RECLAIMING HER TIME

An homage to a political powerhouse.

In a book conveyed in the same breezy tone as Brenda Jones and Krishan Trotman’s Queens of the Resistance: Maxine Waters, Washington Post reporter Andrews-Dyer and Thomas, a senior staff writer at elle.com, offer an admiring biography of the prominent legislator, illustrated by Dorsainvil and including many photographs. The authors draw on abundant media coverage of Waters’ life and career, her legislative record, interviews with friends and colleagues, and Thomas’ interview with Waters in 2017 to recount her rise from “humble beginnings as a Head Start teacher in the projects to meetings with Nelson Mandela and Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.” The book’s title comes from Waters’ testy exchange with Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin, in July 2017, where she repeatedly insisted that he answer her questions, interrupting his calculated digressions by invoking the parliamentary rule of “Reclaiming my time.” The much-publicized anecdote testifies to Waters’ outspoken, take-no-prisoners style and refusal to be intimidated, earning her the epithet “Kerosene Maxine.” One of 13 children, Waters struggled to claim her time at home and at school, working hard for recognition. Married at 18, a mother at 20, she and her husband moved to California, where she worked at the telephone company until a friend told her about an opening at Head Start. “Head Start changed my life,” Waters said in an interview. “Through Head Start I discovered me.” She learned how to organize parents and community volunteers, raise funds, and marshal grassroots power. Those skills served her well as she moved into more public positions, winning an election to the California State Assembly in 1976 and to the U.S. Congress in 1990. The authors report the many causes that Waters has championed, trace her rise to increasing visibility and power, and even include a gushing chapter on her fashion choices.

A lively pop history of an impressive career.