Barack Hussein Obama, Jr., was born at 7:24 P.M. on August 4, 1961, at Kapi'olani Medical Center, in Honolulu, not far from Waikiki. On the birth certificate, the mother's race is listed as "Caucasian," the father's as "African."

Ann dropped out of school to care for her infant son. She never expected to be in such a traditionally domestic spot so soon: home alone with Barack, Jr., while Barack, Sr., was in cla.s.ses, studying at the library, out drinking with his friends. Yet her friends don't recall her being resentful or depressed. As a young mother, and later, too, when she matured into an accomplished anthropologist, based in Indonesia and other countries, she was a take-life-as-it-comes optimist. The last thing on her mind was what people might say as they saw her, a white woman, walking down the street holding a black child. Alice Dewey, an anthropologist at the university who became Ann's academic mentor and one of her closest friends, said, "They say she was so 'unusual,' but growing up in Hawaii it doesn't seem that unusual that she would have married an African. It's not breaking the rules in Hawaii. It didn't seem totally strange. If she had been growing up in Kansas, it would have been mind-boggling. In Hawaii, there's that mixture, a meeting point of different cultures."

In June, 1962, Obama, Sr., graduated from the University of Hawaii Phi Beta Kappa. He had a choice between staying in Hawaii for graduate school, going to graduate school at the New School, in New York, on a full scholarship, with a stipend capable of supporting the three of them--or going to Harvard. For him, the choice was easy For him, the choice was easy: "How can I refuse the best education?" Ambition always came before anything else, particularly women and children. He informed Ann that he was going to Cambridge to be a graduate student in econometrics. The Honolulu Advertiser Advertiser marked his departure, in late June, without mentioning Ann or Barack, Jr. Obama promised his wife that he would retrieve the family when the time was right, but he was no more truthful about that than he had been about his first marriage. marked his departure, in late June, without mentioning Ann or Barack, Jr. Obama promised his wife that he would retrieve the family when the time was right, but he was no more truthful about that than he had been about his first marriage.

"Stanley was disappointed that Barack had left his daughter, but not too too disappointed," Neil Abercrombie said. "He figured that the marriage was going to fail sooner or later and so it might as well not go on so long that it would hurt Little Barry, as he always called him. If he was going to play the father figure in the boy's life, he felt, he might as well start." disappointed," Neil Abercrombie said. "He figured that the marriage was going to fail sooner or later and so it might as well not go on so long that it would hurt Little Barry, as he always called him. If he was going to play the father figure in the boy's life, he felt, he might as well start."

That fall, Ann went with the baby to Cambridge briefly to visit her husband, but the trip was a failure and she returned to Hawaii. Barack, Sr., did not see Ann or their son again for nearly a decade and he did not advertise the fact that he had a family in Hawaii. He used to meet Frederick Okatcha, a friend from the airlift, in New York, at the West End bar, near Columbia, and they talked about almost everything--politics, economics, tribal problems, and nepotism in Kenya, and the way they would help shape the new Nairobi when they returned. "The one thing Obama never talked about was his family," Okatcha, who was studying psychology at Yale, said. "I didn't even know he had married. I never knew he had a son. Not then, anyway."

Ann Dunham was twenty years old, and a single mother. All the early promises of adventure now seemed unlikely. "It was sad to me when her marriage disintegrated," her old friend Susan Botkin said. "I was so impressed by how relaxed and calm she was when she had Barack--she was excited about going to Africa--and how in love she was, how her husband was going to take a serious role in government. It was a great disappointment to her that Barack, Sr.,'s father wrote and said, Don't bring your white wife and your half-breed child, they will not be welcome. There were Mau Mau uprisings, they were beheading white women, and doing unspeakable things. Ann's parents were very worried when they heard that." was twenty years old, and a single mother. All the early promises of adventure now seemed unlikely. "It was sad to me when her marriage disintegrated," her old friend Susan Botkin said. "I was so impressed by how relaxed and calm she was when she had Barack--she was excited about going to Africa--and how in love she was, how her husband was going to take a serious role in government. It was a great disappointment to her that Barack, Sr.,'s father wrote and said, Don't bring your white wife and your half-breed child, they will not be welcome. There were Mau Mau uprisings, they were beheading white women, and doing unspeakable things. Ann's parents were very worried when they heard that."

According to the registrar at the University of Washington, Ann registered for an extension course in the winter of 1961 and enrolled as a regular student in the spring of 1962. She moved to Seattle with Barack, Jr., rented an apartment at the Villa Ria development in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Seattle, and reconnected with some of her old high-school friends. One thing Ann's friends noticed was that she was not at all reluctant to show off her baby. When she wasn't studying, she pushed Barack around the streets of Seattle in a stroller--a somewhat startling sight for some. "It was very different at that time for a black man and a white woman to marry," Ann's friend Maxine Box said. "She was not shy about the fact that she'd married a black man at all."

But trying to keep up with her studies and taking care of Barack was difficult, and, after a year, she decided to return to Honolulu, move in with her parents, and go to the University of Hawaii. To help make this work, she applied for, and received, food stamps for several months.

There was little word from Cambridge. Barack, Sr., was studying econometrics, drinking with a new set of friends, and soon had a girlfriend to add to his two marriages. "But by then Ann was under no illusions," Neil Abercrombie said. "He was a man of his time from a very patriarchal society."

Stanley Dunham, who had struggled with the idea of his daughter marrying so young and to such a complicated man, now became a doting grandfather, taking the boy to the beach, playing with him in the park. "Stanley loved that boy," Abercrombie recalled. "In the absence of his father, there was not a kinder, more understanding man than Stanley Dunham. He was loving and generous."

In January, 1964, Ann filed for divorce, citing "grievous mental suffering." In Cambridge, Obama signed the papers without protest.

Ann may have been wounded by Barack's abandonment, but she certainly had no hesitation about, once again, dating a man of color. A couple of years after Obama left for Harvard and then returned home to Kenya (with yet another woman, an American teacher named Ruth Nidesand, whom he had met in Cambridge), she began dating an Indonesian geologist, Lolo Soetoro, who was studying at the University of Hawaii. Lolo was a more modest, less aggressively ambitious man than Obama, and Ann's parents were far more at ease with him. by Barack's abandonment, but she certainly had no hesitation about, once again, dating a man of color. A couple of years after Obama left for Harvard and then returned home to Kenya (with yet another woman, an American teacher named Ruth Nidesand, whom he had met in Cambridge), she began dating an Indonesian geologist, Lolo Soetoro, who was studying at the University of Hawaii. Lolo was a more modest, less aggressively ambitious man than Obama, and Ann's parents were far more at ease with him.

