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This is the inspiring story of a modern American icon, the first comprehensive account of the life and times of Michelle Obama. With disciplined reporting and a storyteller’s eye for revealing detail, Peter Slevin follows Michelle to the White House from her working-class childhood on Chicago’s largely segregated South Side. He illuminates her tribulations at Princeton University and Harvard Law School during the racially charged 1980s and the dilemmas she faced in Chicago while building a high-powered career, raising a family, and helping a young community organizer named Barack Obama become president of the United States.
� � � � From the lessons she learned in Chicago to the messages she shares as one of the most recognizable women in the world, the story of this First Lady is the story of America. Michelle Obama: A Life is a fresh and compelling view of a woman of unique achievement and purpose.��
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- Sales Rank: #15984 in Books
- Published on: 2016-01-26
- Released on: 2016-01-26
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.00" h x .90" w x 5.30" l, .95 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 432 pages
Review
Finalist for the 2015 PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography
One of Booklist’s Top Ten Biographies of 2015
“Detailed and absorbing. . . . [B]ring[s] a storied public figure to life.” —The Washington Post
“A deeply informed portrait of the first lady and her native Chicago. . . . Her larger story, told so powerfully in Slevin’s biography, suggests she will forever be a force with which to be reckoned.”
—Chicago Tribune
“A must-read. . . . An important new biography. . . . Slevin treats [the First Lady] and her accomplishments with the detail and nuance they deserve.”
—Elle Magazine
“A standout. . . . Michelle Obama’s story is an American classic. . . . Slevin combines access to her and her family and friends with a keen understanding of American politics and history.”
—USA Today
“Thoughtful. . . . Ripe with revelations about her deeply complicated relationship with her own position as an Ivy League-�educated black woman. . . . Richly rendered context for Mr. Obama’s 2008 campaign, when Mrs. Obama suddenly became a litmus test.”
—The New York Times Book Review
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“[A] meticulously reported, close-up look. . . . A detailed portrait of an ambitious, civic-minded woman with a track record for getting things done.”
—The Florida Times-Union
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“Makes a convincing case that Mrs. Obama’s popularity today has more to do with events that took place on the south side of Chicago decades ago than with the work of an image maker in the East Wing of the White House.”
—The Wall Street Journal�
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“Impressively reported and researched. . . . fast-paced.”
—Chicago�magazine
“Richly detailed prose. . . . tons of little-known nuggets revealed in the book, offering readers a closer look at the Mrs. Obama they never knew.”
—NBC
“[An] intimate view of her life. . . . The most comprehensive portrait to date of the nation’s first African-American first lady.”
—Atlanta BlackStar
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“The most ambitious and authoritative book about [First Lady Michelle Obama] yet. Richly reported, beautifully written, thoughtful in its judgments and revelatory in its details . . . a work that does justice to Michelle Obama in a fresh way.”
—John Heilemann, co-author of�Game Change�and�Double Down
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“The life of Michelle Obama is a uniquely American story, and Peter Slevin tells it beautifully in this deft, revealing work. . . . Slevin also paints a rich picture of Chicago’s�South Side during the past century�and the family and forces that helped shape this exceptional woman.”
—David Axelrod, former Senior Advisor to the President, director of the Institute of Politics at the University of Chicago
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“Slevin is dogged in his reporting, nuanced in his storytelling and thoughtful in his analysis. He not only shows us who this historical first lady is, but how she came to be. In the process, he reveals much about our times and our culture.”
—Robin Givhan, Pulitzer Prize-winning critic for the�Washington Post
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“Compelling. . . . [An] exhaustive and thoughtful portrait. . . . will delight the most ardent Michelle Watchers.”
—Patrik Henry Bass,�NY1
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“An amazing, eye-opening biography that begins on Chicago’s South Side and ends in the White House. . . . a rich, powerful portrait at once revealing of Mrs. Obama and of ourselves as Americans.”
