Dreams from My Father by Barack Obama

The full title of this book is Dreams from My Father: a Story of Race and Inheritance and was originally published in 1995 (who knew?) by Barack Obama, five years after he had foreshadowed greater things by becoming the first black president of the Harvard Law Review.  Others have elucidated better than I the fascinating publishing history of this particular work so I won't go into it.

If you, like me, watched the President-Elect on the night of his victory, perhaps you too felt a ridiculous rush of emotion watching him do so.  I had picked up Dreams when I headed to Vegas in September and finished it on a porch in Virginia last week.  At first, I was merely curious to see how this guy came to be.  I mean, he's just so interesting, with his globe-trotting activist-Mom, his Kenyan Dad and his Indonesian stepdad and his many African "aunties" and his struggle to be a "black" man raised predominantly by his white grandparents.  I love that this guy wandered about his youth just like we all did: experimenting, failing, doing stupid things, being a jerk.  It still blows my mind that this guy made it to where he is today.

The writing style can sometimes be a bit formal; for the most part, though, it's accessible and easy to read.  I'm sure much has been glossed over but I can't say that it detracts from the book at all.  If anything, the book is less about Obama himself and more about the perceptions of things: his perceptions of himself, of others; others' perceptions of him; America's perceptions of itself and others, etc.

Yes, it was a bit of a slow read.  I still think it's a worthwhile endeavour, especially for us Canadians.