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The New York Times bestseller-an unprecedented look into the life and character of the woman who raised a president.
Barack Obama has written extensively about his father but credited his mother for "what is best in me." Still, little is known about this fiercely independent, spirited woman who raised the man who became the first biracial president of the United States. This book is that story.
In A Singular Woman, award-winning New York Times reporter Janny Scott tells the story of this unique woman, Stanley Ann Dunham, who broke many of the rules of her time, and shows how her fierce example helped influence the future president-and can serve as an inspiration to us all.
Few of us recognize the name of Stanley Ann Durham (1942-1995), but this bright, short-lived, much-traveled Midwesterner was the mother of Barack Obama, who described her as "the dominant figure in my formative years." To discover this posthumously influential woman, biographer Janny Scott interviewed nearly two hundred friends, colleagues, and relatives of Dunham, including the president himself. A Singular Woman is worth reading both as a heartwarming personal story and as testimony to the profound influence she has had on her son.
A richly nuanced, decidedly sympathetic portrait of President Obama's remarkably accomplished, spirited mother.
Actually, the story of Stanley Ann Dunham Obama Soetoro, who died of cancer in 1995, has been told at length, especially during the 2008 presidential campaign. But former New York Times reporter Scott does not believe that the treatment Obama's mother garnered in the press was fair or complete. The author conducted exhaustive interviews with family and friends to try to flesh out the biography, especially regarding her years working in Indonesia, trying to finish her doctorate degree and deciding to send back her young son, then 10, to Hawaii. There he attended a prep school in the care of her parents, a decision for which she was roundly criticized by the press. Kansas-born Stanley Ann—named after her father, though her mother was enamored by the Bette Davis character named Stanley in the 1942 filmIn This Our Life—early on set herself apart by her intellectual curiosity, wit and openness to new adventures. When her parents relocated to the new state of Hawaii upon her graduation in 1960, she became simply Ann, and immersed herself in the nascent East-West Center, where she would fall in love with the Kenyan student Barack Hussein Obama. He was 24 and married to a woman back in Kenya; she was 17 and soon pregnant; though they married quietly, they separated soon after. Ann's resilience and dogged spirit emerge continuously throughout her story. She struggled to gain her degrees while raising first "Barry," then her daughter, Maya, by her second husband, the Javanese surveyor Lolo Soetoro, all the while moving frequently to do fieldwork on Indonesian cottage industries. Her work in far-flung community outreach and microfinance gained her jobs at the Ford Foundation and the Women's World Banking, in New York City, and greatly inspired her son in his own political activism.
A biography of considerable depth and understanding.
Janny Scott was a reporter for The New York Times from 1994 to 2009, when she left to write this book. She was a member of the Times reporting team that won the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for national reporting.
Anonymous
Posted May 13, 2011
if you are are not an admirer of the president you will get nothing from this book. but if you are it is a must read. she was an amazing woman and i am glad for the insight on her compassionate socially conscious life. what an exceptional role model for her children.
22 out of 29 people found this review helpful.
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Posted June 23, 2011
I do not understand why, but I am suprised at the number of reviews that profess hate for Ms Dunham because they dislike her son. On another site, one person stated that Republicans should have endorsed abortion in her case. We are not required to agree with the President, but these remarks about his mother are beneath comtempt. I doubt that they have the decency to be ashamed of their actions that prove that racism is alive in America.
11 out of 15 people found this review helpful.
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Posted May 16, 2011
Awesome awesome!
6 out of 16 people found this review helpful.
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Posted May 30, 2011
An interesting look into Barack Obama's Mother and some insight into his up bringing.
5 out of 7 people found this review helpful.
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Posted July 4, 2011
......thought I was buying a biography of a woman, not a geological survey of Iowa, complete with soil analysis!
4 out of 6 people found this review helpful.
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Posted August 30, 2011
Obama still looks like the baby in the picture. Propaganda to reach out to whites, should just be a president not trying to convince me he is american, i know he isn't.
3 out of 11 people found this review helpful.
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Posted July 9, 2011
Ms. Dunham led a life ahead of her time, and she did it with integrity and humor and love. Unfortunately, Janny Scott has written in such a dry, old, uninteresting style that I felt I was reading her a collection of the author's expanded notes, not yet formed into a book that reflected the life it was reporting. Interesting subject. Poor writing. Poor editing. Let's hope someone else comes along and does a better job.
2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
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Posted May 30, 2011
Really an interesting read. I had trouble putting this book down. It was really a glimpse into another time and several other cultures.
2 out of 3 people found this review helpful.
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Posted May 25, 2011
I liked this, but somewhere in the middle, Ann the person was lost in the discussion of international development and microfinance, which was itself informative & new to me. I was intrigued by the ways in which the lives of Ann's parents were recapitulated in her own experience. The photographs were especially good. I'll also be permanently envious of a woman who never had to wear pantyhose until she was past 50!
2 out of 3 people found this review helpful.
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Posted March 8, 2012
I have mixed reviews about this book. Didn't take full responsibility for raising her son, she became a mother of two children, yet she continued to live her life as she wanted to live it. In spite of all this her children turned out to be intellegent, highly educated, caring individuals. Look at her son. One of the greatest presidents of all time. I am glad the grandmother lived to see her grandson run for president, she must have been so proud.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted August 22, 2011
As someone raised in Indonesia, I found this book very interesting and evoked many good memories of life in the Spice Islands. Janny Scott did a great job of interviewing family, friends and colleagues of Ann Duhnam.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted July 14, 2011
interesting
1 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
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Posted March 30, 2012
Regardess of ones political affiliation or opinion of our current President, this well-researched book illuminates a person who was much more than "the white woman from Kansas". In many ways the tale of her family and life reflect the archetypal American story. Her willingness to reach beyond boundaries is shown as evolving -- not in opposition to, but in continuation of, the values, beliefs and dreams of her forbearers.
Anonymous
Posted May 12, 2011
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Posted June 29, 2011
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Posted January 29, 2012
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Posted January 16, 2012
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Posted May 7, 2011
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Posted May 19, 2011
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Posted May 26, 2011
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Overview
The New York Times bestseller-an unprecedented look into the life and character of the woman who raised a president.
Barack Obama has written extensively about his father but credited his mother for "what is best in me." Still, little is known about this fiercely independent, spirited woman who raised the man who became the first biracial president of the United States. This book is that story.
In A Singular Woman, award-winning New York Times reporter Janny Scott tells the story of this unique woman, Stanley Ann Dunham, who broke many of the rules of her time, and shows how her fierce example helped influence the ...