Fetterman\u2019s memoir addresses three major themes. The first\u2014and the one he leads with\u2014is depression and mental illness, which, combined with a stroke and heart trouble, brought him to a standstill and led him to contemplate suicide. The second is his rise to national-level politics from a Rust Belt town; as he writes, he\u2019s carved a path as a contentious player with a populist streak and a dislike for elites. There are affecting moments in his personal reminiscences, especially when he writes of the lives of his working-class neighbors in impoverished southwestern Pennsylvania, its once-prosperous Monongahela River Valley \u201cthe most heartbreaking drive in the United States.\u201d It\u2019s the third element that\u2019s problematic, and that\u2019s his in-the-trenches account of daily politics. One frequent complaint is the media, as when he writes of one incident, \u201cI am not the first public figure to get fucked by a reporter, and I won\u2019t be the last. What was eye-opening was the window it gave into how people with disabilities navigate a world that doesn\u2019t give a shit.\u201d He reserves special disdain for his Senate race opponent Mehmet Oz, about whom he wonders, \u201cIf I had run against any other candidate\u2026would I have lost? He got beaten by a guy recovering from a stroke.\u201d Perhaps so, and Democratic stalwarts will likely be dismayed at his apparent warmish feelings for Donald Trump and dislike of his own party\u2019s \u201cperformative protests.\u201d If Fetterman\u2019s book convinces a troubled soul to seek help it will have done some good, but it\u2019s hard to imagine that it will make much of an impression in the self-help literature. One wonders, meanwhile, at sentiments such as this: \u201cIf men are forced to choose between picking their party or keeping their balls, most men are going to choose their balls.\u201d<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Fetterman\u2019s memoir addresses three major themes. The first\u2014and the one he leads with\u2014is depression and mental illness, which, combined with a stroke and heart trouble, brought him to a standstill and led him to contemplate suicide. The second is his rise to national-level politics from a Rust Belt town; as he writes, he\u2019s carved a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":4842,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4841","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\/4841"}],"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=4841"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4841\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4842"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}