A Singular Woman - Janny Scott [0]
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Epigraph
One - Dreams from the Prairie
Two - Coming of Age in Seattle
Three - East-West
Four - Initiation in Java
Five - Trespassers Will Be Eaten
Six - In the Field
Seven - Community Organizing
Eight - The Foundation
Nine - “Surviving and Thriving Against All Odds”
Ten - Manhattan Chill
Eleven - Coming Home
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
Notes
Bibliography
A Note on Photos
RIVERHEAD BOOKS
Published by the Penguin Group
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Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa
Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
Copyright © 2011 by Janny Scott
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions. Published simultaneously in Canada
Lyrics from “Bésame Mucho,” by Consuelo Velázquez, are used by permission of Promotora
Hispano Americana de Música S.A. Administered by Peer International Corporation.
All rights reserved.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Scott, Janny.
A singular woman : the untold story of Barack Obama’s mother / Janny Scott.
p. cm.
eISBN : 978-1-101-51390-3
1. Dunham, S. Ann (Stanley Ann). 2. Mothers of presidents—United States—Biography. 3. Obama, Barack—Family. I. Title.
E909.D86S
973.932092—dc22
[B]
While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers and Internet addresses at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors, or for changes that occur after publication. Further, the publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
http://us.penguingroup.com
For Joe
I think sometimes that had I known she would not survive her illness, I might have written a different book—less a meditation on the absent parent, more a celebration of the one who was the single constant in my life.
—BARACK OBAMA, Dreams from My Father,
preface to the 2004 edition
Prologue
I am the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas.
—BARACK OBAMA, MARCH 18, 2008
The photograph showed the son, but my eye gravitated toward the mother. That first glimpse was surprising—the stout, pale-skinned woman in sturdy sandals, standing squarely a half-step ahead of the lithe, darker-skinned figure to her left. His elastic-band body bespoke discipline, even asceticism. Her form was well padded, territory ceded long ago to the pleasures of appetite and the forces of anatomical destiny. He had the studied casualness of a catalog model, in khakis, at home in the viewfinder. She met the camera head-on, dressed in hand-loomed textile dyed the color of indigo, a silver earring half hidden in the cascading curtain of her dark hair. She carried her chin a few degrees higher than most. His right hand rested on her shoulder, lightly. The photograph, taken on a Manhattan rooftop in August 1987 and e-mailed to me twenty years later, was a revelation and a puzzle. The man was Barack Obama at age twenty-six, the community