My collaboration with Senator Lisa Murkowski began in her office in the Hart Senate Office Building on October 31, 2019. In the coming week, the book we wrote will be released to the world.
I’m proud of the book and how it captures her voice and her perspective. But the greater accomplishment, for both of us, is to have landed this little vessel safely after guiding it for than five years bobbing on the extraordinarily stormy seas of politics and life.
You can pre-order Far From Home: An Alaskan Senator Faces the Extreme Climate of Washington DC, and receive it on June 24, or find it that day in book stores. The publicity will be extensive, so you will be hearing from Lisa a lot between now and then. (As a dear friend, I have to call her Lisa.)
We met more than 30 years ago when we were both involved with our kids’ elementary school in Anchorage. In 1993, five years before her first State House run, Lisa appeared on my campaign flier when I ran for the Municipal Assembly. The endorsement helped establish my bipartisan support, as a Democrat running for a non-partisan seat (she came from a noted Republican family).
But we didn’t know each other well. When I reached out to her staff in 2019, I wasn’t sure if Lisa would make time to meet with me. I was re-starting my career as a writer on the east coast, as I described recently. This was just a networking call.
The conversation took off. The 30-minute appointment went past 90 minutes. As she describes in her book acknowledgments, Lisa talked about the stories she had long wanted to tell, especially about her 2010 write-in election victory. She regretted that she couldn’t write a book.
I said, “Well, that’s what I do.”
We moved forward quickly, knowing that events could easily overtake us. They quickly did: The first impeachment, the pandemic, George Floyd, Justice Ginsburg’s death, the 2020 election, the January 6 insurrection, the second impeachment, the Dobbs decision, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. And then, in 2022, she was up for re-election, with President Trump committed to defeating her.
Through it all, we were downloading her thoughts for the book, on the phone, in the Capitol, at her houses in DC or in Anchorage, and at mine in New Jersey. My wife Sarah and Lisa’s husband Verne helped create the cocoon protecting these conversations.
We talked through events as they were happening. We couldn’t write a book amidst this tumult, but we gathered Lisa’s feelings at the center of things while she struggled with incredible pressure and hard choices.
Literary Agent Gail Ross helped get us ready for business and into the publishing market in 2023, we finished the book in 2024, and here we are today.
I’ll treasure the book, but even more, I treasure this friendship, as writing partners going through some of the biggest issues to face the nation in my lifetime.
Every time I’ve helped an author with a memoir, I’ve developed a friendship with a special depth. There’s nothing like it.
Next week, I’ll discuss the reaction to the book.
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