Former Speaker John Boehner penning memoir
West Chester politician to share ‘Notes From a Smoke-Filled Room.’
Coming WASHINGTON — soon to a bookstore near you: A Boehner autobiography.
Politico reported Monday that former House Speaker John Boehner is at work on a memoir about his time in Washington, a more than 20 year span lasting from when he was a rabble-rousing freshman lawmaker in 1991 to his retirement as Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives in 2015. A Boehner spokesman confirmed the report as did the book’s publisher, Thomas Dunne Books, an imprint of St. Martin’s Press.
Boehner, who served southwest Ohio’s 8th congressional district which includes Miami, Clark, Butler, Darke, Preble and Mercer counties, has tentatively titled the book “Notes From a Smoke-Filled Room.” In a statement, Boehner told Politico: “I get the question every day: What was the proudest accomplishment of your time in Congress? And I think it’s that I walked out of there in October 2015 as pretty much the same jackass I was when I walked in almost 25 years earlier. I walked out of there with no regrets ... and a hell of a lot of good stories.”
The book is tentatively set for publication in spring 2020.
In a news release announcing the book, the publisher called Boehner “the last of a breed.”
“In a world of kale chips, cold-pressed coffee and soul cycles, he’s a man of Camels, good wine and frequent tee times,” they wrote. “He doesn’t chase political fads or play to the cameras. Despite being second in line to the presidency, he thought of himself as a regular guy.”
The publisher says the memoir will share “stories from the halls of power, of legislative battles won and lost, of interacting with Presidents from Gerald Ford to Donald Trump.”
“I’ve never really been interested in doing your typical political memoir kind of book. And this won’t be that kind of book,” Boehner said. “This is going to be a book people might want to actually read, no matter where they’re coming from politically, or where they’re coming from in life.”
In the years since he retired from Congress, Boehner joined the board of tobacco company Reynolds American Inc. and served as an advisor to law firm Patton Boggs. He garnered headlines earlier this year when he signed onto the advisory board of Acreage Holdings, a company that cultivates, processes and dispenses marijuana in 18 states.