Soetoro, born in the city of Bandung, had grown up in a landscape of violence and upheaval--Dutch colonialism, j.a.panese occupation, revolution---and his family had not escaped the worst. His father and eldest brother were killed during Indonesia's revolt in the late nineteen-forties against the Dutch, who were vainly trying to repossess the country. The Dutch burned the Soetoros' house to the ground and the family fled to the countryside to wait out the conflict. To survive, Lolo's mother To survive, Lolo's mother sold off her jewelry, one piece at a time, until the war finally ended. Eventually the family resettled near their old home and Soetoro got his undergraduate degree in geology at Gadjah Mada University, a prestigious school in Yogyakarta in central Java. sold off her jewelry, one piece at a time, until the war finally ended. Eventually the family resettled near their old home and Soetoro got his undergraduate degree in geology at Gadjah Mada University, a prestigious school in Yogyakarta in central Java.

In Hawaii, Soetoro pursued his master's degree--and Ann Dunham--at a time when his country was enduring a horrific civil war. After Lolo and Ann married, in 1965, the Indonesian government called on all students studying abroad, Soetoro included, to return home to prove their loyalty and help "repair the country."

In 1967, Ann and Barry, who was now six years old and ready for first grade, flew to j.a.pan, where they stayed for a few days to see the sights in Tokyo and Kamakura, and then went on to Jakarta to live with Lolo, who had taken a job as an army geologist, surveying roads and tunnels. Arriving in Indonesia in 1967 was like arriving on a battlefield where the ground was still strewn with the detritus of war and with fresh graves. For two decades, from 1945 to 1967, Sukarno was Indonesia's post-colonial ruler, its Father of the Nation, the great dalang dalang, the puppet-master, manipulating factions and challengers, crushing or co-opting enemies, shifting from nationalism to "guided democracy" to autocratic rule as he deemed necessary. He had been master of the most complex of nations: seventeen thousand five hundred islands; three hundred languages; a culture shaped by Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, the Dutch, and the British. He managed by forging a delicate alliance drawn from the military, Communists, nationalists, and Islamists.

On the night of September 30, 1965, a group of Sukarno's generals were murdered by rival officers, a faction called the 30 September Movement. Within days, Major General Suharto forced Sukarno to yield effective power. The conflict came in a period of economic crisis--hyperinflation and, in many regions, famine. Suharto claimed that the violence had been initiated by leftists and he went about crushing the Indonesian Communist Party, the P.K.I., giving rise to a prolonged period of political imprisonments, purges, and suppression of the political left. In the months that followed, hundreds of thousands of people were killed.

For decades after the b.l.o.o.d.y events of the mid-sixties, Indonesians debated who was to blame for the violence. The growth of the P.K.I. under the Sukarno government had infuriated the military and the United States. Sukarno had also angered Western investors by nationalizing major industries, including oil. Most historians agree that one of Suharto's essential allies in the overthrow of Sukarno was the C.I.A.

The Soetoros lived in a crowded middle-cla.s.s neighborhood, in a stucco house on Haji Ramli Street, a dirt lane that turned to mud in the rainy season. Ann's and Barry's early impressions of Jakarta were of heat and glare, poverty in the streets, beggars, the smell of diesel fuel, the din of traffic and hawkers. Thanks to his stepfather's playful munificence, Barry had a backyard menagerie: chickens and roosters pecking around a coop, crocodiles, birds of paradise, a c.o.c.katoo, and an ape from New Guinea named Tata. One day, Lolo mentioned that one of the crocodiles had escaped, crawled into a neighboring rice field and eaten the owner's ducks. Just as Ann was Barry's teacher in high-minded matters--liberal, humanist values; the need to remember that they, and not the Indonesians, were the "foreigners"; the beauty of Mahalia Jackson's singing and Martin Luther King's preaching--Lolo was his instructor in the rude and practical skills of middle-cla.s.s Indonesian life. Lolo taught him how farm animals were killed for eating; how to box and defend himself, just in case; how to treat servants; how to ignore street beggars and keep enough for yourself; how the weak perish and the strong survive. middle-cla.s.s neighborhood, in a stucco house on Haji Ramli Street, a dirt lane that turned to mud in the rainy season. Ann's and Barry's early impressions of Jakarta were of heat and glare, poverty in the streets, beggars, the smell of diesel fuel, the din of traffic and hawkers. Thanks to his stepfather's playful munificence, Barry had a backyard menagerie: chickens and roosters pecking around a coop, crocodiles, birds of paradise, a c.o.c.katoo, and an ape from New Guinea named Tata. One day, Lolo mentioned that one of the crocodiles had escaped, crawled into a neighboring rice field and eaten the owner's ducks. Just as Ann was Barry's teacher in high-minded matters--liberal, humanist values; the need to remember that they, and not the Indonesians, were the "foreigners"; the beauty of Mahalia Jackson's singing and Martin Luther King's preaching--Lolo was his instructor in the rude and practical skills of middle-cla.s.s Indonesian life. Lolo taught him how farm animals were killed for eating; how to box and defend himself, just in case; how to treat servants; how to ignore street beggars and keep enough for yourself; how the weak perish and the strong survive.

Before they left for Indonesia, Madelyn Dunham had called the State Department, asking about the perils of Jakarta--the political struggles, the strange foods. She could do nothing about the politics, but she did pack a couple of trunks of American packaged foods. "You never know "You never know what these people will eat," she said. She was right; soon, Barry sampled dog, snake, and roasted gra.s.shopper. He took part in compet.i.tive battles with Indonesian kites, chased crickets, gaped at the poor in the streets--some of them missing a limb, an eye, a nose--and befriended all kinds of kids in the neighborhood: the children of government bureaucrats, the children of workers and farmers. what these people will eat," she said. She was right; soon, Barry sampled dog, snake, and roasted gra.s.shopper. He took part in compet.i.tive battles with Indonesian kites, chased crickets, gaped at the poor in the streets--some of them missing a limb, an eye, a nose--and befriended all kinds of kids in the neighborhood: the children of government bureaucrats, the children of workers and farmers.

At home, Soetoro, who had always been cheerful back in Hawaii, wrestling and playing with Barry, was moodier, harder to talk to. In Hawaii, he had seemed liberated In Hawaii, he had seemed liberated; in Jakarta, Obama recalled him "wandering through the house with a bottle of imported whiskey, nursing his secrets."

Ann also sensed the hauntedness of Jakarta. On one of her expeditions near the city, she came across a field of unmarked graves. She tentatively asked Lolo what had happened with the coup and the counter-coup, the scouring of the countryside for suspected Communists and the innumerable killings, the ma.s.s arrests, but most Indonesians, Lolo included, were extremely reluctant to talk about the horrors of the mid-sixties.

In 1970, Ann gave birth to a daughter named Maya. Maya developed a keen sense of her mother's attachment to the country. "There is a phrase in Indonesian, diam dalam seribu bahasa diam dalam seribu bahasa, that means 'to be silent in a thousand languages.' It's a very fitting phrase for the country," Maya said. "There are so many ways to be silent. Sometimes it's in the constant cheerfulness or the s.p.a.ce between words. Indonesia became more interesting to her. And it was a challenge. I'm sure this girl from Kansas, having to navigate through this complex culture that was so remote from what she grew up with, accepted it gracefully and with great strength and affability. She didn't ever feel afraid or alone. She simply made friends with those she encountered and worked to understand their lives as best she could."