—Dexter Filkins, author of�The Forever War�
About the Author
Peter Slevin spent a decade on the national staff of The Washington Post before joining Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, where he is an associate professor. He has written extensively about Barack and Michelle Obama, as well as political campaigns and policy debates from one end of the country to the other. Slevin graduated from Princeton and Oxford. He lives with his family in Evanston, Illinois.
Excerpt. � Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Introduction
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In June 2010, when Michelle Obama cast her eyes across the class of graduating high school seniors from one of Washington’s most troubled black neighborhoods, she saw not only their lives, but her own. The setting was Constitution Hall, where the Daughters of the American Revolution had prevented opera singer Marian Anderson from performing in 1939 because she was black. So much had changed in seven decades, and yet much had not. Michelle spoke to the graduates about the troubles facing African American children in Anacostia, and she spoke about racism. She pointed out that the neighborhood within sight of the U.S. Capitol once was segregated and that black people had been prohibited from owning property in parts of the community. “And even after those barriers were torn down,” she said, “others emerged. Poverty. Violence. Inequality.”
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Michelle drew a straight line from her struggles with hardship and self-doubt in working-class Chicago to the fractured world the Anacostia students inhabited thirty years later. She told them about being written off, about feeling rejected, about the resilience it takes for a black kid in a public school to become one of the first in her family to go to college. “Kids teasing me when I studied hard. Teachers telling me not to reach too high because my test scores weren’t good enough. Folks making it clear with what they said or didn’t say that success wasn’t meant for a little girl like me from the South Side of Chicago.” As she spoke of her parents—their sacrifices and the way they pushed her “to reach for a life they never knew”—her voice broke and tears came to her eyes. As the students applauded in support, Michelle went on, “And if Barack were here, he’d say the same thing was true for him. He’d tell you it was hard at times growing up without a father. He’d tell you that his family didn’t have a lot of money. He’d tell you he made plenty of mistakes and wasn’t always the best student.”
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She knew that many of the Anacostia students faced disruptions and distractions that sometimes made it hard to show up, much less succeed. It might be family turmoil or money troubles or needy relatives or children of their own. Or maybe the lack of a mentor, a quiet place to study, a lucky break. “Maybe you feel like no one has your back, like you’ve been let down by people so many times that you’ve stopped believing in yourself. Maybe you feel like your destiny was written the day you were born and you ought to just rein in your hopes and scale back your dreams. But if any of you are thinking that way, I’m here to tell you: Stop it.”
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There were no cheap lines in Michelle’s speech that day, seventeen months after she arrived in the White House as the unlikeliest first lady in modern history. In a voice entirely her own, she reached deep into a lifetime of thinking about race, politics, and power to deliver a message about inequity and perseverance, challenge and uplift. These were the themes and experiences that animated her and set her apart. No one who looked like Michelle Obama had ever occupied the White House. No one who acted quite like her, either. She ran obstacle courses, she danced the Dougie, she hula-hooped on the White House lawn. She opened the executive mansion to fresh faces and voices and took her show on the road. She did sitcoms and talk shows and participated in cyber showcases and social media almost as soon as they were invented. Cameras and microphones tracked her every move. Maddening though the attention could be, she tried to make it useful. Amid a characteristic media fuss about a new hairstyle, she said of first ladies, “We take our bangs and we stand in front of important things that the world needs to see. And eventually, people stop looking at the bangs and they start looking at what we’re standing in front of.”
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Michelle’s projects and messages reflected a hard-won determination to help the working class and the disadvantaged, to unstack the deck. She was more urban and more mindful of inequality than any first lady since Eleanor Roosevelt. She was also more steadily, if subtly, political. Not political in ways measured by elections or ephemeral Beltway chatter, although she made clear her convictions from many a campaign stage. Rather, political as defined by spoken beliefs about how the world should work and purposeful projects calculated to bend the curve. Her efforts unfolded in realms that had barely existed for African Americans a generation earlier, a fact that informed and complicated her work. “We live in a nation where I am not supposed to be here,” she once said.
