Becoming by Michelle Obama

I think it’s fair to say that my reading isn’t the most zeitgeisty. I usually only read a small handful of books published in the year I’m reading them, increasingly new non-fiction. But when I had audiobook credit towards the end of last year, I decided to spend it on one of the year’s bestsellers – Michelle Obama’s autobiography, Becoming (2018). All 19 hours of it.

Those 19 hours were read by Obama herself – which was one of the reasons I was keen to get it, as I love her voice. And, yes, she reads very well; I’d certainly recommend this way of experiencing the book.

The book takes us from Obama’s earliest memories through to leaving the White House and the inauguration of Donald Trump – and the most amazing thing about it is her astonishing powers of recall. Steadily, step by step, she takes us through every stage of her life – seeming to remember vividly what she experienced and thought at each part. She gives the same rigorous attention to (say) watching her father suffer with MS, or her path to getting into law school, as she does the minutiae of her husband’s rise to the White House. It is all-engrossing, and throughout she reflects with wisdom, thoughtfulness, and clear-sightedness about her own journey – and how this has been influenced by being a black woman.

Clear-sightedness is, indeed, the hallmark of Obama’s writing. My favourite parts of the book were probably her view of the first election campaign – as Obama fought first for the Democratic nomination and then for the presidency. While obviously wanting her husband to win, and believing he would be the best choice for the job, she has no illusions about the downsides of campaigning and the way opponents and the press manipulate everything. She says at the beginning and end of the book that she is not a political person and has seen nothing over the past ten years to change her mind – no, she isn’t going to run for president – and my heart ached with sympathy for somebody thrust into this position she would not have chosen. With her blessing, of course, but not with joy.

Anybody interested in how politics works in America will find the campaign trail section extremely interesting, and I can’t imagine anybody else has written about it from quite her perspective (or, frankly, with her humanity and wisdom). The same is true for life as First Lady – from how she wanted to use the role for the nation’s good to how she tried to ensure that her daughters’ lives were as normal as humanly possible.

It closes with her hopes for the future. She is refreshingly open about her disdain for Donald Trump (which dated back to his endangering her family’s lives through his ‘birther’ attacks, which led to a gunman attacking the White House) – like many of us in and out of America, she couldn’t believe that America had seen him for what he was and chosen him.

The book is certainly long and every anecdote is thorough and detailed, even when it adds only background detail. But it works – all the details come together to show you who Michelle Obama is. And the only mystery I leave with is that somebody so modest, selfless, and unbombastic came to be persuaded to write an autobiography at all. She suggests it is to show other young black women what they can achieve. Well, I’m very pleased she did – and I think the book will continue her good work.