One friend, Julia Suryakusuma, a well-known feminist and journalist, recalled that when Ann arrived in Indonesia she was "ensnared and enchanted" by the culture. "You know, Ann was really, really white," she said, "even though she told me she had some Cherokee blood in her. I think she just loved people of a different skin color, brown people."

Barry was doing his best to fit in at school. As an African-American, of course, he stood out. "At first, everybody felt it was weird "At first, everybody felt it was weird to have him here," said to have him here," said one of his teachers at St. Francis one of his teachers at St. Francis, Israella Dharmawan. "But also they were curious about him, so wherever he went, the kids were following him." Kids at school often called him "Negro," which they didn't consider a slur, though it certainly upset Barry.

Obama was the one foreign child in his immediate neighborhood, and the only one enrolled in St. Francis. Most of the children in the area were Betawis, tribal Jakaratans, and traditional Muslims. Cecilia Sugini Hananto Cecilia Sugini Hananto, who taught Obama in second grade, told the Chicago Tribune Tribune that some of the Betawi kids threw rocks at the open windows of the Catholic cla.s.srooms. Barry learned a lot of Indonesian quickly. He was never fluent, but he more than managed to navigate school. He'd yell that some of the Betawi kids threw rocks at the open windows of the Catholic cla.s.srooms. Barry learned a lot of Indonesian quickly. He was never fluent, but he more than managed to navigate school. He'd yell "Curang! Curang!" "Curang! Curang!"--Cheater! Cheater!--when he was teased. Zulfan Adi, one of those who teased him, recalled a time when Barack followed his gang to a swamp: "They held his hands and feet and said, 'One, two, three,' and threw him in the swamp. Luckily, he could swim. They only did it to Barry." Obama, though, was husky and not easy to intimidate. "He was built like a bull, so we'd get three kids together to fight him," a former cla.s.smate, Yunaldi Askiar, said. "But it was only playing."

After Maya was born, the Soetoros moved three miles west, into a better neighborhood, where the old Dutch elite lived. Lolo now worked as a liaison with the government for Union Oil. With the new job came new acquaintances and colleagues; some were the sort of foreigners who complained about the "locals" and the servants. The Soetoros were surrounded by diplomats and Indonesian businessmen who lived in gated houses. Barry's new school, Model Primary School Menteng I, was, like almost all schools in Indonesia, mainly Muslim. Israella Dharmawan inadvertently helped feed a campaign sensation--mainly on the Internet and cable news--when she told the Los Angeles Times Times, in March, 2007, that "Barry was a Muslim.... He was registered as a Muslim because his father, Lolo Soetoro, was Muslim." A third-grade teacher named Effendi and the vice-princ.i.p.al, Tine Hahiyari, also told the Times Times that Barry was registered as a Muslim. No matter what the registry said, this was untrue. Ann remained a religious skeptic and did not consider herself or her son a Muslim. Lolo was not a practicing Muslim. "My father saw Islam as a way to connect with the community," Maya said. "He never went to prayer services except for big communal events." that Barry was registered as a Muslim. No matter what the registry said, this was untrue. Ann remained a religious skeptic and did not consider herself or her son a Muslim. Lolo was not a practicing Muslim. "My father saw Islam as a way to connect with the community," Maya said. "He never went to prayer services except for big communal events."

Obama doesn't remember taking the religious component of either school in Indonesia very seriously. "In the Muslim school "In the Muslim school, the teacher wrote to tell my mother that I made faces during Koranic studies," he writes. "My mother wasn't overly concerned. 'Be respectful,' she'd said. In the Catholic school, when it came time to pray, I would pretend to close my eyes, then peek around the room. Nothing happened. No angels descended. Just a parched old nun and thirty brown children, muttering words."

Ann and Lolo had a comfortable life in Jakarta: because of the cheap price of labor, they had someone to market and cook, someone to tend the house. But Ann still couldn't afford to send Barry to the international school. Although she spent a full day teaching English at the American Emba.s.sy, she woke Barry at 4 A.M. every weekday in order to deepen his knowledge of English, history, and other subjects. It was something he resented--what young boy wouldn't?--but she was preparing him for the moment when he would go back to America to continue his education.

Ann was thriving, immersing herself in the local arts and handicrafts, learning the language, acquainting herself with the way people lived, traveling to Bali and villages in central Java. At the same time, Lolo was becoming more like his oilmen friends at the office. He played golf at Union Oil's club, and, what was worse as far as Ann was concerned, he talked talked about golf. He seemed so eager to a.s.similate into the world of his employers. "Step by step, Lolo became an American oilman and Ann was--O.K., to an about golf. He seemed so eager to a.s.similate into the world of his employers. "Step by step, Lolo became an American oilman and Ann was--O.K., to an extent extent--becoming a Javanese villager," Ann's close friend Alice Dewey said. "He was playing golf and tennis with the oil people and Ann was riding on the back of motorcycles in villages, learning."

Maya Soetoro (now Soetoro-Ng) had been born when Barry was nine. Ann surrounded her with dolls of all ethnicities: black, Inuit, Dutch. "It was like the United Nations," she says. Not long after Maya's birth Ann and Lolo could feel the marriage really begin to unravel. "She started feeling competent, perhaps," Maya Soetoro-Ng says. "She acquired numerous languages after that. Not just Indonesian but her professional language and her feminist language. And I think she really got a voice. So it's perfectly natural that she started to demand more of those who were near her, including my father. And suddenly his sweetness wasn't enough to satisfy her needs."

Barack Obama, Sr., wrote occasional letters to Ann and Barry, but for the most part he was out of sight. The disappointments of his life were barely known to them. The story of his return to Africa was one of bitter decline. When he arrived in Nairobi from Harvard in 1965 with his master's degree in economics, Obama split his personal life between his third wife and his first, between Ruth Nidesand and Kezia Obama. He would have two more children with Kezia (for a total of four) and two with Ruth, before she ended the marriage.

"Like many men of his generation who had the chance to go abroad for an education, Obama suffered the schizophrenia of one who is both a Luo man and a Western man," his friend Olara Otunnu said. "He absorbed the mindset and framework both of his home and of the West and he was always wrestling with trying to reconcile them. So when he marries several women and tries to keep them separate and fails miserably to do so, this is a symptom of the schizophrenia."

Obama's "schizophrenia"--the schizophrenia of the "been-to" generation of African elites who studied in the West in the nineteen-fifties and sixties and then returned home--is described by the Ghanaian writer Ayi Kwei Armah in his novel Why Are We So Blest? Why Are We So Blest? Armah, who was sent abroad to study at Groton and Harvard, depicts the disillusion and downfall of a young man named Modin Dofu, who has left Harvard and winds up back in Africa, a destroyed man. Armah, who was sent abroad to study at Groton and Harvard, depicts the disillusion and downfall of a young man named Modin Dofu, who has left Harvard and winds up back in Africa, a destroyed man.

