Far from Home
An Alaskan Senator Faces the Extreme Climate of Washington, D.C.
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4.4 • 7 Ratings
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
A voice of reason in a polarized U.S. Senate, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska tells the story of how she learned to adapt to the harsh climate of Washington, D.C., and issues a fervent appeal for a politics grounded in compromise and compassion.
“Two paths diverged—Lisa Murkowski took the one less traveled. In Far from Home, we see how the solitary course she chose has made all the difference.”—Senator Mitt Romney
Lisa Murkowski has repeatedly stood at the center of our nation’s most challenging issues, serving as a swing vote and a voice willing to challenge the president, regardless of who holds the office. In this candid memoir that offers hope for a functional Washington, she guides readers through the defining events of her more than twenty-year career: her beginnings in Alaska and appointment to the U.S. Senate, the rise of the Tea Party and her historic 2010 write-in reelection campaign, and the pivotal events of the Trump era, including her vote against Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the U.S. Supreme Court, the 2020 election, January 6, the impeachment trials, the overturning of Roe, and Trump’s second election.
Written at a time when Americans’ trust in their institutions is in crisis, Far from Home is a candid account of how things get done in Washington. It is an uplifting narrative for anyone seeking reassurance that our political system can still work.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The Republican senator from Alaska offers a candid reflection on her toughest decisions and biggest electoral battles in her debut memoir. Murkowski charts her unique senatorial career, from her hesitant entry in 2002, appointed by her governor father ("people don't believe me when I say I didn't want an appointment"), through her historic 2010 write-in victory. Though her independent-mindedness had already been well-established as a member of the Alaska legislature (she was a pro-choice Republican), Murkowski traces her developing position in the Senate—"so often in the middle, standing up to the extremes"— through some of her most contentious votes, including against the repeal of the Affordable Care Act and in opposition to calling witnesses during Donald Trump's first impeachment trial. However, the memoir is most illuminating when Murkowski reflects on her commitment to addressing the distinctive needs of Alaskans, particularly destitute rural Native communities, and on the "cultural chasm" between Alaska and Washington, including the latter's shockingly overt misogyny and "bubble of affluence" in which elites are insulated from "the poverty of the city's majority people of color." Murkowski pegs the widening division between left and right as only offering "rhetoric" and "failure," an argument strengthened by her own mea culpa over her embrace of divisiveness as a young senator, when she "call every environmentalist an extremist." As a warning against the hazards of partisanship, this feels notably sincere.
