While still in law school in the early 1990's, Barack Obama was asked to write a book because he was the first black president of the Harvard Law Review. He did not set out to write a memoir; rather he intended to write an intellectual book on well ordered themes. But how did he arrive at the place he was? Half white, half black, where did he really belong? When he actually sat down to write, he found himself on an intensely personal, inner journey. He confesses,

First longings leapt up to brush my heart. Distant voices appeared, and ebbed, and then appeared again. I remembered stories that my mother and her parents told me as a child, the stories of a family trying to explain itself....Compared to this flood of memories, all my well-ordered theories seemed insubstantial and premature.

He realized that he had to trace his own path before he could offer his insights, conclusions and ideas about race in America. Obama is a beautiful writer. He does not shy away from the painful truths of his life, his doubts and insecurities, or the anger of his adolescence. He is not afraid to wrestle with hard questions. Nor does he shy away from his love for family, or his hope for true change. He is a good story teller with both intelligence and humor.

Being an elegant and eloquent writer is not the result of a wealthy, privileged life. On the contrary. Obama is the child of two University of Hawaii students: his mother, a young white woman from Kansas, and his father, the first African student ever to attend UH. After graduation, his father goes on to Harvard to earn his PhD, then returns to Kenya to share his wisdom and expertise. His wife and child are supposed to follow him, but never do.

Although Obama is always supported by a loving, caring (white) family, a great deal of his young life is a struggle for a sense of belonging. What his family teaches him and what the world teaches him are two entirely different things. Hurt and ambivalence shape him, as does his unclear relationship with his distant, brilliant father. He explains, It was only many years later, after I had sat at my father's grave and spoken to him through Africa's red soil, that I could circle back and evaluate these early stories for myself. Or, more accurately, it was only then that I understood that I had spent much of my life trying to rewrite these stories, plugging up holes in the narrative, accommodating unwelcome details, projecting individual choices against the blind sweep of history, all in the hope of extracting some granite slab of truth upon which my unborn children can firmly stand.

In Kenya he walks the dusty roads his father walked, and finds the people who share his name: his African sister and brothers, aunts, uncles and grandparents. These gracious people are to him, yet they shower him with love and affection, welcoming him “home.” It is here that healing begins.

After college, Obama becomes involved in the political process. He begins as a community organizer in one of the poorest parts of Chicago. He works with churches, schools and chambers of commerce to address the social/economic problems in a forgotten ghetto. As he befriends unemployed men, single mothers, and smoldering adolescents, he comes to realize that, “Communities had to be created, fought for, tended, like gardens.” And these same communities, “expanded or contracted with the dreams of men.”

Eventually Obama decides to go to law school for the skills he needs to really make a difference. And this is where the story ends. . . following his father's footsteps to Harvard.

Obama has come a long way since then. If you read the news, you know that Senator Obama is considered both a breath of fresh air and a rising star in politics. It is exciting to imagine how this young man's wisdom, integrity, and experience might influence policy on many things American. Obama elevates the level of public discourse at a time of cynicism and bumper sticker thinking. His perception and stance on domestic affairs comes from true, personal, long-term experience.

In his epilogue, written after law school, Obama offers his opinions: The study of law can be disappointing at times, a matter of applying narrow rules and arcane procedure to an uncooperative reality; a sort of glorified accounting that serves to regulate the affairs of those who have power. . .

But that's not all the law is. The law is also memory; the law also records a longrunning conversation, a nation arguing with its conscience. Our nation arguing with its conscience? Wouldn't that truly be a breath of fresh air? This memoir is a candid and insightful introduction to the heart and soul of a brilliant and sensitive public servant.