Obama, Jr., has called his father a "womanizer." The reality was grimmer. Obama, Sr., not only married four times and had many affairs; he didn't seem to care with any consistency about any of his wives or children. a "womanizer." The reality was grimmer. Obama, Sr., not only married four times and had many affairs; he didn't seem to care with any consistency about any of his wives or children. Philip Ochieng, a prominent Luo journalist Philip Ochieng, a prominent Luo journalist and a friend of Obama, Sr.,'s, wrote a lighthearted article in the and a friend of Obama, Sr.,'s, wrote a lighthearted article in the Daily Nation Daily Nation saying that the Luo "shared with the ancient h.e.l.lenes the habit of waylaying foreign women and literally pulling them into bed as wives": saying that the Luo "shared with the ancient h.e.l.lenes the habit of waylaying foreign women and literally pulling them into bed as wives": So for Senior to grab wives from as far away as Hawaii and Ma.s.sachusetts--and Caucasian ones to boot--was no big deal. Given time, he might even have grabbed an Afghan, a Cherokee, an Eskimo, a Fijian, an Iraqi, a Lithuanian, a Mongolian, a Pole, a Shona, a Vietnamese, a Wolof, a Yoruba, and a Zaramo--not to mention hundreds from Luoland, apart from Kezia. The Luo would have noted his "he-man-ship" with complete approval.

"Where Obama comes from, a man can have many wives," Ochieng said. "If you have only one wife, like I do, you are not yet a man! The deeper question was how he treated the family."

For the affected family members, Obama's wandering and his indifference were painful. When Barack, Jr., visited Nairobi When Barack, Jr., visited Nairobi as a U.S. senator, he said of his father that "he related to women as his father had, expecting them to obey him no matter what he did." as a U.S. senator, he said of his father that "he related to women as his father had, expecting them to obey him no matter what he did." But there was more to it But there was more to it than cultural differences. Obama had been a miserable husband. Mark Ndesandjo, Obama's son by Ruth Nidesand, says that Obama beat him and his mother. "You just don't do that," he said. "I shut those thoughts in the back of my mind for many years.... I remember times in my house when I would hear the screams, and I would hear my mother's pain. I was a child ... I could not protect her." Ndesandjo dropped his father's name and, since 2001, he has lived in Shenzhen, China, and has worked in the export trade. "At a certain point, I made the decision not to think about who my real father was," he said. "He was dead to me even when he was still alive. I knew that he was a drunk and showed no concern for his wife and children. That was enough." than cultural differences. Obama had been a miserable husband. Mark Ndesandjo, Obama's son by Ruth Nidesand, says that Obama beat him and his mother. "You just don't do that," he said. "I shut those thoughts in the back of my mind for many years.... I remember times in my house when I would hear the screams, and I would hear my mother's pain. I was a child ... I could not protect her." Ndesandjo dropped his father's name and, since 2001, he has lived in Shenzhen, China, and has worked in the export trade. "At a certain point, I made the decision not to think about who my real father was," he said. "He was dead to me even when he was still alive. I knew that he was a drunk and showed no concern for his wife and children. That was enough."

Obama, Sr.,'s political mentor, Tom Mboya, made sure that he had decent jobs--as an economist for BP/Sh.e.l.l and then for both the Ministry of Economic Planning and Development and the Ministry of Tourism. From the moment of his return from America, Obama, Sr., was dissatisfied with the direction the government was taking. Little more than a year Little more than a year after independence, in July, 1965, he published an article in the after independence, in July, 1965, he published an article in the East Africa Journal East Africa Journal ent.i.tled "Problems Facing Our Socialism." The article was a critique of the government's working development plan known as "Sessional Paper No. 10," which had been issued in April, 1965. ent.i.tled "Problems Facing Our Socialism." The article was a critique of the government's working development plan known as "Sessional Paper No. 10," which had been issued in April, 1965.

The lead author of Sessional Paper No. 10 was Tom Mboya, who had been called on by the Kenyatta government to answer the Soviet-oriented development plans conceived at the Lumumba Inst.i.tute by leading leftist politicians like Oginga Odinga. As an ideologist of Kenyan independence As an ideologist of Kenyan independence, Mboya was a moderate; he considered himself a "Socialist at heart and a believer in democracy." "The Kenya Question: An African Answer," a pamphlet he wrote in 1956, before independence, when he was just twenty-six, was an important doc.u.ment in the anti-colonial movement--so important in its call for representative democracy and the development of strong trade unions that the white Nairobi government banned it from certain Kenyan bookstores. Indeed, Mboya's paper was instrumental in spreading his reputation in the United States among politicians and labor leaders; as a result it helped win support for the airlift. Sessional Paper No. 10 is a far different sort of doc.u.ment, a more technical and prescriptive plan for Kenyan economic development. Unlike the Lumumba Inst.i.tute plan, it was extremely wary of the nationalization of industries.

Even though Obama himself had likely had a hand in the conception of the paper and was an ally of Mboya, he did not hesitate to criticize it under his own name. Obama's article cautions against a national policy that ignores poverty and inequality and is based on outsized expectations of rapid economic growth. It poses a central question It poses a central question of a country exiting a colonial system and entering independence: "How are we going to remove the disparities in our country, such as the concentration of economic power in Asian and European hands, while not destroying what has already been achieved?" Post-colonial Kenya, Obama argued, must not re-create yet another economic scheme that produces a small, super-wealthy ruling cla.s.s and a ma.s.s of poor--in other words, a repet.i.tion of the old system, without a white ruling and bureaucratic cla.s.s. Obama supported the redistribution of land to both individuals and tribes. One Kenya scholar, David William Cohen, of the University of Michigan, calls it an "improbable yet extraordinary rehearsal" of the best critiques of "unregulated capital" that came only a quarter of a century later. It navigates the differences among the leading figures in Kenyan politics--Kenyatta, who was pro-Western, and his left-wing vice-president, a Luo, Oginga Odinga, and Mboya, who was also a Luo but ideologically closer to Kenyatta. "It was very much like Obama to feel free to critique aspects of a paper he'd been part of," Olara Otunnu said. "He was a rarity in Kenya. Most people in the political cla.s.s were respectful, to a fault, of the leadership. Not Obama. He felt free to speak his mind, and loudly." In his article, Obama made a case for progressive taxation and the regulation of private investment. The article warns against the dangers of continued foreign ownership and excessive privatization of commonly held resources and goods. Obama wrote: of a country exiting a colonial system and entering independence: "How are we going to remove the disparities in our country, such as the concentration of economic power in Asian and European hands, while not destroying what has already been achieved?" Post-colonial Kenya, Obama argued, must not re-create yet another economic scheme that produces a small, super-wealthy ruling cla.s.s and a ma.s.s of poor--in other words, a repet.i.tion of the old system, without a white ruling and bureaucratic cla.s.s. Obama supported the redistribution of land to both individuals and tribes. One Kenya scholar, David William Cohen, of the University of Michigan, calls it an "improbable yet extraordinary rehearsal" of the best critiques of "unregulated capital" that came only a quarter of a century later. It navigates the differences among the leading figures in Kenyan politics--Kenyatta, who was pro-Western, and his left-wing vice-president, a Luo, Oginga Odinga, and Mboya, who was also a Luo but ideologically closer to Kenyatta. "It was very much like Obama to feel free to critique aspects of a paper he'd been part of," Olara Otunnu said. "He was a rarity in Kenya. Most people in the political cla.s.s were respectful, to a fault, of the leadership. Not Obama. He felt free to speak his mind, and loudly." In his article, Obama made a case for progressive taxation and the regulation of private investment. The article warns against the dangers of continued foreign ownership and excessive privatization of commonly held resources and goods. Obama wrote: One need not be a Kenyan to note that nearly all commercial enterprises from small shops in River Road to big shops in Government Road and industries in the Industrial Areas of Nairobi are mostly owned by Asians and Europeans.... For whom do we want to grow? Is it the African who owns this country? ... It is mainly in this country that one finds almost everything owned by the non-indigenous populace. to note that nearly all commercial enterprises from small shops in River Road to big shops in Government Road and industries in the Industrial Areas of Nairobi are mostly owned by Asians and Europeans.... For whom do we want to grow? Is it the African who owns this country? ... It is mainly in this country that one finds almost everything owned by the non-indigenous populace.

