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Barack Obama and the Little Memoirs That Could

2 years ago

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Correspondent

As the last presidential campaign gathered steam in 2007 and barreled full throttle through 2008, I kept saying to anyone who'd listen: Polls don't tell the whole story. Keep an eye on the best-seller list.

Besides raising money, hiring a staff and divining a strategy, every serious White House candidate nowadays also has to provide an antidote to the ever-shrinking sound bite: a book. Word is out that Mitt Romney is composing another volume (following his 2004 "Turnaround") timed to hit bookshelves well before 2012 dawns.

But what made 2007 and 2008 distinctive was the sustained best-seller status of Barack Obama's two books-his memoir, "Dreams From My Father," and his tour d'horizon on policy matters, "The Audacity of Hope." Week after week, both books kept appearing on the various charts tracking purchases from stores and online. For millions of readers, a new political face was becoming better known via the oldest form of mass communication: the printed word.

While Obama's cyber-savvy campaign exploited every Internet invention to deliver timely messages to supporters, the detailed ink-on-paper treatments continued to find audiences (and vice versa). Unlike most political books, which have the lifespan of a mayfly, "Dreams From My Father" and "The Audacity of Hope" exhibited remarkable longevity, reflecting deeper interest in the person and thinking of the author-politician.

Indeed, on tthe July 12 paperback best-seller list in The New York Times Book Review, "Dreams From My Father" will be Number 12 in the nonfiction category. For 154 weeks (just shy of three years and counting), the memoir has occupied a place on that list, and "The Audacity of Hope" resided there 75 weeks, until it dropped off last month.

Obama's books and their audio versions -- both won Grammy Awards in the spoken-word category -- made him wealthy. More important, though, they demonstrated a self-knowledge and seriousness rarely revealed by aspirants for the nation's highest office. In contrast to George W. Bush, who approached the English language as though it were a no-holds-barred contact sport, Obama made words work for him -- and help him win. They conveyed both an authenticity autobiographically and a fluency substantively.

In "Dreams From My Father," for example, the son learns the sobering truth about his idealized father, who had left the family with Barack still a baby. "Now, as I sat in the glow of a single light bulb, rocking slightly on a hard-backed chair, that image had suddenly vanished," he writes at one point. "Replaced by . . . what? A bitter drunk? An abusive husband? A defeated, lonely bureaucrat? To think that all my life I had been wrestling with nothing more than a ghost!"

Obama builds on this reflection to declare his own independence: "The king is overthrown, I thought. The emerald curtain is pulled aside. The rabble of my head is free to run riot; I can do what I damn well please. For what man, if not my own father, has the power to tell me otherwise? Whatever I do, it seems, I won't do much worse than he did."

Such poignant prose possesses power: It's different, and so, too, might be its author. Understanding one's personal development with acuity could translate (a reader might surmise) into broader social concern that's international in scope, as evident from the African roots and the formative years spent in Indonesia described in the memoir.

Obama's books enjoy literary throw weight, with strong appeal outside the United States. Both made best-seller lists abroad and were serialized in the foreign press. The Sunday Times (of London) placed "Dreams From My Father" 10^th on its July 5 ranking, the book's 35^th week on the list, with 573,870 copies purchased overall. In 2008, the memoir was second in overall nonfiction paperback sales in the U.K., while "The Audacity of Hope" ranked sixth in the same category.

Though the French edition of "Dreams" came out with a literal translation of the title ("Les Rêves de Mon Père"), the German version ("Ein amerikanischer Traum") goes further with the title and its meaning: "An American Dream."

"Dreams from My Father" first appeared in 1995 -- a year before Obama became involved in elective politics as a candidate for the Illinois State Senate. The re-release of the book after his keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention helped establish the then-U.S. Senate prospect as a national figure and prompted a contract for "The Audacity of Hope." The second book was published in October 2006, shortly before he embarked on his White House run. Timing, timing.

At the beginning of his memoir, Obama remembers listening to his maternal grandfather's advice: "'Now there's something you can learn from your dad,' he would tell me. 'Confidence. The secret to a man's success.'"

Confidence is no longer Barack Obama's secret, and it's carried him far since his youth. In fact, the host of a long-time Chicago radio program recalls an interview he conducted with the fledgling Windy City author back in 1995, when "Dreams" first appeared. At the end of the discussion, the show's young producer exited the control booth to thank the guest. "I know you'll run for president someday," the producer said. "Maybe I can help."

"Dreams From My Father" certainly did.

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Robert Schmuhl is Walter H. Annenberg-Edmund P. Joyce Chair of American Studies and Journalism at the University of Notre Dame, where he directs the John W. Gallivan Program in Journalism, Ethics & Democracy.

Tagged: barack obama, BarackObama

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