Kamala's Way: An American Life

Kamala's Way: An American Life

by Dan Morain
Kamala's Way: An American Life

Kamala's Way: An American Life

by Dan Morain

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Overview

A revelatory biography of the first Black woman to stand for Vice President, charting how the daughter of two immigrants in segregated California became one of this country’s most effective power players.

There’s very little that’s conventional about Kamala Harris, and yet her personal story also represents the best of America. She grew up the eldest daughter of a single mother, a no-nonsense cancer researcher who emigrated from India at the age of nineteen in search of a better education. She and her husband, an accomplished economist from Jamaica, split up when Kamala was only five.

The Kamala Harris the public knows today is tough, smart, quick-witted, and demanding. She’s a prosecutor—her one-liners are legendary—but she’s more reticent when it comes to sharing much about herself, even in her memoirs. Fortunately, former Los Angeles Times reporter Dan Morain has been there from the start.

In Kamala’s Way, he “offers an essential roadmap” (Politico) to her career from its beginnings handling child molestation cases and homicides for the Alameda County District Attorney’s office and her relationship as a twenty-nine-year-old with the most powerful man in the state: married Assembly Speaker Willie Brown, a relationship that would prove life-changing. Morain takes readers through Harris’s years in the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office, explores her audacious embrace of the little-known Barack Obama, and shows the sharp elbows she deployed to make it to the US Senate. He analyzes her failure as a presidential candidate and the behind-the-scenes campaign she waged to land the Vice President spot. Along the way, he paints a “revealing portrait” (The New York Times Book Review) of her values and priorities, the sorts of problems she’s good at solving, and the missteps, risks, and bold moves she’s made on her way to the top.

Kamala’s Way is essential reading for all Americans curious about the woman standing by Joe Biden’s side.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781982175771
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Publication date: 01/18/2022
Pages: 304
Sales rank: 1,073,255
Product dimensions: 5.40(w) x 8.30(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Dan Morain has covered California policy, politics, and justice-related issues for more than four decades, including twenty-seven years at the Los Angeles Times and eight at The Sacramento Bee, where he was editorial page editor.

Table of Contents

1 Shyamala's Daughter 1

2 That Little Girl 11

3 An Education, Apartheid, and a Slaughter 18

4 A Taste of Politics 27

5 Setting Her Sights 38

6 Becoming a Boldface 43

7 Severing Heads. Figuratively. 48

8 Officer Down 56

9 Getting "Smart" on Crime 62

10 Harris and Obama 67

11 The Mad Dash 70

12 Change Comes to California 80

13 Attorney General Harris 87

14 The Relic 94

15 Wedding Bells 100

16 The Damned Photos 108

17 Mortgage Meltdown 114

18 Phenomenal Women 121

19 "Just a Dude" 125

20 Woman in a Hurry 130

21 Joe Biden Gives Harris a Hand 134

22 Picking Her Shots 142

23 Fighting the Forever War 147

24 "Go Get 'Em" 154

25 "I Intend to Fight" 161

26 Stepping onto the National Stage 166

27 The Resistance 172

28 "I'm Asking the Questions" 181

29 "Yes or No" 186

30 Harris v. Kavanaugh 193

31 A Death in the Family 201

32 "For the People" 206

33 Timing Is Everything 211

34 Dancing in the Rain 218

Epilogue 227

Acknowledgments 241

Notes 243

Index 273

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