In all, Mboya was pleased with Obama's paper and hired him at the Ministry of Economic Planning and Development. But what came next in Kenya was political chaos--a chaos that engulfed Barack Obama, Sr.

In 1966, Odinga resigned from Kenyatta's government and established a left-wing opposition party. At first, this seemed a purely ideological divide between Odinga, who pressed for Kenya to lean closer to the Eastern Bloc and a socialist economic system, and Kenyatta, who was more oriented toward the United States and Western Europe. But, in the months to come, the divide, especially among their followers, took on an ugly tribal cast.

In 1967, Pake Zane and Neil Abercrombie set off on a trip around the world that eventually brought them to the doorstep of their old friend in Nairobi. By then, Obama was living in a pleasant government-owned cottage with a small lawn, but he was hardly taking care of himself. He chain-smoked--local brands, 555s and Rex--and, calling beer "a child's drink," he now drank quadruple shots of Vat 69 or Johnnie Walker.

"He was aloof toward his family," Abercrombie said. "He wasn't quite a complete mess yet. That would come later. But I remember thinking, They are never going to give him a chance. He was just so discouraged.... When I saw him there, I thought, This is hopeless. Daniel Arap Moi was already on the scene"--Arap Moi was Kenyatta's vice-president and, in 1978, became President and was known for corruption and human-rights abuses. "Arap Moi was a power-mongering b.a.s.t.a.r.d, a thief. And Arap Moi was every fear that Barack had ever had come true." At the Ministry, Obama constantly got in fights with his superiors and embarra.s.sed them by trying to expose instances of bribery and fraud.

Obama's decline, his old friends say now, was at least partly related to the disappointed belief that the best would rise to the top. He would never be able to overcome tribalism, cronyism, and corruption. "To that extent, he was naive "To that extent, he was naive," Peter Aringo, a friend and a member of parliament from Obama's village, said. "He thought he could fight the system from outside. He thought he could bring it down."

"Obama, Sr., was very concerned about corruption at home, which still stands in the way of development," Frederick Okatcha, a professor of educational psychology at Kenyatta University, said. "He so much wanted to do good for his people, but, after being in America, we had learned new values and ways of speaking and behaving, and we saw corruption, nepotism. It is hard when you see that your bosses don't have half the education you do. You could see how frustrated he was. He was very brilliant and now he had to report to people who knew so much less than he did. That would drive anyone to the bottle."

Obama's most perilous habit was his tendency to drink and drive. "You remember the character Mr. Toad from The Wind and the Willows? The Wind and the Willows? He was a crazy driver, and Obama was like Mr. Toad," the journalist Philip Ochieng said. "He once drove me from Nairobi to Kisumu, and it was very scary. Terrifying! And he wasn't even drinking." He was a crazy driver, and Obama was like Mr. Toad," the journalist Philip Ochieng said. "He once drove me from Nairobi to Kisumu, and it was very scary. Terrifying! And he wasn't even drinking."

In 1965, Obama was behind the wheel when he had an accident that killed a pa.s.senger, a postal worker from his home town. The accident left Obama with a terrible limp. "Barack never really recovered "Barack never really recovered from that," a friend of his, Leo Odera Omolo, told Edmund Sanders of the Los Angeles from that," a friend of his, Leo Odera Omolo, told Edmund Sanders of the Los Angeles Times Times. His outspokenness and arrogance had lost their charm. He had become melancholy, argumentative, and convinced, with good reason, of his own marginalization. He was drinking more and more, introducing himself as "Dr. Obama" when he had not, in fact, completed a doctorate. A man who had been one of Kenya's most promising young minds was now a source of gossip and derision. Walgio Orwa, a professor Walgio Orwa, a professor at Great Lakes University, in Kisumu, said, "Before, he was everyone's role model. With that big beautiful voice, we all wanted to be like him. Later, everybody was asking what happened." at Great Lakes University, in Kisumu, said, "Before, he was everyone's role model. With that big beautiful voice, we all wanted to be like him. Later, everybody was asking what happened."

On July 5, 1969, a quiet Sat.u.r.day afternoon, Tom Mboya returned from an official trip to Ethiopia and, at around 1 P.M., stopped by a pharmacy on Government Road. As he came out of the pharmacy, a young Kikuyu named Nahashon Isaac Njenga Njoroge, wearing a suit and carrying a briefcase, pulled a revolver out of his pocket. He fired twice, hitting Mboya both times in the chest. He died almost immediately.

As news of Mboya's death spread, there were large demonstrations of outrage in both Nairobi and the cities and villages of Luoland, in western Kenya. Luos had seen the government crush the leftist Oginga Odinga; now they suspected that Kenyatta's inner circle was behind the death of the most popular Luo politician of all. The government conducted an investigation that was anything but transparent. The gunman, Njenga, was known around Nairobi for shaking down businesses and threatening them with his connections to high-ranking government officials. He was locked up in Kamiti prison and was tried in September. Only a few journalists loyal to the government were allowed to attend the ten-day trial, and the national archives do not possess a decent record of the proceedings. Police said they found Njenga's gun on the roof of his house, at Ofafa Jericho Estate. According to Njenga's lawyer According to Njenga's lawyer, Samuel Njoroge Waruhiu, his client did not protest his innocence and appeared serene about his fate, seeming confident that eventually he would be spirited to safety in a far-off country. "It was hard dealing with him," Waruhiu said. "Here I was, trying to get information so that I could arm myself with a tangible defense. But here was a client who was keen to hide as much as possible." Njenga told his lawyer that Mboya had got what he deserved for "selling us to the Americans."

