To Obama : with love, joy, anger, and hope / Jeanne Marie Laskas.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Laskas, Jeanne Marie, 1958- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Obama, Barack--Correspondence.

Obama, Barack.

Presidents--United States--Correspondence.

Presidents.

Politics and government.

United States.

American letters.

United States--Politics and government--2009-2017--Sources.

Genre:

Correspondence.

Personal correspondence.

Sources.

Physical Description:

x, 401 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

New York : Random House, [2018]

Summary:

"Every evening for 8 years, at his request, President Obama received a binder containing ten handpicked letters from ordinary American citizens -- the unfiltered voice of a nation -- from his Office of Presidential Correspondence. He was the first to President to save constituent mail, and this is the story of how those letters affected not only the President and his policies, but also the deeply committed people who were tasked with opening the millions of pleas, rants, thank yous, and apologies that landed in the White House mailroom. Based on the popular New York Times article, 'To Obama,' Laskas now interviews the letter writers themselves and the White House staff who sifted through the powerful, moving, and incredibly intimate narrative of America during the Obama years emerges: There is Kelli, who saw her grandfathers finally marry -- legally -- after 35 years together; Bill, a lifelong Republican whose attitude toward immigration reform was transformed when he met a boy escaping M-16 gang leaders in El Salvador; Heba, a Syrian refugee who wants to forget the day the tanks rolled into her village; Marjorie, who grappled with disturbing feelings of racial bias lurking within her during the George Zimmerman trial; and Vicki, whose family was torn apart by those who voted for Trump and those who did not. They wrote to Obama out of gratitude and desperation, in their darkest times of need, in search of connection. They wrote with anger and respect. And together, this chorus of voices achieves a kind of beautiful harmony: here is a diary of a nation. To Obama is an intimate look at one man's relationship to the American people, and the intersection of politics and empathy in the White House"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Samples, 2008-2009

The letters

Bobby Ingram, Oxford, Mississippi

Samples, 2009-2010

The mailroom

Thomas and Joann Meehan, Toms River, New Jersey

The idea

Samples, 2010-2012

Bill Oliver, undisclosed location

Fiona picks the 10 LADs

Marnie Hazelton, Freeport, New York

Samples, 2013-2014

Barack Obama, the White House

Marjorie McKinney, Boone, North Carolina

Red dot

Samples, 2015

Friends of the mail

Shane Darby, Killen, Alabama

Samples, 2015-2016

The writing team

Donna Coltharp and Billy Ennis, San Antonio, Texas

Election day

Samples, 2016

Vicki Shearer, Renton, Washington

Obama in jeans

Samples, 2016-2017

Epilogue

Acknowledgments.

ISBN:

9780525509387

0525509380

OCLC:

1050140929