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Political Memoirs Are Very Odd Conceptually

A man wearing a gray suit jacket over a white shirt with minute red dots on it. He has a red and blue hankerchief in his breast pocket, and his right hand is holding his blue and gray patterned tie. He is wearing a very fancy-looking analog watch. Image is from https://www.pexels.com/photo/man-in-formal-suit-jacket-holding-his-necktie-1342609/.

Hello!

The topic that I initially wrote down for this blog post is "I Strongly Dislike Political Memoirs". However, between writing down this topic last night and drafting this blog post tonight, I have decided that a more accurate reflection of my opinion would be "Political Memoirs are a Very Strange Type of Book".

Let's consider a standard goals of a standard, everyday memoir written by a not-exactly-famous person. These goals would likely include:

  1. performing investigative journalism on one's own life.
  2. keeping the audience amused with engaging anecdotes.
In the case of a celebrity memoir, the author knows that the readers have expectations. They know who this celebrity is, and they likely know a thing or two about this celebrity's life already. As a result, part of writing a memoir as a celebrity is managing reader expectations and telling a (somewhat controlled) narrative of "how I got to be famous" while also telling stories about "what I was like before". 

And, essentially, a political memoir is a celebrity memoir that is fueled by a desire to get re-elected/get elected to a higher office/explain bad decisions made while in one's current office. I recently read Pete Buttigieg's Shortest Way Home and Julián Castro's An Unlikely Journey. While I cannot say that I entirely despised the process of reading either of these books, it's hard to feel engaged by a narrative when you know that it is in service of being elected as president. I want to be enchanted by your journey as a human being without knowing that this book is, at least in part, a way to make voters more likely to feel as though they know you and want to elect you to public office.

(As a side note, Amazon lists the author of An Unlikely Journey as "Bob Herbert" in my digital library, and, based on the content, it doesn't seem entirely implausible that this book was ghostwritten.)

Have you read any political memoirs lately? Do you like them? I have United by Cory Booker downloaded on my Kindle, and I'm wondering whether I should return it to my library in lieu of reading it. If you have read it, please let me know if it is worth reading!

Best wishes,
Lydia
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