I’m usually working on three books at a time. My bathroom book currently is “Becoming,” by Michelle Obama. My bedroom book is Gavin Newson’s “Young Man in a Hurry.” My kitchen table book is “John and Paul: A Love Story in Songs,” by Ian Leslie.
As you can see, I like biographies and memoirs.
I only read books I enjoy, and I can tell within a page or two if I’m going to like the book. If I don’t, I don’t read it: life’s too short to waste reading dull books. “Becoming” is utterly beguiling. Michelle is an ardent, observant, self-aware writer, and her tale of “becoming herself” is mesmerizing. Of course, the parts about Barack are great. Her husband has always been a bit of an enigma (which is why Trump was able to get so much mileage out of casting doubt on his birthplace). In “Becoming,” we get glimpses of who Barack is from Michelle, who herself is a forthright, demonstrative person. I like that Barack, as described by Michelle, was kind of a slob when they were dating: leaving his clothes in a pile on the floor, for instance. But in the end, this is Michelle’s story, a strong-willed, ambitious and smart lady who, almost against her better judgment, fell head over heels in love with a tall, skinny, handsome guy who swept her off her feet. Her account of how she balanced a demanding career as a high-powered attorney with the intricacies of dating the future President is riveting.
Speaking of ambition, Gavin Newsom’s memoir, “Young Man in a Hurry,” is frank about his own drive and dreams. Many of us who knew him “back then” wondered what drove him so relentlessly. I don’t know if he, himself, understood, or understands it even today. But the presidency was the always big enchilada. “Young Man in a Hurry” is a good read, courtesy (I suppose) of his ghost writer. But there’s a lot it doesn’t address.
The glaring lacuna is why. The governor doesn’t tackle the deep psychological wellsprings of why he was so consumed with achievement. (He could have aspired to being merely a successful businessman, after all.) Any successful person is, of course, motivated to succeed, but not to the extent that they’re the odds-on favorite to win the Democratic nomination for President. It would be interesting to read why Newsom thinks this happened to him, or, more to the point, why he made it happen. It could be that he is no more able to analyze or explain it than the rest of us. Maybe it’s unexplainable. Newsom founders a little when he attempts to rationalize the huge discrepancy between what he got from his mother, whom he describes as a hard-working single mom, and from his father, who provided the entrée to a Pacific Heights life of access, luxury and fame. Newsom has an agenda here: his opponents already are painting him as the spoiled scion of privilege, while Newsom is trying to portray himself as just another kid who tried to figure out his place in the world. Of course, he was neither, and both. On the other hand, lots of young men grow up well-connected, and are as handsome as Newsom; but very few get as far as he has. So it’s interesting to read his origin story, the tale Newsom tells himself. I doubt that it will blunt the allegation, from Republicans and some of his Democratic opponents, that in his privilege he was able to leapfrog over everyone else and achieve what he was not quite entitled to. As someone who’s known him for a long time, I myself don’t believe that his privilege alone was responsible for his success. The majority of it is due to his intelligence, his charm (considerable), his acute analyses of public opinion and the issues, and a certain flair for maintaining his composure, although there’s no question that his Irish temper sometimes gets the better of him. I recommend “Young Man in a Hurry” because, in the end, while Newsom might have been a little more self-reflective, he’s on the verge of becoming a world-historical figure; and the more we can understand such people, the better.
And now, on to the third book I’m working on, and by far the most enjoyable. “John and Paul: A Love Story in Songs,” by Ian Leslie, is quite simply the best book I’ve ever read on The Beatles, and I’ve pretty much read them all. As a Baby Boomer, of course, The Beatles were one of the most important cultural touchstones of my developmental years. It’s hard to impart to anyone who didn’t come of age in the Sixties just how omnipresent were. I believe, as Leslie argues, that “If anything of our civilization is remembered a thousand years from now, there is a good bet it will be the chorus of ‘She Loves You’ and an image of four men crossing a street in single file.’” The importance of The Beatles is only beginning to be discerned.
“John and Paul” is certainly a treat for Beatles freaks. It may not be as gripping to younger generations (although I hope it is), but to those of us whose antennae were exquisitely attuned to the slightest nuances of Beatle-ology, the book does the seemingly impossible: manage to impart new information and interpretation about a subject we thought already had been thoroughly exhausted. The main topic is, as the title says, the relationship between John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Author Leslie does a superb job of investigating how so many Beatles songs we didn’t know had anything to do with John’s and Paul’s relationship, actually did. I think we’ve all known for a long time that John and Paul competitively pushed and prodded each other toward their best work: John did Strawberry Fields and so Paul had to do Penny Lane. For all the heights of their post-Beatles careers, neither came close to the ecstatic glories of their collaborative years. Leslie explores this creative pas de deux adroitly. That alone makes “John and Paul” great reading as well as a reference work for future generations.
Steve Heimoff