Michelle Obama: A Life

Political journalist Slevin offers an informative if not particularly personal portrait of America’s first lady in this thoroughly researched biography. Slevin meticulously recounts Obama’s inspiring journey, beginning with the struggle of her parents, Marian and Fraser Robinson, to eke out better lives on Chicago’s South Side, and continuing through her childhood to her experiences at Princeton and Harvard Law School, a job at white-shoe law firm Sidley Austin (where a charismatic law student named Barack Obama first made her acquaintance), and her residence in the White House. Providing valuable insight into the trajectory of her life and career, Slevin shows how Obama draws strength from her upbringing, which emphasized knowledge, family, and social responsibility. The rare glimpses of the personality hidden behind Obama’s cool and unruffled demeanor are the most satisfying moments of the narrative, but they are few and far between, leaving her almost as enigmatic a figure at the book’s close as she is at the beginning.[em] (Apr.) [/em]