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\u2019s battle with breast cancer and his own nightmarish experience with Covid-19. Sierra describes himself as a classic \u201cretail politician,\u201d someone who regularly cuts ribbons or appears in parades. \u201cI like getting to know people,\u201d he writes, \u201cshaking hands, and giving hugs.\u201d He asserts that his wife was an invaluable help in \u201ccultivating\u201d his finer qualities. \u201cI\u2019m not saying it was an Eliza Doolittle scenario,\u201d he quips, referring to My Fair Lady, \u201cbut it was pretty much an Eliza Doolittle scenario.\u201d 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\u2019s burgeoning career in Arizona politics came to a sudden halt. \u201cI know I\u2019m not the only person to have that experience in March 2020,\u201d he recalls, \u201cand it sucked for all\u00a0of us.\u201d In a statement that garnered national attention at the time, Sierra observed of the pandemic, \u201cThis enemy has no lands to invade, no ideology to defeat.\u201d In the book\u2019s 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\u00a0with an unaffected directness and storyteller\u2019s skill. It\u2019s a touchingly human account, and Sierra\u2019s aura of affection somehow even extends to the cutthroat world of politics. The nuanced result reads far more believably than most political memoirs.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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\u2019s battle with breast cancer and his own nightmarish experience with Covid-19. Sierra describes himself as a classic \u201cretail politician,\u201d someone who regularly cuts ribbons or appears in parades. \u201cI like […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":4447,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4446"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4446"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4446\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}