The Bridge

April 5, 2010
Remnick (Lenin's Tomb), editor of the New Yorker, offers a detailed but lusterless account of Barack Obama's historic ascent. As a piece of "biographical journalism," the book succeeds ably enough and offers familiar commentary on Obama's cosmopolitan childhood with strains of isolation and abandonment straight out of David Copperfield-rootless, fatherless, with a loving but naïve and absent mother, he suffered racial taunts and humiliations at the hands of his schoolmates. We read how Obama's famous composure was hard-won, how he constructed his personality in opposition to his father's grandiose self-regard, his transformation from "Barry" to "Barack," the drug use, the burgeoning racial and political consciousness-rehashing events that the subject himself has covered in his frank memoirs. But for the scope (and size) of the book, Remnick's interest is ultimately limited to a study of Obama's relationship with blackness, and Obama as the student and fulfillment of the civil rights movement-it's a rich vein but impersonal, and in the author's handling, slightly repetitive. Remnick is in deeply respectful court scribe mode, but he does shine in his treatment of more peripheral characters such as Jesse Jackson and Hillary Clinton, both of whom emerge as figures of Shakespearian psychological complexity. A well-researched biography that pulls many trends of Obama-ology under its umbrella but stints on fresh interpretations.

Starred review from March 15, 2010
From New Yorker editor Remnick (Reporting: Writings from The New Yorker, 2006, etc.), a world-ranging, eye-opening, comprehensive life to date of the 44th President of the United States

World-ranging because, writes the author,"Barack Obama's family, broadly defined, is vast. It's multi-confessional, multiracial, multi-lingual, and multi-continental." One of his half brothers, born in Africa, lives in China; a cousin is a rabbi; other cousins are blond children of the prairie. Then there is his father, a promising economist with a drinking problem, and his mother, an anthropologist who left the young man with her parents in order to pursue her career. Obama, as Remnick's allusive title suggests, has served as a bridge among cultures and races, though his steadfast wish to be seen as a person of accomplishments who happens to be black does not neatly fit the pigeonholing that so many of his critics wish to entertain—notwithstanding Obama's evident delight at resisting categories. He makes another bridge, too, as Remnick cogently writes—a bridge to the past and to the bridges Dr. King crossed at Selma, Montgomery and Washington; a bridge, as a memoirist, to the rich history of African-American narrative. The author also delves into Obama's travels in Pakistan with a Muslim friend and his relationship with the firebrand preacher Jeremiah Wright, all of which fed into"the story of race in the [2008] campaign." Yet for all the potential political derailments his past and friendships might have caused, the author depicts Obama as a survivor, an adept practical politician and, most importantly, a leader who demands to be taken seriously.

Remnick's fluent writing makes this expansive, significant book move along swiftly. Readers will look forward to the sequel, eight years from now.

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Starred review from March 15, 2010
Remnicks major contribution to the river of Obama books is a sharply honed work of biographical journalism unique in its multiplicity of perspectives, contextual richness, and astute analysis of the presidents political, racial, and sentimental education. A Pulitzer Prize winner and editor of the New Yorker, Remnick draws on hundreds of interviews to convey the challenges Obama faced in the forging of a self and recognition of a calling. In his sensitive portrayal of Obamas mother and incisive coverage of his childhood, Remnick weighs the absence of Obamas Kenyan father and close black relatives and his consequential hunger for mentors, longing for community, and literature-fueled, do-it-yourself African American identity. Great constellations of little-known history and striking insights coalesce around each locale as Remnick illuminates Obamas experiences in Hawaii, Indonesia, California, Columbia University, Harvard, and Chicago and the evolution of his social conscience. Standout passages explicate Obamas struggles as a community organizer and the crucial influence of Harold Washington, Chicagos first black mayor. Remnick vividly depicts Obama as a novice campaigner, resented state senator, and restless member of Congress; a charismatic man of discipline and brilliance, conviction and conciliation, who connected with exactly the right people to support his visionary, fast-tracked political ascendency. In his spectacularly encompassing, analytical, and dramatic portrait, Remnick calibrates the deepest reverberations of Obamas transformative journey to the White House.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)