Njenga did not give a final statement in court and was condemned to death. According to a government announcement, he was executed by hanging on November 8th. He was reported to have said earlier, "Why do you pick on me? Why not the big man?" He declined, however, to say who "the big man" was, and his enigmatic question lingered on in the Kenyan political imagination for decades to come.

"There is pretty convincing talk that the execution was never carried out," David William Cohen says. "The Kenyatta government announced announced that he was executed and yet there were reports that the condemned man was seen in Bulgaria, Ethiopia, and Kenya. A lot of people believe that it was all part of a plot to do the killing, and then the powers that be set him free and let him leave the country." that he was executed and yet there were reports that the condemned man was seen in Bulgaria, Ethiopia, and Kenya. A lot of people believe that it was all part of a plot to do the killing, and then the powers that be set him free and let him leave the country."

According to Pake Zane, who visited Obama in 1968 and 1974, Obama claimed that he knew the inside story of Mboya's a.s.sa.s.sination and even claimed to have seen Mboya on the morning of the killing. The Mboya a.s.sa.s.sination remains an abiding mystery of Kenyan political history. Most people who are not in the government power elite say they are sure that the killer acted at the behest of one of Mboya's opponents--people around Kenyatta and Daniel Arap Moi. No one has offered conclusive evidence. But the suspicions about Kenyatta and his circle persist, particularly in Luoland. When Kenyatta came to campaign for re-election in Kisumu, a Luo city close to where Barack Obama grew up, the local people jeered, saying, "Where's Tom? Where's Tom?"

Obama, for his part, was enraged about the murder and vocal about it. He demanded an explanation for the killing. ("I was with Tom only last week. Can the Government tell me where he is?") Mboya's execution was the effective end of Obama's public life. He had lost the one real mentor and benefactor he had ever had. They had not agreed on everything--Obama's views on development were more to the left--but Mboya had looked out for him, provided jobs for him in the state bureaucracy, kept him connected to the Nairobi political cla.s.s. He was fired from the government and never returned. Can the Government tell me where he is?") Mboya's execution was the effective end of Obama's public life. He had lost the one real mentor and benefactor he had ever had. They had not agreed on everything--Obama's views on development were more to the left--but Mboya had looked out for him, provided jobs for him in the state bureaucracy, kept him connected to the Nairobi political cla.s.s. He was fired from the government and never returned.

Three months after Mboya's murder, the tension in Kenya deepened. In late October, 1969, Kenyatta went to Kisumu to dedicate a hospital for which Odinga had arranged Soviet funding. Hundreds of Luo men heckled Kenyatta. The President was not prepared to be shamed. He declared that Odinga's party He declared that Odinga's party, the Kenya People's Union, "is only engaged in dirty divisive words. Odinga is my friend, but he has been misled and he in turn continues to mislead the people of this area." Then he warned Odinga and his followers, "We are going to crush you into flour. Anybody who toys with our progress will be crushed like locusts. Do not say later that I did not warn you publicly." Kenyatta's car left Kisumu under a hail of stones, and the police turned their guns on the crowd, killing at least nine people and wounding seventy.

Two days later, Kenyatta made good on his ominous warning, arresting Odinga and most of the leadership of the K.P.U., charging them with trying to overthrow the government. Odinga remained in prison for two years and every Luo intellectual and civil servant felt the pressure.

After the events of 1969, Obama began drinking himself into a stupor nearly every night and driving, perilously, home. "He would pa.s.s out on the doorstep "He would pa.s.s out on the doorstep," Leo Odera Omolo said. Sebastian Peter Okoda, a former senior government official who shared his apartment with Obama in the mid-seventies, recalled that Obama kept drinking the best whiskies at hangouts like the Serena Hotel and the Hotel Boulevard. He complained to Okoda He complained to Okoda, "Pesa michula en pesa ma ahingo": "Pesa michula en pesa ma ahingo": "I'm being paid peanuts." "I'm being paid peanuts."

In 1974, Pake Zane and his wife came through Nairobi. They were camping at Nairobi City Park. "At one point Barack came out and said, 'Come stay with me.' There was a problem with gangs. So we went to stay with Barack, and he was drinking more heavily and he was limping. I asked him what happened, and at that time I heard the story, 'They tried to kill me.' He told me the story of being a witness. He said he knew who [Mboya's] a.s.sa.s.sins were, and 'I do know, they will kill me.' He got very drunk and very angry those nights--angry at life. Here he was, a very smart man, and he was prevented from revealing who the a.s.sa.s.sin was. He said there was no real work for him in Kenya. These things added up to a frustrated, angry young man.

"It got real scary after a while, he was so angry, so arrogant, and getting dangerous, calling out against the government to whoever would listen," Zane went on.

In his sober moments, Obama could recognize his own disappointments, the unraveling of his ambition, and he would say, "I want to do my things to the best of my ability. Even when death comes, I want to die thoroughly."

Chapter Two.

Surface and Undertow Barack Obama's family, broadly defined, is vast. It's multiconfessional, multiracial, multilingual, and multicontinental. He has a Kenyan step-grandmother in a village near Lake Victoria who speaks only Luo and Swahili; a biracial half brother who speaks fluent Mandarin and trades in southern China; a cousin-by-marriage who is an African-American rabbi in Chicago determined to forge closer relations among Jews, Muslims, and Christians on the South Side. As Obama has put it, he has some relatives who look like Bernie Mac and some who look like Margaret Thatcher. He has relatives who have been educated in the finest universities in the world, others who live in remote Kenyan towns, another who has lived in a Nairobi slum, yet another, an African half sister, who wound up in a Boston housing-project with immigration problems. The Obama family tree is as vast and intricate as one of those ancient banyan trees near the beach at Waikiki. As a politician, Obama would make use of that family, asking voters to imagine it--and him--as a metaphor for American diversity.

But as a child, Obama experienced his family as a small unit dominated not so much by the absence of his African father as by the presence of his mother, Ann Dunham. She was now twenty-nine. Her second marriage was all but over. She was faced with trying to find a way to nourish her growing interest in the economic and social anthropology of Indonesia and her overall sense of idealism, and, at the same time, support her ten-year-old son and year-old daughter. She could not go on tutoring Barry before dawn indefinitely; she started thinking about a way to get him an education in the United States.

Dunham's own ambitions were uncertain. Money did not much interest her. "I don't know what she wanted," Barack's sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng, said, "beyond what any of us wants--some measure of satisfaction that we have contributed positively to the lives of others and enriched our own understanding of the world around us and taken full measure of our own place in this life and world."

