markk

To be honest, I've never been a fan of memoirs. While I have read a few by celebrities that I've enjoyed because of their humor, too many of the ones by public figures are either preachy self-justifications or selective journeys through careers in which achievements are exaggerated and blame for failures shifted to others. In them, introspection and honesty are sacrificed in order to present a polished face to history. I know it's human — after all, we all want to be the hero or heroine In our stories — but that doesn't mean I want to waste my time reading them when I can learn so much about the person from the accounts of others.

And this is at the heart of why I enjoyed Michelle Obama's memoir as much as I did. In It she more than just a summary of her life from her childhood on the South Side of Chicago to her years as the First Lady of the United States, but an introspective assessment of what it meant to her. It helps that she writes in a clear and eloquent style with touches of inspiration scattered throughout, as it does that she has no detailed political agenda to promote or a governing legacy to defend. Yet even with these factors taken into consideration there is a real power in her writing, thanks to her candidness about the challenges she faced and how she dealt with them. She conveys a great sense of sincerity in its pages, which comes through best in her self-assessments and the love she feels for her husband and her daughters. While the selectiveness is there (she leaves out certain subjects, such as her time in law school), it's subtle enough to be missed in the flow of her narrative. More importantly, though, is that it feels sincere in a way few memoirists, even candid ones, can achieve successfully. It serves as a powerful reminder of the classiness she exhibited as the First Lady and the good fortune we all enjoyed by having her as a part of American public life.