Michelle Obama memoir
The former first lady has plenty to say in her new memoir, including denouncing President Trump for sexism and misogyny.
In her highly anticipated memoir, “Becoming,” former first lady Michelle Obama mostly sticks to her long-stated principle of staying positive in the face of political and personal attacks: “When they go low, we go high.”
But she doesn’t hold back entirely. Obama denounces President Donald Trump for his sexism and misogyny and, most forcefully, for his part in promoting the “birther” conspiracy theory that questioned Barack Obama’s citizenship.
She described his campaign to discredit her husband as “crazy and meanspirited, of course, its underlying bigotry and xenophobia hardly concealed,” as well as dangerous. “Donald Trump, with his loud and reckless innuendos, was putting my family’s safety at risk. And for this I’d never forgive him.”
“Becoming,” which is due out Tuesday, from Crown, is shaping up to be one of the year’s biggest blockbusters, with a global first printing of 3 million copies, and a worldwide release in 31 languages.
The memoir is landing at a moment when the former president and first lady have returned to public life after mostly laying low in the months following the 2016 election.
Barack Obama campaigned energetically for Democratic candidates in the midterms, and Michelle Obama has launched a new education project for adolescent girls and an initiative to promote voter registration and turnout. “Becoming,” which The New York Times received a copy of, is in many ways a fairly conventional first lady’s memoir: An insider’s view of what it was like to live through national tragedies and other major events, in one of the most high profile positions in the world.