Ann had arrived in Indonesia in the aftermath of political upheaval, but it was not her way to get involved with politics directly. "She was interested in what was happening at the gra.s.sroots level, and she understood that better," Maya continued. "She was not an unthinking woman, she wasn't a stick-your-head-in-the-sand Pollyanna, but she really did believe that all this fighting was silly and unnecessary and why can't we all get along?" Was Ann politically naive? "Sometimes perhaps, but more about [America] than about Indonesia," she said. "In part, that was because she came to Hawaii when she was seventeen and didn't really see or feel the full impact of the civil-rights movement on the mainland. We always have to be hopeful about home, and so she always felt we made a lot of progress. Some could interpret it as naive. You could say optimistic. She saw the corruption elsewhere a little more clearly. It's not that she wished to ignore it or didn't see it, but her focus was more on socioeconomic realities on the gra.s.sroots level. She was deeply impacted by all of it, by the sharp contrast between the haves and have-nots, by the extremes of poverty and abuse, but also by the fact that there was so much beauty that resided behind it and beneath it and around it. She didn't simply see the challenges; she always saw the beauty."

Ann started to roam the markets of Jakarta and make trips around the country, learning more about Indonesian culture and handicrafts. "She loved batik and Indonesian art and music and all of the human creation that in her estimation elevated the spirit," Maya said. "She saw the beauty of community and kinship, the power of cultural collision and connection. She thought that all of her encounters were delightful--in Indonesia and elsewhere. She was just happy happy. She enjoyed herself immensely. Although she was aware of struggle and grappled with it, she did so cheerfully and with great optimism and belief that things could get better. Why mourn reality?"

After Barry finished the fourth grade in Jakarta, Ann Dunham put him on a flight to Hawaii to stay with his grandparents for the summer. Obama recalls this moment of re-entry into Hawaiian life with mixed emotions. There was the thrill of returning to America--air-conditioning, fast-food restaurants, and familiar sports--yet there was also the dreariness of staying with grandparents he hardly knew. the fourth grade in Jakarta, Ann Dunham put him on a flight to Hawaii to stay with his grandparents for the summer. Obama recalls this moment of re-entry into Hawaiian life with mixed emotions. There was the thrill of returning to America--air-conditioning, fast-food restaurants, and familiar sports--yet there was also the dreariness of staying with grandparents he hardly knew.

Stanley and Madelyn Dunham lived in a two-bedroom apartment in a ten-story high-rise on South Beretania Street, in Honolulu. The building faces a large green and one of the oldest Protestant churches in the city. Stanley, who had switched from the furniture business to selling insurance, was struggling in his work, frustrated with his bosses and with elusive would-be customers. Madelyn was a banking executive--a considerable achievement for a woman with no connections or college degree. The banks in Hawaii then were run by a coterie of wealthy families who were not inclined to treat women and men equally. "They didn't pay someone like Madelyn very much, even as she rose in the ranks. There was still a lot of gender bias," Neil Abercrombie said. "The Dunhams didn't live in that apartment out of some philosophical rejection of materialism. They were renters."

Madelyn Dunham took pride in her advancement and made sure to get to the office before seven each morning. Years later, she confided Years later, she confided to her grandson that what she had really wanted all along was "a house with a white picket fence, days spent baking or playing bridge or volunteering at the local library." to her grandson that what she had really wanted all along was "a house with a white picket fence, days spent baking or playing bridge or volunteering at the local library."

One gift that his grandparents could provide Barry was a connection to Punahou, the finest private school in Hawaii and the oldest west of the Mississippi River. Punahou, a seventy-six-acre island of lush greenery and distinguished architecture, was a ten-minute walk from their apartment--a pleasant stroll past a church, over the bridge spanning the H-1 freeway, and you were there. The waiting list was long The waiting list was long and the academic requirements considerable, but Stanley's boss at the insurance company, an alumnus, helped Barry get into Punahou. "My first experience with affirmative action, it seems, had little to do with race," Obama writes, winking at a fact that looms so large at elite American prep schools and Ivy League colleges: that affirmative action for alumni children and the well-connected is far more pervasive than any breaks extended on the basis of ethnic background. By the fall, Ann and Maya had returned to Honolulu and reunited with Barry as he started in his new school. Ann began taking graduate courses in anthropology at the University of Hawaii. and the academic requirements considerable, but Stanley's boss at the insurance company, an alumnus, helped Barry get into Punahou. "My first experience with affirmative action, it seems, had little to do with race," Obama writes, winking at a fact that looms so large at elite American prep schools and Ivy League colleges: that affirmative action for alumni children and the well-connected is far more pervasive than any breaks extended on the basis of ethnic background. By the fall, Ann and Maya had returned to Honolulu and reunited with Barry as he started in his new school. Ann began taking graduate courses in anthropology at the University of Hawaii.

Punahou's overall effect is of Phillips Exeter Academy-sur-Mer Academy-sur-Mer. Students walk around the campus as if dressed for the beach. Everywhere you go are spreading palms and monkey-pod trees, springy close-cropped lawns, lava-rock walls covered with otherworldly vines of night-blooming cereus flowers that were imported from Mexico and given to the school's founders. No interest is left unindulged. There is an arts and athletic center the size of an airplane hangar; a gla.s.s-blowing shed; a vast outdoor pool that glitters in the sunshine. The centerpiece of the campus is Thurston Chapel, a modernist building designed by an emigre architect named Vladimir Ossipoff and surrounded by a lily pond stocked with koi and tilapia.

If Hawaiians of any ethnic background meet each other on the mainland they tend not to begin the conversation with what town they come from. Instead, speaking pidgin, they will ask, "What school you wen grad?" The most exalted answer is Punahou. Happily, Obama was accepted and he got some scholarship money to help with the nineteen-hundred-dollar tuition fees.

In 1829, the Hawaiian queen, Ka'ahumanu, urged the local governor to give a large tract of land to Hiram Bingham, one of the first Christian missionaries on the islands. Bingham hoped to build a school that would equal the best in his native New England. Punahou was founded in 1841; it was devoted at first to educating the children of missionaries and to raising indigenous Hawaiian students "to an elevated state of Christian civilization." One of the early students included Bingham's grandson, Hiram III, who helped discover the lost city of Machu Picchu and became a model for Indiana Jones.

When Barry Obama arrived at Punahou, he was in fifth grade. He had two homeroom teachers, a history teacher from New York named Mabel Hefty and a math and science teacher named Pal Eldredge. Barry was a chunky, laid-back boy, still wearing the leather sandals he'd brought from Indonesia. The novelist Allegra Goodman The novelist Allegra Goodman, who was six years behind Obama at Punahou, describes Mabel Hefty, who died in 1995, as "old-fashioned, Christian, strict." She did not tolerate anyone speaking pidgin. Her cla.s.sroom, on the third floor of Castle Hall, still had blackout curtains left over from the Second World War.

The first weeks of school were a misery. When roll was called--"Ba-rack Obama"--the kids laughed at the strangeness of the boy's name. Obama"--the kids laughed at the strangeness of the boy's name.

