FIGHT LIKE HELL

In his debut memoir, the author, a former Arizona state representative, recounts the highlights and low points of an eventful life, including his wife Rhonda’s battle with breast cancer and his own nightmarish experience with Covid-19. Sierra describes himself as a classic “retail politician,” someone who regularly cuts ribbons or appears in parades. “I like getting to know people,” he writes, “shaking hands, and giving hugs.” He asserts that his wife was an invaluable help in “cultivating” his finer qualities. “I’m not saying it was an Eliza Doolittle scenario,” he quips, referring to My Fair Lady, “but it was pretty much an Eliza Doolittle scenario.” His wife had fought cancer and won a few years ago, and everything looked rosy for the future when the fateful year 2020 came along. Suddenly, all of the good feelings and the upward trajectory of Sierra’s burgeoning career in Arizona politics came to a sudden halt. “I know I’m not the only person to have that experience in March 2020,” he recalls, “and it sucked for all of us.” In a statement that garnered national attention at the time, Sierra observed of the pandemic, “This enemy has no lands to invade, no ideology to defeat.” In the book’s dramatic high point, that enemy strikes Sierra severely: He tested positive for the virus and soon found himself on a ventilator. He writes about love, heartbreak, national events (like the pandemic and the death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg), and even his nerdy love of Star Trek with an unaffected directness and storyteller’s skill. It’s a touchingly human account, and Sierra’s aura of affection somehow even extends to the cutthroat world of politics. The nuanced result reads far more believably than most political memoirs.