Dr. Biden’s book reflects an insular White House where loyalty was prized and Mr. Biden’s feelings were prioritized. In her book and in interviews, she has emphasized the pain that has been inflicted on her family ... Now 74, America’s most experienced living political spouse has closed a remarkable and turbulent chapter of her life by telling the reader what she saw, just not necessarily how she felt.
A memoir that is at turns delusional, sappy, resentful and—in a weirdly irresistible way—revelatory of the former first lady’s agitated state of mind ... There is no dearth of blithe banalities ... But there’s anger, too. Her book’s title can be read as a spitball at Donald Trump, who has torn down the East Wing ('may it rest in peace') where Mrs. Biden had her first lady’s office ... It is Mrs. Biden’s mulish unwillingness to face up to the evidence of the president’s obvious cognitive decline in 2024 that is striking.
I guess the question is: What are you expecting? Are you reading a Jill Biden memoir in some delusion that she’ll be willing or able to hold her husband accountable for his poor performance against Trump 2.0? ... Maybe you, like me, love the feeling of boredom ... View From the East Wing says almost nothing of consequence but, in a few moments, takes great pains to remind the reader that, actually, Joe was not so sleepy after all! ... In yet another first lady memoir, you’re certainly getting what you paid for. It’s just that the whole thing could’ve been a Facebook post.
The question that always nags with first ladies is their political string-pulling: to what extent are they a Lady Macbeth? Jill is no dummy. You get the feeling that she observes more than she talks, and she’s clear throughout that her main job, as she saw it, was supporting Joe ... Jill Biden is an intriguing character, an unusual mixture of sharp and private, with lashings of the almost robotic tradwife. Still waters run deep, and one feels that in this memoir, the depths aren’t really sounded but rather hinted at, only to be swiftly plugged up again. That is probably how it will stay – and that suits this reader fine.
So trim, toned and beatific that it seems to have emerged from her favorite morning SoulCycle class, Jill Biden’s second memoir, View From The East Wing, rests on simple details ... The book’s title is also pungent, and pointed: the East Wing of the White House, which contained the first lady’s office, a visitor center and several other historical chambers, was demolished last year by her husband’s successor, Donald Trump, to make way for a ballroom ... A doctor Jill Biden most definitively is. A spin doctor — not really.
A couple of bits of dish stand out (Melania Trump comes off as not especially warm), but more interesting are Biden’s observations on what it’s really like to be a woman under constant scrutiny ... A smart, revealing memoir by a presidential partner of skill and consequence.
