Trailblazer: An Intimate Biography of Sarah Palin
by Lorenzo Benet
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Book Summary Information
Author: Lorenzo BenetEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2009-02-17
ISBN: 1439142343
Number of pages: 256
Publisher: Threshold Editions
Book Reviews of Trailblazer: An Intimate Biography of Sarah Palin
Book Review: Nobody's written Sarah Palin's real political history...
Summary: 1 Stars
... and we shouldn't expect a reporter from People magazine to do so. Though Lorenzo Benet tags Trailblazer as "an intimate biography," the details of Sarah Heath Palin's life are presented very, very selectively, and there's either far too much information (her eighth-grade romantic crushes, her "stunning" appearance in a prom gown, seven pages on her high-school baskeball antics), or far too little. For example, when Sarah says she plans to be a "major reformer," there's no follow-up. She says she's up against "the old-boy-network," but doesn't define what it is they do that bothers her. Benet does give some evidence of how Sarah Palin has demanded proof of loyalties or has turned her back on people who once tried to act as mentors, but there's more about that in a single New York Times article published last year.
Palin qualifies as a "trailblazer" only as the first female GOP vice-presidential candidate. As we all know, she became one of the most-photographed faces on earth in August 2008, when she moved from John McCain's short list to become his inadequately vetted running mate. Her appearances on the campaign trail have earned her a fervent following, as well as--someday, I hope--some really good books written by competent political historians.
Benet gleaned most of the details of Sarah Heath Palin's life from her doting parents, in-laws, sisters, and pals. The chapters are short, full of white space, and we're a third of the way through the book before Sarah Palin reveals, "I was called [by G-d] into politics." At the age of thirty-two, Palin announces, "I would like to be President."
Frustratingly, Benet offers up neither an index or footnotes, which makes the list of source articles ("Here, Teacher!") incomprehensible: Did he read them? If he did, that may be why there are a few bashful inclusions of actual details from Palin's political career that really should not be left out. For example, during her unsuccessful campaign for lieutenant governor in 2004, Palin accepted some $5,000 in campaign contributions from executives (and spouses) at VECO, an oil services company that provided Senator Ted Stevens more than a quarter-million dollars in... well, in bribes, for which he was convicted last year. Benet gives Stevens just one paragraph, despite the fact that Sarah Palin has been closely allied to him from the beginning of her career in politics until he generated enough bad news for her to scrub him from her bio and websites.
Certainly, the Heath and Palin families are anxious to present themselves as wholesome and loving, and one feels squeamish at pointing at any genuine human failings on their part, such as DWI ("Not a major deal," says a Dillingham resident), violating hunting and fishing laws, or membership in the secessionist Alaska Independence Party. When the Palin family moves to its new house on Lake Lucille, Benet tediously details the zoning violations of their former home, but not a single dicey origin of the new: the "donated" building materials, or who built it (Todd claims that he did, along with his "buddies"); as Wasilla mayor, Sarah sealed the records. Throughout this and other biographies, Sarah Palin constantly is being called a "bookworm" or "voracious reader" by her family, yet the only photo of her with reading matter I've ever found has been with a copy of the John Birch Society magazine. And then, of course, there were the disastrous interviews with Charles Gibson and Katie Couric; none of Benet's reportage indicates that these skirmishes with journalists were inaccurate.
Occasionally Benet demonstrates some journalistic cause/effect, as when he devotes seven pages to "Troopergate," the controversy that followed former Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan's refusal to fire Sarah's ex-brother-in-law, who remains an Alaska state trooper. The reader then stumbles across the money shot: Benet notes that the trooper's ex-wife, Sarah's sister, Molly, "does the lion's share" of caring for Sarah's children during her absences. (The Wasilla girl hired as a nanny last summer is tucked into half a sentence.)
Quoting the Los Angeles Times, Benet notes that independent investigator Stephen Branchflower detailing of Todd's "frequent and intimate presence in the day-to-day workings of his wife's administration." He also is copied on her e-mails. Todd doesn't deny that. He also works one week on/one off as a union employee of BP, serves as "Mr. Mom" (Todd's words), runs a commercial fishing business, and when he trained for his annual snow-machine race, Sarah "helped out" by taking the children to Hawaii. "The parallels between running a two-thousand-mile snowmobile race and a political campaigh seemed uncanny," intones Benet. They do? Well, what do I know, I live in Washington, D.C., not Wasilla.
Sarah Palin reportedly is not happy with this book, and Simon & Schuster shouldn't be, either. So far, Palin hagiographies have presented a lumpy mix of her bumper-sticker slogans; in this book, occasionally, Benet allows glimmers of the actual business and concerns of Alaska to share precious page space with, say, Sarah's collaboration with her hairdresser to create just the right look for the governor's race (four pages), and how she reconciles her insistence that she's a "fiscal conservative" with enormous infusions of other peoples' monies for redecorating the governor's office, for travel, wardrobe and makeup from the RNC, and per diem stipends from the state of Alaska for living in her Wasilla home. (Palin has just received the unhappy information that she'll have to pay income tax on those stipends.)
Ostensibly this book ends with the birth (in December, says the family) of the Palin's grandson to his unmarried teen mom. Since so little in this book is verified by public records, I won't go into the births of Trig and Tripp, and the controversies surrounding them; Benet doesn't, either. Rather than bother with this book, I'd recommend starting with an article by Wayne Barrett in the Village Voice (October 7, 2008), and regularly following the Alaska blogs www.themudflats.net, www.andrewhalcro.com, and the blog posted at www.palindeception.com. They will tell you a great deal about Sarah Palin and her tortured love-hate relationship with actually, you know, governing. This book, unfortunately, does not.
Summary of Trailblazer: An Intimate Biography of Sarah Palin
A FASCINATING INSIDE LOOK AT ONE OF THE BEST-KNOWN WOMEN IN AMERICAN POLITICS AS WE HAVE NEVER BEFORE SEEN HERShe?s a real-life American success story. Alaska?s youngest governor . . . and the first woman. A small-town girl who wasn?t content to keep things small.People magazine assistant editor Lorenzo Benet met with Sarah Palin and her family just weeks before the announcement that she would be the Republican vice-presidential nominee. In this groundbreaking biography, he shows us the real Sarah Palin?untouched by the cameras and the campaign trail. From her basketball games and beauty pageants as a young woman in Alaska, to her relationship with Todd and their family, to her controversies and triumphs in office, and culminating with the manic excitement of the 2008 election, its controversial aftermath, and the post-election birth of her grandson, Trailblazer is the definitive, uncensored portrait of this extraordinarily complex woman.Features 8 pages of behind-the-scenes family and campaign photographs!
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