Now It's My Turn
A Daughter's Chronicle of Political Life
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- £8.49
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- £8.49
Publisher Description
Who is Mary Cheney?
In the most eagerly awaited political memoir of the season, Mary Cheney, who served as a top campaign aide to her father, the vice president, presents a behind-the-scenes look at the high-intensity world of presidential politics and talks for the first time about her life, her family, and her role in the campaigns of 2000 and 2004.
As a senior adviser to her father, she was in the middle of every major event of the 2000 and 2004 presidential contests -- at the conventions, the debates, and on the trail. Both elections made history -- and so did Mary. And for the first time ever, she writes about what it was like to be at the center of her father's campaigns as his daughter, as a member of the senior staff, and, though she never intended it, as a political target for the other side.
Mary, her experiences, and her opinions, have been the subject of intense debate in the media and from activists on both ends of the political spectrum, but she has never spoken publicly about herself, her life, or her political views -- until now.
In Now It's My Turn, a frank, funny, and down-to-earth memoir, Mary Cheney describes life inside the bubble of a national campaign. She talks about her close relationship with her parents, how it feels to be pursued by the press, and what it was like when John Edwards and John Kerry made her sexual orientation an issue in live debates televised to millions of Americans. As she describes it, life inside a presidential campaign can be uplifting, frustrating, and heartbreaking, but no matter what else it may be, it's always entertaining.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This is not another coming-out story. Mary Cheney, whose father, Dick Cheney, was not upset by her sexual orientation, carefully avoids this overworked theme and focuses on her role in the 2000 and 2004 campaigns of his run for vice-president of the United States. By doing so, she pursues another tired topic, the insider look at political campaigns. Cheney's view lacks any introspection and verges on idolatry: not only does Father always know best but he is also calm, courageous, righteous, loving and wise. Whenever her dad's name comes up, Cheney's voice becomes sugary and worshipful. Her anecdotes and breezy delivery move the audio along nicely, but sometimes her narrative undercuts the hero she worships, as when her father, confronted by an audience of elementary schoolers instead of their parents, proceeds with a speech on school bonds that baffles his young audience. Those hoping for a look at Cheney's relationship with her partner, Heather Poe, will be disappointed. Cheney's voice seethes with anger at intrusions into her private life, but she fails to see that if the Democrats hadn't pushed her into the spotlight, there would be little interest in this book.