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Michelle’s prospects as first lady delighted her supporters and helped get Barack elected, but her story and its underpinnings remained unfamiliar to many white Americans in a country where black Americans often felt relegated to a parallel universe. “As we’ve all said in the black community, we don’t see all of who we are in the media. We see snip- pets of our community and distortions of our community,” Michelle said. “So the world has this perspective that somehow Barack and Michelle Obama are different, that we’re unique. And we’re not. You just haven’t seen us before.” She belonged to a generation that came of age after the civil rights movement. It was fashionable in some circles for people to declare that they no longer saw race, but translation would be required. As her friend Verna Williams put it, “So many people have no idea about what black people are like. They feel they know us when they really don’t.” Lambasted early as “Mrs. Grievance” and “Barack’s Bitter Half,” Michelle knew the burden of making herself understood. One of her favorite descriptions of her Washington life came from a California college student who described the role of first lady as “the balance between politics and sanity.”
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During her years in the spotlight, Michelle became a point of reference and contention. She built and nurtured her popularity and emerged as one of the most recognizable women in the world. “You do not want to underestimate her, ever,” said Trooper Sanders, a White House aide. Indeed, Michelle seemed to stride through life, full of confidence and direction. Comfortable in her own skin, friends always said. Authentic. But when asked what she would say to her younger self, as an interviewer flashed her high school yearbook photo onto a giant screen, Michelle paused to consider. “I think that girl was always afraid. I was thinking ‘Maybe I’m not smart enough. Maybe I’m not bright enough. Maybe there are kids that are working harder than me.’ I was always worrying about disappointing someone or failing.”
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At Constitution Hall, addressing 158 Anacostia seniors dressed in cobalt blue gowns, Michelle shared her history and her self-doubt. She offered advice and encouragement but skipped the saccharine. “You can’t just sit around,” she instructed. “Don’t expect anybody to come and hand you anything. It doesn’t work that way.” She asked them to think about the obstacles faced by Frederick Douglass, their neighborhood’s most illustrious former resident, born into slavery and self- educated in an era when it was illegal to teach slaves to read or write. His mother died when he was a boy and he never knew his father. But he made it, “persevering through thick and thin,” and spent decades fighting for equality. She also asked them to consider the current occupants of the White House. “We see ourselves in each and every one of you. We are living proof for you, that with the right support, it doesn’t matter what circumstances you were born into or how much money you have or what color your skin is. If you are committed to doing what it takes, anything is possible. It’s up to you.”
Most helpful customer reviews
25 of 32 people found the following review helpful.
A lively account of a remarkable person
By N. B. Kennedy
Peter Slevin's biography of First Lady Michelle Obama draws you in from the very first page. He begins with her own words, spoken at the graduation ceremony at a high school in a troubled black neighborhood. By doing so, he sets the stage for Mrs. Obama's life story, the daughter of working class parents who rose to prominence despite the overwhelming odds against her.
The story is delightfully told. Mr. Slevin enlivens the narrative not only with Michelle Obama's words but of scores of people whose lives have intersected with hers. And the quotes are entertaining! One woman who says she would have predicted that Michelle would become president rather than her husband, uses a moniker you might hear on the streets instead of in the halls of power (bad- you-can-guess).
After opening with the First Lady's words, the author backtracks to her family and childhood upbringing. Again, he casts his net wide as an interviewer, finding people who knew her parents, people who went to school with Michelle, people who have worked with her. He paints a picture of the times, and what it was -- and is -- like to be black in both her parents' time and her own.
The biography is, thankfully, not a standard-issue work of hagiography. The author doesn't shy way from the First Lady's missteps, like the time she wore designer sneakers to work in a soup kitchen. He also repeats unflattering, and downright nasty, comments from both Internet trolls and high-profile critics alike. By doing so, he draws attention to the damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't role of the First Lady.
