Kamala’s Way: An American Life

Journalist Morain delivers a well-informed yet somewhat impersonal look at Vice President-elect Kamala Harris’s journey to the White House. The daughter of Indian and Jamaican immigrants who met as UC Berkeley graduate students and were active in the civil rights movement, Harris was “wheeled to demonstrations in a stroller.” After graduating from UC Hastings College of the Law, she became an Alameda County prosecutor in 1990 and quickly established connections with powerful people, including California assemblyman and future San Francisco mayor Willie Brown, whom she dated in the mid-1990s (the couple attended the Academy Awards together and once flew on Donald Trump’s private jet, Morain reveals). As San Francisco district attorney and California attorney general, Harris became known for her anti–death penalty stance and support for a controversial anti-truancy law. Elected to the U.S. Senate in 2016, Harris gained national attention for her tough questioning of Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh during congressional hearings. Morain stuffs his account with details of California politics and skillfully mines Harris’s public comments for information, but doesn’t get far beyond her public persona. Still, this is a brisk and evenhanded account of Harris’s trailblazing career. (Jan.)