Dreams from an Absent Father

(#2) Read 25 Books

1. Room by Emma Donohue
2. Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald
3. Dreams from My Father by Barack Obama

Let me just start by saying: I know things are really intense in the political arena right now. And if you know me, you know my views. I'm not shy about them. But my purpose today is to review a book that I've read.

In fact, this book was recommended to me by a very conservative friend of mine. That it was recommended during a very heated argument, and why he suggested I read it, I won't discuss here either.

Now, about the book.

There have only been 43 presidents in history (relax, Grover Cleveland is counted twice in the 44 total. I looked it up), and there has only been one African-American president. So politics aside, I was interested to find out what it was in Barack Obama's life that made him the one. Unfortunately I should have paid more attention to the description of the book, because he wrote it in 1995 and doesn't even discuss becoming senator. Woops.

What he does discuss is his unusual childhood- largely spent in Hawaii and partially in Indonesia- and his struggle to find his identity as a black man being raised in a white world (and never does he refer to himself as half-black or half-white, always black). Raised by progressive grandparents who had let their daughter marry an African man in the 1950s but who could still never quite understand his situation, and a father who he met once and who spent more time idealizing their relationship more than actually participating in it.

I was surprised by the frankness with which he spoke about race relations. I guess, again, I was thinking of Obama the President who has to speak more politically today. But seeing Chicago's South Side through his eyes opened up a new perspective for me. As he starts his career in politics as a community organizer, I wonder why he never quit. The situation seemed totally, totally hopeless. I encourage anyone with the "pick yourself up by your bootstraps" mentality to give this section a read. These people were getting screwed over from ever angle.

There were also a few fun moments where Obama doesn't realize that he's foretelling his future a little bit, where I'm sitting in 2012 thinking HA!

From a literary standpoint, of course this was no masterpiece. Obama is a politician, not a writer. Pretty much every page leads him to a life-changing epiphany that has little to no relevance on the next page. The writing is a bit choppy, with some details left out and others running on and on.

But overall, it was an interesting read. I like to throw in some non-fiction every once and awhile to hopefully learn something new. And I learned a lot- about our 44th President (it is 44 in this context!), about Kenya and Indonesia and Hawaii, and about a side of America I'd like to hope no longer exists. But almost certainly does.

And to be fair, if anyone wants to recommend a good book written from the other side's perspective, I'd be happy to oblige.