Promise Me, Dad: A Year of Hope, Hardship, and Purpose by Joe Biden

I have been looking forward to a number of new releases this month, including Jenifer Lewis’ The Mother of Black Hollywood (released Nov. 14) and Duane Tudahl’s Prince and the Purple Rain Studio Sessions: 1983 and 1984 (released Nov. 15).  As I set up my list of reads for the Thanksgiving holiday, the first of these on my list is the new book by Joe Biden (whom I affectionately call “Uncle Joe”), Promise Me, Dad: A Year of Hope, Hardship, and Purpose.

Nearly a year after completing two terms in service to the country as Vice President for Barack Obama, Joe Biden is speaking about the last few years of his term in office marked by the pain of losing his eldest son, Beau Biden, to brain cancer in 2015. Beau was an Iraq War veteran and former attorney general for the State of Delaware. His cancer diagnosis came in 2013, just months after the senior Biden was re-elected as Vice President.

Telling almost no one about the personal struggle his family was facing, Biden continued to work as he had prior to the diagnosis, showing very little of the emotions raging within at the prospect of yet another tragic loss. In 1972, a then Senator-elect Joe Biden lost his wife and young daughter in a traffic accident that also injured his two sons Beau and Hunter.  It, therefore, had to be especially painful to lose Beau in 2015 after nearly losing him 40 years prior.

Promise Me, Dad is as much a book about politics as it is a book about the bond between a father and son. For Biden, like many, the personal is political and has always been so. One of the things readers will learn in reading this book is exactly why Biden didn’t seek the presidency, himself, in 2016 as he had in 2008 and whether not he harbors any regret over that decision and his opinions about how the race turned out.

In 2014, the Bidens began contemplating what they would be doing after 2016.  There was never a question as to whether Joe would remain in public service, but the capacity in which he would serve was wide open to possibility. On Thanksgiving of that year, Beau made it very clear that he wanted his father to seek the presidency; it wasn’t a “now or never” issue given the senior Biden’s age, but rather the selfless act of a son who didn’t want his illness to be the reason his father did not seek higher office. Joe knew this was weighing heavily on his son’s heart and to appease his request, the entire family went along with it, pretending he would be running in order to give Beau some sort of peace as he fought for his life.

A part of Joe Biden really did want to run, it had been a dream of his.  However, he was so overwhelmed by the impending loss of his son and feelings of vulnerability, both of which are expressed in journal entries he shares in the book, that a presidential bid was just not feasible at the time.  Biden discusses feeling lonely and adrift even as there was a whirlwind of change all around him as the Obama administration began winding down and preparing for transition.

Is Promise Me, Dad a promise fulfilled? From various reviews and interviews, it appears that Biden delivers a very relatable story that regardless of political affiliation, at its heart, is the fulfillment of a father’s final promise to his child. But there’s more, so much more here. Promise Me, Dad is also about the son of a nation in chaos explaining why we are here and how we move past our feelings of loss and despair toward a purpose-driven life.

Three years ago this Thanksgiving, Biden made a promise to his son that he would try and pursue his dream; this Thanksgiving, in his memoir, he asks us all to promise ourselves we will do the same.  Will you heed that call?