The Obamas: A Mission, A Marriage
When Barack Obama won the 2008 presidential election, he also won a long-running debate with his wife Michelle. Contrary to her fears, politics now seemed like a worthwhile, even noble pursuit. Together they planned a White House life that would be as normal and sane as possible. Then they moved in. In The Obamas, Jodi Kantor takes us deep inside the White House as they grapple with their new roles, change the country, raise children, maintain friendships, and figure out what it means to be President and First Lady.
3.6 out of 5 based on 11 reviews
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Omniscore:
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| Classification |
Non-fiction |
| Genre |
Biography, Society, Politics & Philosophy |
| Format |
Paperback |
| Pages |
368 |
| RRP |
£14.99 |
| Date of Publication |
January 2012 |
| ISBN |
978-1846145674 |
| Publisher |
Allen Lane |
| |
When Barack Obama won the 2008 presidential election, he also won a long-running debate with his wife Michelle. Contrary to her fears, politics now seemed like a worthwhile, even noble pursuit. Together they planned a White House life that would be as normal and sane as possible. Then they moved in. In The Obamas, Jodi Kantor takes us deep inside the White House as they grapple with their new roles, change the country, raise children, maintain friendships, and figure out what it means to be President and First Lady.
Reviews
The New York Times
Connie Schultz
"In lesser hands “The Obamas” would be an act of astonishing overreach, but Ms. Kantor, who covered the Obamas for The New York Times during the 2008 presidential campaign, and is currently a Washington correspondent for the paper, has earned the voice of authority. A meticulous reporter, Ms. Kantor is attuned to the nuance of small gestures, the import of unspoken truths. She knows that every strong marriage, including the one now in the White House, has its complexities and its disappointments. Ms. Kantor also — and this is a key — has a high regard for women, which is why hers is the first book about the Obama presidency to give Michelle Obama her due. In the process we learn a great deal about the talented and introverted loner who married her, and how his wife has influenced him as a president."
08/01/2012
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The Daily Telegraph
Frances Wilson
"… as tense, tight and intimate a portrait of life in the White House as an episode of The West Wing … The sketches of Obama off-duty are utterly believable. Competitive to his roots, the aim of every activity, even Scrabble, is self-improvement and his desire to win each round of golf and game of basketball makes him, his friends and aides admit, “occasionally insufferable”."
20/01/2012
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The Sunday Telegraph
Kate Figes
"… the fullest picture of this presidency yet. The Obamas have always had a refreshing candour about the challenges of marriage and Kantor, a working mother herself, taps sensitively under the skin of modern marital difficulties."
21/01/2012
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The Daily Express
Virginia Blackburn
"Highly readable ... The tone is fast, gossipy and informed"
23/01/2012
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The Economist
The Economist
"… there is nothing scurrilous about [Kantor's] work. She interviewed more than 200 people, including most of the principal players. None of the scenes she describes has been seriously disputed, although she can be prone to over-interpretation ... The portrait is largely sympathetic."
21/01/2012
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The Evening Standard
Sarah Sands
"… a stylish examination of the complexities and tensions within the presidential marriage … The author does not quite crack the President's introspection and his self-reliance, neither does his wife."
19/01/2012
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The Guardian
Sarah Churchwell
"The question is why this book, now? It is three years into Obama's four-year term; if he succeeds in getting re-elected, it will have been written less than halfway through his presidency. It is a judicious and perceptive book, but it also feels as ephemeral as most journalism, with only the most fugitive references to history."
21/01/2012
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The New Yorker
David Remnick
"As the author of “Anna Karenina” could have attested, an unhappy marriage can be unhappy—and interesting—in countless ways … [Kantor's task is to make] a happy marriage interesting … You sense the strain when, in the opening pages of “The Obamas,” Kantor sets out the terms of her project: “In public, they smiled and waved, but how were the Obamas really reacting to the White House, and how was it affecting the rest of us?” Later, she works even harder to gin up the melodrama: “Could Barack Obama’s attempts to make his wife happy—to compensate for his decision to pursue politics, to run for president—hurt his work as president? ... The questions are at once labored and absurd. The state of a marriage is a poor guide to the course of a Presidency. The book is on surer ground when it sets aside all that and simply calls the Obamas on their occasional sanctimonies."
16/01/2012
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The Times
Giles Whittell
"Jodi Kantor’s White House lid-lifter is laboriously researched and thoughtfully written by a well-regarded reporter from The New York Times, which is not known for gratuitous attacks on the first black US President. Yet the portrait it paints of him and his wife, considering what we think we already know of them, is unflattering almost to the point of being toxic. Just as he begins his re-election fight in earnest, President Obama emerges from the Kantor treatment looking brittle, introspective, moody, out of touch and naive. Mrs Obama comes across as shorttempered, overbearing, needlessly extravagant and almost impossible to satisfy. As a couple they are made to seem besieged and misunderstood but also thin-skinned, petulant and dangerously disdainful of politics."
21/01/2012
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The Sunday Times
Christina Lamb
"… Kantor has interviewed 33 current and former White House aides and uses this to write in Bob-Woodward, fly-on-the-wall style. A typical sentence, at the start of chapter six, runs: “One day in fall 2009, Michelle Obama sat upstairs in the private family quarters of the White House alone, frightened and unsure of what to do next.” Given that Kantor only ever interviewed the Obamas once, before they took office, this is irritating for the reader and infuriating for the first lady."
22/01/2012
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The Washington Post
Liza Mundy
"Forgive me for being cynical, but I have a hard time believing that the White House and Michelle Obama are really all that upset by the portrayal of the first lady that emerges in “The Obamas.” In the annals of irregularities that first ladies have been justly or unjustly accused of, sparring with a chief of staff, particularly one as combative as Rahm Emanuel, hardly registers as shocking or unexpected ... Michelle Obama should be congratulating herself on her good fortune."
13/01/2012
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