Obama: An Oral History 2009–2017

Lowbrow Reader #1 was coughed out in the summer of 2001, which means that we have published under three American presidents: one a mess, one a marvel, and one a minor Wack Pack member sprung from the fiery pits of Hell.

This month, bookstores welcome a grand account of that anomaly in the middle: Brian Abrams’s Obama: An Oral History (Little A). Abrams is a Lowbrow contributor in good standing, whose essay about a childhood encounter with Mel Brooks appears in issue #10. He is also an expert in the oral history format, having written such works on the masterpieces Late Night with David Letterman and Die Hard, as well as on Gawker. In Obama, he tackles his most ambitious book yet, interviewing a flood of people in the president’s circle. These include all-stars (David Axelrod), nudniks (Joe Lieberman), and khaki-besotted Washington types who live for this sort of thing. Collectively, it paints a rich portrait of Obama’s campaign and, especially, presidency. Check it out soon at a local bookstore—or the mom-and-pop web shop run by the kind-hearted folks who own the book’s publisher.