An Obama's journey : my odyssey of self-discovery across three cultures

Prelude: winter in Beijing, 2009 -- Kenya: where it all began -- My parents: a failed elopement -- Dissolution: Johnnie Walker Black Label -- Cleansing -- My brother David: a tragedy -- Sex, beaches, and mixed-race families -- Of grandmothers, music, and wandering Jews -- Saints and sinners -- Being brown at Brown and other university stories -- Sibling atonement -- Harvard of the west -- Youthful indiscretions: the second time I realized I was ugly -- Culture shocks and untimely nuns -- Digital revolutions, sowing the seeds of rebellion -- A war begins: I look to the east -- The middle kingdom: China -- The orphans and a cup of water -- On love and dreams -- New directions and a special gift -- The new America has arrived -- White House family reunion -- Coda: Kenyan spring.;The younger half-brother of the forty-fourth president provides a story of life and identity, recounting his relationship with the commander-in-chief, his family's struggle with domestic violence, and his multi-cultural background. In this revealing and beautifully written memoir, Mark Obama Ndesandjo, recounts his complex relationship with his older half-brother, President Barack Obama, including their first meeting in Kenya over twenty years ago. The book also offers the author's inspiring personal story about identity and multiculturalism. Rare family photos add to the book's personal nature as does the intense recounting of domestic violence in the home of Barack Obama Sr.’s and his third wife, Ruth Baker, Mark’s Jewish-American mother. The book also attempts to set the records straight on several points of the president’s best-selling memoir Dreams from My Father. In its connection to President Obama, Mark's story takes on an even greater significance because it becomes all the more directly, a story of American identity and a window into the complex figure of the father they share, Barack Obama Sr., their roots in Kenya, their multicultural identities, and their relationships with America. The younger half-brother of the forty-fourth president of the United States provides a story of life and identity, recounting his relationship with the commander-in-chief, his family's struggle with domestic violence, and his multi-cultural background