An affectionate homage to a treasured friend.
Johnson-Batiste makes her book debut with a paean to her friendship with the vice president, which began when the two were children growing up in Berkeley’s diverse, progressive community.
“Kamala and I,” recalls the author, “were raised among people who, if they saw injustice, determined that it was their responsibility to do something about it. This culture extended beyond core pillars who were like family, but these figures and their examples were no less inspiring.” Harris shouldered that responsibility even as a 5-year-old, when she fearlessly defended Johnson-Batiste against a bully. The girls were kindergarten classmates, but afterward, their educational paths diverged: Johnson-Batiste went to Catholic schools, Harris to a newly integrated Berkeley public school and to high school in Montreal, where her mother was a researcher. Although they were no longer neighbors, the author remembers Harris’ frequent visits, when the girls would catch up, and their closeness revived after Harris moved back from Canada. The author creates warm portraits of the men and women who were influential in her life and Harris’, including their respective mothers, Johnson-Batiste’s father, and especially Sherman Williams and Mary Lewis—Uncle Sherman and Aunt Mary to the girls—who were deeply involved in the civil rights movement. “One of my favorite traits about Kamala,” writes the author, “is her ability to ask clear, direct questions and then genuinely listen to the responses. She has always been the friend who is actually paying attention and listening carefully to what you’re saying—a trait due in part, I believe, to the influence of her countless conversations with Aunt Mary.” As adults, although they followed “very different life paths,” for several years in the 1990s, they were neighbors in the same condo building. Once Harris decided to run for district attorney, senator, and president, Johnson-Batiste, now a national sales channel manager at AT&T, volunteered to work in every campaign—and, with enormous pride, was a guest at Harris’ swearing in as vice president.
An affectionate homage to a treasured friend.Pub Date: Nov. 9, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-5387-0748-7
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Twelve
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2021
A determined if self-regarding portrait of a candidate striving to define herself and her campaign on her own terms.
An insider’s chronicle of a pivotal presidential campaign.
Several months into the mounting political upheaval of Donald Trump’s second term and following a wave of bestselling political exposés, most notably Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson’s Original Sin on Joe Biden’s health and late decision to step down, former Vice President Harris offers her own account of the consequential months surrounding Biden’s withdrawal and her swift campaign for the presidency. Structured as brief chapters with countdown headers from 107 days to Election Day, the book recounts the campaign’s daily rigors: vetting a running mate, navigating back-to-back rallies, preparing for the convention and the debate with Trump, and deflecting obstacles in the form of both Trump’s camp and Biden’s faltering team. Harris aims to set the record straight on issues that have remained hotly debated. While acknowledging Biden’s advancing decline, she also highlights his foreign-policy steadiness: “His years of experience in foreign policy clearly showed….He was always focused, always commander in chief in that room.” More blame is placed on his inner circle, especially Jill Biden, whom Harris faults for pushing him beyond his limits—“the people who knew him best, should have realized that any campaign was a bridge too far.” Throughout, she highlights her own qualifications and dismisses suggestions that an open contest might have better served the party: “If they thought I was down with a mini primary or some other half-baked procedure, I was quick to disabuse them.” Facing Trump’s increasingly unhinged behavior, Harris never openly doubts her ability to confront him. Yet she doesn’t fully persuade the reader that she had the capacity to counter his dominance, suggesting instead that her defeat stemmed from a lack of time—a theme underscored by the urgency of the book’s title. If not entirely sanguine about the future, she maintains a clear-eyed view of the damage already done: “Perhaps so much damage that we will have to re-create our government…something leaner, swifter, and much more efficient.”
A determined if self-regarding portrait of a candidate striving to define herself and her campaign on her own terms.Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2025
ISBN: 9781668211656
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 23, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.
A noted actor turns to verse: “Poems are a Saturday in the middle of the week.”
McConaughey, author of the gracefully written memoir Greenlights, has been writing poems since his teens, closing with one “written in an Australian bathtub” that reads just as a poem by an 18-year-old (Rimbaud excepted) should read: “Ignorant minds of the fortunate man / Blind of the fate shaping every land.” McConaughey is fearless in his commitment to the rhyme, no matter how slight the result (“Oops, took a quick peek at the sky before I got my glasses, / now I can’t see shit, sure hope this passes”). And, sad to say, the slight is what is most on display throughout, punctuated by some odd koanlike aperçus: “Eating all we can / at the all-we-can-eat buffet, / gives us a 3.8 education / and a 4.2 GPA.” “Never give up your right to do the next right thing. This is how we find our way home.” “Memory never forgets. Even though we do.” The prayer portion of the program is deeply felt, but it’s just as sentimental; only when he writes of life-changing events—a court appearance to file a restraining order against a stalker, his decision to quit smoking weed—do we catch a glimpse of the effortlessly fluent, effortlessly charming McConaughey as exemplified by the David Wooderson (“alright, alright, alright”) of Dazed and Confused. The rest is mostly a soufflé in verse. McConaughey’s heart is very clearly in the right place, but on the whole the book suggests an old saw: Don’t give up your day job.
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9781984862105
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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