The American figureheads and friends discuss their childhoods, their debt to strong women and the illusion of the American dream in a series of candid conversations garlanded with unseen photographs
The season of the coffee table book is upon us. This is a handsome enough example, featuring often startlingly candid conversations between Barack Obama and Bruce Springsteen recorded for a podcast of the same name. Having struck up a friendship on Obama’s campaign trail in 2008, the bond between the two men deepened with the years. (Partly, we discover, this is because Michelle Obama and Patti Scialfa, Springsteen’s partner, hit it off.)
The title is worth a chuckle. Springsteen might once have been some sort of miscreant, but “renegade” ill befits the 44th president, a man so upstanding you could actually unfurl a flag off him. The subtitle Born in the USA raises a silent eyebrow, too, at the attempt by “birthers” to discredit Obama’s presidency by falsely questioning his citizenship.
