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Book cover of Promise Me, Dad

Promise Me, Dad

A Year of Hope, Hardship, and Purpose

by Joe Biden · 2017

ISBN: 1250171687 9781250171689

Category: Biography & Autobiography / Presidents & Heads of State

Page count: 264

<b>The instant #1 <i>New York Times</i> bestseller: From President Joe Biden, a deeply moving memoir about the year that would change both a family and a country.</b><br><br>In November 2014, thirteen members of the Biden family gathered on Nantucket for Thanksgiving, a tradition they had been celebrating for the past forty years. But this year felt different from all those that had come before. Joe and Jill Biden’s eldest son, Beau, had been diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor fifteen months earlier, and his survival was uncertain. “Promise me, Dad,” Beau had told his father. “Give me your word that no matter what happens, you’re going to be all right.” Joe Biden gave him his word.<br><br><i>Promise Me, Dad</i> chronicles the year that followed, which would be the most momentous and challenging in Joe Biden’s extraordinary life and career. As vice president, Biden traveled more than a hundred thousand miles that year, across the world, dealing with crises in Ukraine, Central America, and Iraq. When a call came from New York, or Capitol Hill, or Kyiv, or Baghdad—“Joe, I need your help”—he responded. For twelve months, while Beau fought for and then lost his life, the vice president balanced the twin imperatives of living up to his responsibilities to his country and his responsibilities to his family. And never far away was the insistent and urgent question of whether he should seek the presidency in 2016.<br><br>Writing with poignancy and immediacy, <i>Promise Me, Dad</i> is a story of how family and friendships sustain us and how hope, purpose, and action can guide us through the pain of personal loss into the light of a new future.