"Would you prefer if we called you 'Barry'?" Miss Hefty asked. "Barack is such a beautiful name. Your grandfather tells me your father is Kenyan. I used to live in Kenya...." if we called you 'Barry'?" Miss Hefty asked. "Barack is such a beautiful name. Your grandfather tells me your father is Kenyan. I used to live in Kenya...."

Mabel Hefty was an earnest traveler. She had spent the previous year in Africa teaching in a village primary school. But when she tried to engage Barry in a high-minded conversation about his Kenyan background ("Do you know what tribe your father is from?"), Obama went silent. One kid made monkey sounds. One cla.s.smate asked if his father was a cannibal; another asked if she could just touch his hair. He was a curiosity, a source of giddy fascination--the last thing a child wants to be. Barack preferred "Barry."

Of the more than thirty-five hundred students at Punahou when Obama arrived, only three or four were black. Obama kept the miseries he felt that autumn neatly submerged. "One of the challenges "One of the challenges for a ten-year-old boy coming to a new place is to figure out how you fit in," Obama said in a speech in 2004 on the campus. "And it was a challenge for me, partly because I was one of the few African-Americans in the school, partly because I was new and a lot of the students had been together since kindergarten." for a ten-year-old boy coming to a new place is to figure out how you fit in," Obama said in a speech in 2004 on the campus. "And it was a challenge for me, partly because I was one of the few African-Americans in the school, partly because I was new and a lot of the students had been together since kindergarten."

Before Obama arrived, perhaps the loneliest child in Punahou was Joella Edwards. (Obama calls her "Coretta" in his memoir.) The daughter of a doctor, Joella suffered mightily at Punahou. "Some kids--not all of them, but enough--called me 'jello,' 'pepper,' 'Aunt Jemima,' 'burnt toast with guava jelly,'" she said. "And they'd use that local term, popolo popolo. They could be brutal. Back then, it was a different time and s.p.a.ce, it was the sixties and early seventies, and America as a whole didn't talk about race. I remember cringing at the word 'black.' Black was a color in the crayon box. Because of that, you couldn't really say what you wanted to say.

"If I had been on the mainland with other blacks as peers, it would have been a lot different," Edwards continued. "The only other peer I had was Barry. When we met, we were ten--it's so crazy! He came to school and I was so excited! This kid had my same coloring. He looked looked like me. He was just like me. He was just like like me. We didn't avoid each other. We were drawn to each other. But we had to keep a distance." Edwards and Obama both remember that, any time they drifted together, someone was sure to mock them as a couple--the two black kids. me. We didn't avoid each other. We were drawn to each other. But we had to keep a distance." Edwards and Obama both remember that, any time they drifted together, someone was sure to mock them as a couple--the two black kids. Barry and Joella sittin' in a tree... K-i-s-s-i-n-g... Barry and Joella sittin' in a tree... K-i-s-s-i-n-g.... And yet Barry never rejected Joella. "He was my knight in shining armor," said Edwards, who lives now in Florida. "He was me--except with different anatomy."

Joella came home crying on a regular basis. When she tried to raise her grades and started studying harder, her teacher accused her of cheating on a paper. Only when she re-did a paper in the presence of the teacher did anyone believe she had done her own work. After ninth grade, rather than endure more humiliation, she dropped out and enrolled in a public school. "I was a basket case for years," she said.

Barry's discomfort at Punahou only increased that first year. For months he had told small, childhood fibs to his cla.s.smates. His father was an African prince, he told them, the son of a tribal chief. In truth, he knew little In truth, he knew little about his father--mainly "sc.r.a.ps of information I'd picked up from my mother." But now, in 1971, Barack Obama, Sr., was coming to Honolulu for a month-long stay. He had not seen Barry since he was a toddler. When Obama arrived in Oahu, his son was surprised at how diminished he looked, compared with the old pictures. about his father--mainly "sc.r.a.ps of information I'd picked up from my mother." But now, in 1971, Barack Obama, Sr., was coming to Honolulu for a month-long stay. He had not seen Barry since he was a toddler. When Obama arrived in Oahu, his son was surprised at how diminished he looked, compared with the old pictures. He was fragile--oddly cautious He was fragile--oddly cautious "when he lit a cigarette or reached for his beer"--and his eyes had a yellow, malarial tint. "when he lit a cigarette or reached for his beer"--and his eyes had a yellow, malarial tint.

Obama tells the story of his father's visit with clarity that makes the reader wince: the old man trying to rea.s.sert his authority ten years too late; the mysterious renewed intimacy between his father and mother; Stanley Dunham declaring that this was his house and no one was going to boss anyone around; Ann trying vainly to keep the peace; the boy's sad confusion when his father commands him to work harder and forbids him to watch "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" on television. "We all stood accused "We all stood accused," he wrote a quarter-century later. "I felt as if something had cracked open between all of us, goblins rushing out of some old, sealed-off lair." There were some good times--Obama took Barry to a Dave Brubeck concert in Honolulu that helped make him a lifelong jazz fan--but it was a complicated visit, fraught with the boy's knowledge that it could not last.

Barry started counting off the days in his mind until his father left for Africa, but before the ordeal came to its natural end, he had to endure one last trial: Miss Hefty had invited Obama, Sr., to speak to a combined cla.s.s with Barry's math teacher, Pal Eldredge. Obama describes the agony of antic.i.p.ating the event, imagining the exposure of his lies and the mockery that would follow. He remembers that the next day He remembers that the next day his father spoke of tribes that had their young men kill lions in order to prove their manhood, of Kenya's struggle for independence, and of "the deep gash in the earth where mankind had first appeared." his father spoke of tribes that had their young men kill lions in order to prove their manhood, of Kenya's struggle for independence, and of "the deep gash in the earth where mankind had first appeared."

Pal Eldredge remembers a more prosaic, uneventful, even pleasant presentation: "The whole thing about Barack is that at that time we didn't have a lot of black kids or half-black kids. It was my second year teaching, so I remembered his father and what he talked about. He talked about education and what life was like where he was from."

Mabel Hefty and Pal Eldredge were delighted and, at the conclusion of the presentation, thanked Barack Obama profusely and congratulated Barry for having such a fascinating father. No one said anything about Barry's "lies." To the contrary To the contrary, the boy who had asked about cannibalism in the first weeks of school said, "Your dad is pretty cool." It was hard for Barry to see it that way. By now, he was aware that he could expect nothing from his father. He was there to check in, to salve his conscience, perhaps, but soon he was gone. He never saw his son again.

Any reader of Obama's memoir, anyone familiar with his campaign speeches, knows the touchstones of his life and family that he chooses to emphasize: the idealist, who, as a single mother, went on food stamps for a while and struggled with medical-insurance forms as, in her early fifties, she lay dying of cancer; the plainspoken Midwestern grandparents and their warm embrace and quiet desperati