Dreamy President

Barack Obama, Dreams of my Father, 1995
Barack Obama’s first book is more like a novelised autobiography than a straightforward memoir. First of all, it’s divided into three acts, like a conventional novel – beginning with his upbringing in Hawaii (idyllic childhood), past his baptism by fire in Chicago’s poor communities (Barack playing one of John Grisham’s young lawyers against insidious corruption at all levels ala The Wire), culminating in his trip to Kenya in search of the final pieces to the jigsaw he calls “father” (a tour de force graced with humor and insight not amiss in one of Zadie Smith’s familial comedies.) His search for all the pieces that will complete his father’s story is an indirect search for his own self – a strong, self-assured, intelligent, multi-cultural, well-travelled person it turns out to be that unsurprisingly defeated America’s Republicans. This memoir's strongest message is that Obama can't be placed in a box - he's too much the man which America should become in the 21st century.

I wish my book club had discussed this book after the announcement of his Nobel Prize for peace; it would have accentuated even more the divide in our group as to the book’s qualities. Some (like myself) enjoyed Obama’s story, despite some corny self-mythologizing passages, because we sensed the big heart behind the pen. Others felt it was too calculated (the formal three-act structure a good example), smartly envisaging an eventual place for himself in the White House. I don’t think that's the case: Obama wouldn’t have been so candid about his use of cannabis, for example, if he wanted one day to be president (the memoir was written in 1995, when just to smoke but not inhale was a bullet to the foot.)

This memoir is an easy, enjoyable read and a good reminder that America chose the right guy.