This enjoyable read is helped along by the fact that Michelle is a colorful personality who is in touch with not only her own generation, but younger generations as well -- she who tweets, dances with Jimmy Fallon, and performs in comedy skits. I have always appreciated her efforts to bring healthier habits to the nation's families and schools, so it was good to hear more about those initiatives. Perhaps most of all, I enjoyed learning about her role as "The Closer," a nickname she earned for her adept work on her husband's presidential election campaigns.
I am a very apolitical person and do not generally seek out articles or books having anything to do with politics, but even with the unavoidable political content of this biography, Mr. Slevin's book is a very enjoyable read, whichever side of the aisle you're on.
32 of 42 people found the following review helpful.
The Michelle I Always Wanted to Know
By James Hiller
Writing the biography of a first lady is a daunting business. You have a childhood to write about that may or may not be inspirational. You have the story of a presidential couple that everyone must feel they know a lot about, and the "real" couple behind the office and headlines to contend with. You also have the president, who could so overpower the First Lady as to seem diminutive and a mere echo of her husband. You also have a part of the population who, no matter what you say and/or write about a person, cannot see beyond their own political-goggles and will mercilessly attack a book no matter what the content. Peter Slevin manages to navigate successfully these potential issues in his new, fascinating book "Michelle Obama: A Life".
The story of her childhood is compelling, as she grew up on the south side of Chicago, having to contend with the pervasive racial factors that dominated the society during that time. Her parents gave her a firm grounding, insisting on education and expecting her to be a successful adult. That she fulfilled in spades.
We get to spend time with her in college, and at the start of her career. When Barack enters her life, she somehow manages to both transform and become more the woman she always was. It's a hidden testament to her character and drive, as well as her loving devotion to her husband, who was destined to be on an upward track. Even though the subsequent elections could possibly shadow the Michelle, Slevin steers the book towards her, and we get to see her both at her best and not-so-best.
In fact, Slevin writes a portrait of Michelle that is both honest and honoring. You don't feel at all that he regards her to put her on a pedestal. His intention is to tell her story as honestly as possible. The Michelle that emerges, through it all, is one of humanness, or humanity, and of considerable force and drive.
I must admit to being a Michelle Obama fan, so when this book came up for selection, I jumped at the chance. After reading it, I only admire her more. Even if you are not a fan, her story is a compelling look of one woman's journey through the heartland of America, to rise to become our First Lady. She is the epitome, mistakes and all, of our American Story.
5 of 7 people found the following review helpful.
Mrs. Obama as President?
By TLM-aka "Icart"
Much has been said about the First Lady in the press. Some complimentary; some not so complimentary. The truthfulness of the information is lacking. With all of this added together, we (meaning the population in general) end up with unnessary lies that tarnishes the reputation of the person involved and can hurt all of those surrounding him/he (Ie: children, parents, etc...). This book will help straighten out information about Mrs. Obama and give you a 'peek' into her past, present and future.
First, thrown away all of your political ambitions, goals, thoughts, and, yes, discriminations. You have to read this book as though she were your friend, mother, or neighbor. Personify her. Trust me: the book will be much more enjoyable. She has a very marked distinction over other first ladies: she's the first African-American first lady. She takes her role seriously. My opinion, and this is coming from a caucasian, 46-year old woman, is that she almost has to go WAY above and beyond to prove herself. Unlike other First Ladies she isn't afraid to show herself in public; she doesn't hide.
The book goes rather deeply into her life as far as biographies go. What was her childhood like? How did she handle growing up? Why does she make some of the decisions that she does as a first lady.
There are other books out there with Mrs. Obama as the topic. This book is different. The author has done an outstanding job telling her story. Some of it will be new information while much of it will be "old" information. It's very nonjudgmental. For the most part people will probably enjoy this book as much as I did.
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