers an equally harsh critique of Hamas, yet another one of the “entities obsessed with violence as an ethos, brutal in their treatment of minority groups who in their view should not exist, and self-decreed to be the true protectors of an entire religion.” Taking a global view, El Akkad, who lives in the U.S., finds almost every government and society wanting, and not least those, he says, that turn away and pretend not to know, behavior that we’ve seen before and that, in the spirit of his title, will one day be explained away until, in the end, it comes down to “a quiet unheard reckoning in the winter of life between the one who said nothing, did nothing, and their own soul.”
A philosophically rich critique of state violence and mass apathy.Pub Date: Feb. 25, 2025
ISBN: 9780593804148
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Dec. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A slick, vacuous glimpse into the former first lady’s White House years.
A carefully curated personal portrait.
First ladies’ roles have evolved significantly in recent decades. Their memoirs typically reflect a spectrum of ambition and interests, offering insights into their values and personal lives. Melania Trump, however, stands out as exceptionally private and elusive. Her ultra-lean account attempts to shed light on her public duties, initiatives, and causes as first lady, and it defends certain actions like her controversial “I REALLY DON’T CARE, DO U?” jacket. The statement was directed at the media, not the border situation, she claims. Yet the book provides scant detail about her personal orbit or day-to-day interactions. The memoir opens with her well-known Slovenian origin story, successful modeling career, and whirlwind romance with Donald Trump, culminating in their 2005 marriage, followed by a snapshot of Election Day 2016: “Each time we were together that day, I was impressed by his calm.…This man is remarkably confident under pressure.” Once in the White House, Melania Trump describes her functions and numerous public events at home and abroad, which she asserts were more accomplished than media representations suggested. However, she rarely shares any personal interactions beyond close family ties, notably her affection for her son, Barron, and her sister, Ines. And of course she lavishes praise on her husband. Minimal anecdotes about White House or cabinet staff are included, and she carefully defuses her rumored tensions with Trump’s adult children, blandly stating, “While we may share the same last name, each of us is distinct with our own aspirations and paths to follow.” Although Melania’s desire to support causes related to children’s and women’s welfare feels authentic, the overall tenor of her memoir seems aimed at painting a glimmering portrait of her husband and her role, likely with an eye toward the forthcoming election.
A slick, vacuous glimpse into the former first lady’s White House years.Pub Date: Oct. 8, 2024
ISBN: 9781510782693
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing
Review Posted Online: Oct. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2024
PERSPECTIVES
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