Barack Obama, A Promised Land (Penguin, 2020), Pp.768. ISBN: 978–0241491515

Excerpt

It’s very rare that a book tells a single story, still rarer for a political memoir. The paradox of Obama’s A Promised Land is that it is arguably and fairly obviously two books interwoven as one. There is the shallow/cosmetic/manifest story which is essentially an often eye-wateringly detailed chronological account of Obama’s presidential campaign through to May 2011. And then there is what ethnographers might label ‘the deep story’ which is essentially the tapestry of narratives that Obama himself uses to explain how he felt and how he sought to interpret, understand and deal with the dilemmas he faced as president (i.e. the inevitable grating and grinding, pressures and demands). Superficial stories provide information, facts, figures, schedules and detail; deep stories provide a sense of mood and feeling and emotional insight ;the first works in straight lines and the second through tone and texture; the former in black and white and the latter in shades of grey. …