Becoming

For some reason, it's taken me ages to get around to reading Michelle Obama's autobiography, Becoming; it's been sitting on my To Read pile for about a year. And then when I did start it, I took my time over finishing it, reading a couple of other books in between. This is not because it was hard going: it's totally engaging, warm and energetic -- much as I imagine the former First Lady herself might be.

After the orange fool who succeeded the Obamas in the White House (and horrifically, looks like getting back in there for a second term), it was so heartening to read about a pair of highly intelligent, compassionate and determined people who are driven by the desire to achieve good things for society -- to build stuff, instead of tearing it down or making money for themselves. Michelle grew up in the South Side of Chicago, in a declining neighbourhood; but her family always encouraged her education and she ended up at Harvard before working as a lawyer, which is where she met Barack. Of course these two are massively high achievers, but they also come across as normal people, people you could imagine having dinner with. I could never imagine having dinner with the Narcissist-in-Chief.

I say this book was heartening, but it was also so depressing to think that the reaction of America to Obama's two terms was to elect someone so utterly different in every way, someone so intent on undermining everything that the Obamas had worked for. In the last few pages of the book, Michelle describes looking around at Trump's inauguration ceremony and seeing a sea of pale, male faces -- a contrast to the 'vibrant diversity' of her husband's two inaugurations, and a sign of things to come.