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A review by erine
Unpresidented: A Biography of Donald Trump by Martha Brockenbrough
I feel like I just ate too much fast food.
I cannot imagine this was a labor of love. More like a labor of meticulous, cold determination. As a regular person reading the news, the last four years of campaigns and presidency have been a continuous steady drip of bombast, lies, muddled exaggeration, outrage, attempted misdirection, and ridiculous scandal. It’s both overwhelming and numbing. Seeing the whole Trump narrative together in one place was odd, and somewhat disconcerting. I might even call it swampy.
In Unpresidented, Brockenbrough plunges full on into the dripping swamp. She pulls everything together into a mostly coherent narrative (no easy task given the content) and offers context and background as the events go on. Occasionally the flow of the text bogs down in detail and multiple plot threads, but I felt she juggled it all about as well as could be expected. In reading the backmatter and flipping through the endnotes, I could feel the aggressive fact-checking that had been committed. I also felt there was a consciously neutral tone throughout that occasionally seemed strained.
It’s a fascinating story, beginning with a hard luck immigration tale, and filled with bold and brassy business tactics, and a family that just doesn’t seem to believe the rules apply to them. And unfortunately, in large part they were right. Using loopholes, favors, bluster, and luck, the rules never did seem to stick to the Trump family. I was hoping to find some redeeming qualities, but am left with nothing really new. They are persistent.
Looking back on some of the more recent history is striking, given how much has happened since, even since the book was published. As more of this presidency unwinds, this book will rapidly become out of date, but although it only goes up to 2018, it is a sufficiently detailed account and offers great background on Donald Trump, and a good rundown of the 2016 election.
My main complaint was the lack of connection between the main text and the endnotes. The endnotes were numbered according to page instead of corresponding to a unique number in the relevant text, nor was there a text reference prior to each endnote. It was puzzling to have the notes be so inaccessible after going to all the effort to document everything.
I cannot imagine this was a labor of love. More like a labor of meticulous, cold determination. As a regular person reading the news, the last four years of campaigns and presidency have been a continuous steady drip of bombast, lies, muddled exaggeration, outrage, attempted misdirection, and ridiculous scandal. It’s both overwhelming and numbing. Seeing the whole Trump narrative together in one place was odd, and somewhat disconcerting. I might even call it swampy.
In Unpresidented, Brockenbrough plunges full on into the dripping swamp. She pulls everything together into a mostly coherent narrative (no easy task given the content) and offers context and background as the events go on. Occasionally the flow of the text bogs down in detail and multiple plot threads, but I felt she juggled it all about as well as could be expected. In reading the backmatter and flipping through the endnotes, I could feel the aggressive fact-checking that had been committed. I also felt there was a consciously neutral tone throughout that occasionally seemed strained.
It’s a fascinating story, beginning with a hard luck immigration tale, and filled with bold and brassy business tactics, and a family that just doesn’t seem to believe the rules apply to them. And unfortunately, in large part they were right. Using loopholes, favors, bluster, and luck, the rules never did seem to stick to the Trump family. I was hoping to find some redeeming qualities, but am left with nothing really new. They are persistent.
Looking back on some of the more recent history is striking, given how much has happened since, even since the book was published. As more of this presidency unwinds, this book will rapidly become out of date, but although it only goes up to 2018, it is a sufficiently detailed account and offers great background on Donald Trump, and a good rundown of the 2016 election.
My main complaint was the lack of connection between the main text and the endnotes. The endnotes were numbered according to page instead of corresponding to a unique number in the relevant text, nor was there a text reference prior to each endnote. It was puzzling to have the notes be so inaccessible after going to all the effort to document everything.