Kantor recounts writing “The Obamas”

A brief news article would not do justice to the first family’s move to the White House, author Jodi Kantor said, so she endeavored to write “The Obamas.”

More than 80 people filled the back room of the Harvard Book Store on Tuesday as Kantor discussed her book with John Palfrey, Harvard Law School professor and co-director of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society.

“It was one of those things where I saw a story there and I really wanted to see if I could find it,” Kantor said.

The majority of the discussion focused on the First Lady Michelle Obama, whom Kantor said was the center of the book.

“I had to remind myself it was called ‘The Obamas,’” Kantor said.

“The Obamas,” which follows Barack and Michelle Obama and their transition into the White House, has received positive reviews from many critics, including The New Yorker and The New York Times.

But it has also received attention for the portrayal of Michelle Obama as harsh toward members of her husband’s staff.

Kantor said the barrage of criticism frustrated her.

“A very strange experience for me as a writer during the last couple of weeks has been seeing coverage of my own book,” Kantor said. “There were times when I was watching cable TV and I just wanted to hit the pause button and be able to step in and say, ‘You have to look at the book itself and what I described.’”
Kantor said Michelle Obama is different than past Presidents’ wives.

“This isn’t a caricatured, meddling First Lady,” Kantor said. “She is the keeper of the Obama flame.”
Kantor said she was not surprised Michelle Obama was frustrated about being represented as an “angry black woman” because she said the First Lady constantly faces stereotypes.

However, Kantor disagreed that her book portrayed the First Lady in this way.

“As most reviewers have said, she is depicted as a strong presence, absolutely an impassioned person and somebody who really cared about the presidency going well,” she said.

Kantor also said she interviewed 33 current and former aides and many friends of the Obamas and followed the family while documenting their daily activities.

“The White House cooperated,” she said.

Kantor said she hired a fact checker to make sure the book was not full of factual flaws.

She also said Michelle Obama was worried coming into the White House, nervous about raising her children and accomplishing anything in the partisan political system.

“She is the most dramatic character in the Obama story,” Kantor said. “She never really wanted this life. She was such a stranger in a strange land.”

Chelsea Kantor, a senior in Boston University’s College of Arts and Sciences and a cousin of Kantor herself, said she was proud of her relative’s hard work.

“It’s a pleasure to listen to her talk,” she said. “She has done a great job, she has gotten a lot of negative backlash and I think she has handled it very well.”

Alex Meriwether, an employee at the Harvard Book Store who ran the discussion, said talks like the one with Kantor sustain vitality at the store.

“It is one of the many ways we are trying to compete with Amazon and online competitors,” Meriwether said. “The book exploded a couple weeks ago. If we had known how big it would become we would have had it at a different venue.”