19 November 2018 - Michelle Obama Publishes Memoir, "Becoming"
Becoming by Michelle Obama – review
Peter Conrad (The Guardian, 18/11/2018)
When Michelle Obama, aged four, began her piano lessons with a great aunt on the proletarian South Side of Chicago, the first instruction barked at her by her crabby relative was “Find middle C”. That key, its ivory chipped so that it looked like a carious tooth, was her anchorage, the frontier between right and left hands or between treble and bass clefs.
She learned this preliminary lesson well, as her memoir testifies: Becoming serenely balances gravity and grace, uplift and anecdote, though its high-mindedness does permit a few low blows at Barack Obama’s villainous successor. A single sentence catches the blend of conscientious bass and giggly treble that makes Michelle simultaneously admirable and adorable. Recalling her teenage friendship with Jesse Jackson’s daughter, she says that “Santita and I were all for strengthening the character of black youth across America, but we also needed rather desperately to get to the shopping mall before the K-Swiss sneaker sale ended.”
Michelle Obama's 'Becoming' Is a Book America Needs, From a Woman It Does Not Yet Deserve
Angie Thomas (TIME Magazine, 17/11/2018)
When I first learned that Michelle Obama was writing a memoir, one word emerged from the depths of my gut: No!
That reaction came from a protectiveness conceived on Nov. 4, 2008, in my childhood home in Jackson, Miss. The election results had confirmed the impossible — America was getting its first black president. My mom paced the house, shouting her thanks to God. My 90-year-old grandmother shed tears. Gunshots sounded in my neighborhood, which wasn’t unusual — but this time, they were followed by shouts of joy. I sat in front of the television in pure disbelief as I watched the four Obamas appear on stage, our incoming First Family and even more than that, our first black First Family.
Michelle Obama says not always easy to live up to 'we go high'
Judy Kurtz (The Hill, 18/11/2018)
Michelle Obama says it's not always easy to adhere to her "when they go low, we go high" motto, admitting there were times she wished former President Obama's response to political foes would be to "just curse them out."
"Oftentimes, going low means you're acting from a place of ego. You’re really just satisfying your immediate need to lash out. And rarely does that connect to a solution," the former first lady said at a Saturday book tour stop at Washington's Capital One Arena to promote her new memoir, "Becoming."
Obama, speaking to Valerie Jarrett onstage in front of a packed crowd, responded to a question from the former White House adviser about why it was "so important" to her to take the high road.
Why Michelle Obama Is ‘Everything’
Stacia Brown (The New York Times, 13/11/2018)
A few days before the release of Michelle Obama’s memoir, “Becoming,” I went to look at her portrait at the National Portrait Gallery to reflect on her evolving role in public life, and to talk to other women who were doing the same.
The book, published on Tuesday, has been described as offering a more personal invitation into her life than any she’s previously extended. Early reviews praise her discussion of her miscarriage and of her use of in vitro fertilization for its potential to fight stigma about reproductive problems that go under-discussed especially among black women.
As I approached the image of Mrs. Obama as Amy Sherald has rendered her, she stared right back at me, her hand propped under her chin, wry but not quite inviting. In a stark contrast to the memoir, this is not an image of the former first lady at her most accessible.