KANTOR - The Obamas

In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitute unlawful piracy and theft of the authors intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at permissions@hbgusa.com. Thank you for your support of the authors rights.

Copyright 2012 by Jodi Kantor

Afterword copyright 2012 by Jodi Kantor

Cover design by Allison Warner; photograph Chip Somodevilla/Pool/Corbis

Cover copyright 2012 Hachette Book Group, Inc.

All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitute unlawful piracy and theft of the authors intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at permissions@hbgusa.com. Thank you for your support of the authors rights.

Little, Brown and Company

Hachette Book Group

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First e-book edition: January 2012

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Maps by George W. Ward

ISBN 978-0-316-19347-4

Energetically reported. Kantor nails her story. We political gluttons will lick the spoon clean.

David Remnick, The New Yorker

Jodi Kantor has done a first-rate job reporting on the Obamas in tandem. Her book gives you a better sense of their life inside the White House than any of the other insider accounts Ive read.

Jacob Weisberg, Slate

In lesser hands The Obamas would be an act of astonishing overreach, but Jodi Kantor has earned the voice of authority. A meticulous reporter, Ms. Kantor is attuned to the nuance of small gestures, the import of unspoken truths. She knows that every strong marriage, including the one now in the White House, has its complexities and its disappointments. Ms. Kantor alsoand this is a keyhas a high regard for women, which is why hers is the first book about the Obama presidency to give Michelle Obama her due. In the process we learn a great deal about the talented and introverted loner who married her, and how his wife has influenced him as a president.

Connie Schultz, New York Times

Jodi Kantors The Obamas is among the very best books on this White House. Its a serious, thoughtful book on the modern presidency in general.

Ezra Klein

Dishy and deeply sourced.

New York

The Obamas is a portrait of a remarkable marriage. Kantors writing is insightful and evocative, rich with detail [and her] reporting rings trueand considering the administrations insistence on presenting a unified front, it is a considerable achievement.

Kerry Luft, Chicago Tribune

Jodi Kantors thoughtful new book is fluidly written, with a canny sense for the way political marriages can be useful prisms to see into ambition, power, gender and the contradictions of public life.

Karen R. Long, Cleveland Plain Dealer

Kantor pours her insight into a compelling book, which is teeming with more than three hundred pages of intimate details and fascinating tidbits, all from her unique and novel perspective.

Joshua R. Weaver, The Root

Sympathetic. Deeply reported and nuanced.

Ben Smith, Politico

Kantor seems to have gotten a fairly deep look into the administrations inner workings, but particularly into Michelle Obamas role in the whole show. There are plenty of juicy details but mostly what emerges is a picture of a very smart woman struggling to adapt to her new life in the public eyeand mostly succeeding. Rather than make her seem pushy or strident, the details of her fights to influence the White House just make her seem like exactly the kind of person youd want in therechallenging the president as only a spouse can and fighting for what she believes is the right thing to do.

Cassie Murdoch, Jezebel

Perhaps the most penetrating look at Obamaworld to date.

Jonathan Martin

Keep your Bill and Hillary, this is the power duo that fascinates us.

Tom Beer, Newsday

A human-scale portrait that finds its true subject in Michelle. The Michelle Obama who emerges from the pages is both Baracks greatest supporter and most crucial adviseras well as a fierce idealist on her own terms.

Megan OGrady, Vogue.com

Kantor makes a diligent effort to examine and explain the tensions the first couple faced as they struggled with the symbolism and imagery of living as our first black first family.

Joan Walsh, Salon

A fascinating look at the intricate dynamics of an ordinary marriage, an unusual home, and an extraordinary presidency.

Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Jodi Kantor offers a glimpse into the tensions of a culture that expects our women to achieve as highly as our men but our first ladies to take a backseat to their presidents. The result is a sympathetic portrait of both Obamas that could help to humanize an administration criticized as being aloof and inaccessible.

Ilyse Hogue, The Nation

Ms. Kantor provides good detail about the impossible logisticsand perksof being a first family.

Mackenzie Carpenter, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

The stories are titillating, and youll gulp them down like salted peanuts.

Tina Jordan, Entertainment Weekly

Written briskly and with a knowing tone, this makes for a juicy readplenty of infighting!but, ultimately, it tells a familiar story.

Ilene Cooper, Booklist

The most talked about book of the new year.

Hollywood Reporter

Kantors book details more personal aspects of the Obama White House, serving up glimpses of the first couples marriage, parenting, sometimes tense handling of staff issues and even the presidents sly sense of humor.

Michael Gartland and Cynthia R. Fagen, New York Post

The Obamas are one of the most interesting families to inhabit the White House in recent memory. A large part of the reason they are notable is the lengths to which they go to try to make their time in Washington as normal as possible for their young daughters. Kantor goes inside the White House for an intimate view of the first family as they cope with the pressures of their position upon their family.

Jen Karsbaek, SheKnows

For Hana Kantor,
my grandmother and a survivor among survivors

And for Ron Lieber, my husband

One late September afternoon in 2009, Barack and Michelle Obama were sitting together in the gold-and-ivory splendor of the Oval Office, discussing the most personal of matters in the most official of settings. I was interviewing them for an article in the New York Times Magazine about their marriage, and as they sat in matching striped chairs, Gilbert Stuarts portrait of George Washington watching over them, they spoke about their partnership.