Thursday, May 03, 2012

David Maraniss’s ‘Barack Obama: The Story’ Excerpted in Vanity Fair: Juiciest Bits

May 2, 2012 3:02 - Daily Beast

Sleeping at the university library. Writing love letters to a white woman describing ‘bourgeois liberalism.’ Nope, this isn’t Lena Dunham you’re reading about; it’s President Obama, at least according to David Maraniss’s 'Barack Obama: The Story.' Ben Jacobs combs through the excerpt and finds the best parts.                    



Barack Obama
AP Photo

Sleeping in the Columbia University library. Love letters describing “bourgeois liberalism.” A yearlong relationship with a white woman. Vanity Fair published on Wednesday an excerpt from David Maraniss new biography of President Obama, titled Barack Obama: The Story and due to hit bookshelves on June 19. From the “unique” smell of Obama’s post-college apartment to his Pakistani friends, The Daily Beast finds the juiciest bits from the excerpt that shows the leader of the free world to be more Lena Dunham than Lyndon Johnson.
When Obama first moved to New York in 1981 as a junior at Columbia, he lived in an apartment on West 109th Street. Since the heat didn’t work, the apartment was freezing and Obama and his roommate were sleeping in sleeping bags to stay warm. To stay warm, they eventually resorted to camping out at Columbia’s Butler Library, which was open all night. To save money, they ate often at Tom’s Restaurant—future site of the fictional Monk’s on Seinfeld—and ate breakfast for $1.99.
In December 1983, Obama began dating a young woman named Genevieve Cook. Cook says the future president had a set routine for his lazy Sundays. He would “lounge around, drinking coffee and solving The New York Times crossword puzzle, bare-chested, wearing a blue and white sarong.” It is unrecorded how Obama’s roommates felt about this.
Full piece at The Daily Beast

No comments: