Kamala's Way: An American Life by Dan Morain
Kamala's Way: An American Life by Dan Morain
There's very little that's conventional about Kamala Harris, yet her personal story also represents the best of America.
She and her younger sister were raised by a single mother, a no-nonsense cancer researcher who emigrated from India at the age of nineteen in search of a better education. Harris's mother and her father, an accomplished Jamaican-born economics professor, split up when Harris was only five. From both her parents she inherited a sense of social justice. From her mother: a work ethic, an attention to detail, and most of all, a talent for getting around closed doors.
From her modest beginnings in Oakland through her activist days at Howard University, Harris grew up to be tough, smart, quick-witted and demanding -- both a formidable prosecutor known for her lethal one-liners and a politician deft at managing California's split-personality culture. Veteran journalist Dan Morain watched her ascent over his twenty-five years covering the state of California and delivers the first in-depth biography of her exceptional journey.
You'll meet Harris the fast-rising prosecutor -- handling child molestation cases and homicides in Alameda County; introducing innovative ways to fight truancy, neutralize gangs, and protect sex workers as San Francisco district attorney; and becoming the first Black female attorney general in California history.
You'll meet Harri the shrewd strategist, not afraid to play hardball in California's sharp-elbowed politics but also capable of pulling her punches when it suited her. A longtime opponent of the death penalty, she refused to pursue it against a cop killer, but then twice refused to take a stand against it when it was on the California ballot.
You'll meet Harris the twenty-nine-year-old who entered into a relationship with Assembly Speaker Willie Brown, a man thirty years her senior and one of the most powerful men in the state. It was a relationship that would open doors, but one that she would also later describe as "an albatross."
You'll discover Harris the risk-taker, who made the bold decision to run for the United States Senate just five years into her tenure as attorney general -- and to embrace Barack Obama's candidacy when he was just a long shot.
And you'll meet Harris the comeback queen, as Morain dissects her failure as a presidential candidate -- and then her brilliant behind-the-scenes campaign to land the all-important VP spot on Joe Biden's ticket.
Along the way, Morain reveals what Harris does when no one is looking: falling in love later in life, becoming a stepmother, and caring for little-known members of her longtime and informal political family, who always knew that "Kamals' Way" would land her on top.
Simon & Schuster, Hardcover, 1st Edition, 1st Printing, 2021
THIS IS A BRAND NEW BOOK.