Sarah Palin’s Independence Day

You don’t have to be a seer to recognize material for political celebrity memoir these days.  Everyone knew that Sarah Palin would ink a book deal (even though she would not ink the memoir herself).  Sure enough, HarperCollins signed her.

The August  issue of Vanity Fair includes an in-depth portrait of Palin by Todd S. Purdum–published just before her surprise announcement yesterday that she is leaving the governorship. You can read about the upcoming memoir in the context of a good summary of her entire career by following the link above.

The instant political celebrity memoir from the 2008 campaign has developed a track record. Samuel Wurzelbacher (remember him?) earlier this year published his memoir called Joe the Plumber: Fighting for the American Dream. Click on the image to read some of the reviews (2.5 stars). And read this Washington Post description of one stop on the book tour–11 people in the audience. Book sales: 5.

Twitter was alive with conjectures about Palin’s HarperCollins memoir after the resignation announcement yesterday. Some thought she has already had her 15 minutes of fame and will no longer have the star power necessary to sell books.

The publisher, gamely, predicted interest in the memoir to be “huge.” See GalleyCat post at mediabistro.com.

What are your thoughts–either about Sarah Palin herself or about her prospects to remake her career and her life by telling her story (ghost writer at her side)?

Joe the Plumber Fulfills Prediction

As soon as Joe the Plumber erupted onto the political stage, it was inevitable the he, too, would become a memoirist.  At least, he has signed a book deal, something I predicted on October 18 here. Of course, he is not really writing his own memoir.  You can see what the BBC said here.  And The New York Times here. The LA Times was pretty brutal, even in a news story. See the comments especially.  The book is coming to a bookstore near you–by December 1!!!

Joe swears he is not cashing in on his 15 minutes of fame.  And that he is “spreading the wealth” by choosing a little-known publisher.  Do you believe him?

Is Memoir Becoming Mandatory for Politics?

Candidates rise or fall depending upon how voters feel about the stories they tell and the stories others tell about them.  That’s why in recent years political conventions often feature films with the candidate as the hero, and hastily-written biographies usually crop up on Amazon and in the bookstores.  John Kerry was savaged by a Swiftboat biography in the last election.  This time, however, both candidates for president published best-selling memoirs before their campaigns began.

Mary Karr’s op ed several weeks ago, a subject of one of my earlier posts,  made the case that Obama’s memoir offers important insights about how he would lead, based on the difficult task of the excellent memoir writer–sorting fragments of memory into a cohesive, honest, narrative large enough to contain paradox.

David Kirkpatrick, in his recent New York Times essay called “Writing Memoir, McCain Found a Narrative for Life,” chronicles the construction of John McCain’s public persona.  The headline, however, is a bit misleading.  It was Mark Salter, McCain’s trusted friend and speech writer, who constructed the narrative in the most important McCain memoir, Faith of My Fathers, which, once published, became the source of all future political stories.  Salter took McCain’s own memories as well as his favorite stories and heroes–  Marlon Brando’s films, W. Somerset Maugham’s Of Human Bondage, and Robert Jordan from For Whom the Bell Tolls.  He created a narrative about self-sacrifice as a family tradition after finding a quote from McCain’s grandfather to his father in the Navy archives.

McCain’s memoir has been described by former campaign manager John Weaver as very important to his political success.  It made his persona much grander, more cause-oriented than it had been before.  Weaver concludes, “The book played a major role in creating the brand that has served McCain so well.”

All of this analysis of memoir in the news leads me to wonder how the campaigns of the future will look.  Will more memoir in politics lead to more artificiality or more authenticity?  Will we get a real voice or one created for political expediency?

My guess is that Joe the plumber is getting offers for a memoir right now!