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Shortest Way Home

One Mayor's Challenge and a Model for America's Future

Audiobook
6 of 6 copies available
6 of 6 copies available
A mayor's inspirational story of a Midwest city that has become nothing less than a blueprint for the future of American renewal. Once described by the Washington Post as "the most interesting mayor you've never heard of," Pete Buttigieg, the thirty-six-year-old Democratic mayor of South Bend, Indiana, has improbably emerged as one of the nation's most visionary politicians. First elected in 2011, Buttigieg left a successful business career to move back to his hometown, previously tagged by Newsweek as a "dying city," because the industrial Midwest beckoned as a challenge to the McKinsey-trained Harvard graduate. Whether meeting with city residents on middle-school basketball courts, reclaiming abandoned houses, confronting gun violence, or attracting high-tech industry, Buttigieg has transformed South Bend into a shining model of urban reinvention. While Washington reels with scandal, Shortest Way Home interweaves two once-unthinkable success stories: that of an Afghanistan veteran who came out and found love and acceptance, all while in office, and that of a Rust Belt city so thoroughly transformed that it shatters the way we view America's so-called flyover country.
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    • AudioFile Magazine
      It seems almost contradictory to describe the narration of an autobiography as exuding a sense of humility--but that is the best description of this work by the youngish mayor of South Bend, Indiana. Buttigieg writes intelligently in a way that nearly any listener will understand. He is soft-spoken, yet it's clear what's important to him. Sections about his family and personal life are heartfelt and warm. He also delivers bits of humor that spice up the narrative. While the audiobook is aimed at introducing the author to a national audience, the lessons he has learned as he seeks to rebuild a midsize Rust Belt city transcend politics. In an era when rants from the fringes of the political spectrum dominate the news, this work offers a refreshing breath of centrist air. R.C.G. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      October 29, 2018
      Buttigieg, mayor and native of South Bend, Ind., manifests a decent, positive, and reflective presence in this upbeat and readable memoir, which follows a career path that recently landed him on the short list for chair of the Democratic National Committee at the age of 36. In seven sections, the narrative retraces his life so far: after Catholic school, Buttigieg attended Harvard, where the Institute of Politics afforded him the chance to observe some leaders and public servants up close, and was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford. These academic credentials led to a job with McKinsey & Company after a stint campaigning for John Kerry in 2004, during which he cultivated a taste for public office and enlisted in the Navy Reserves. Three years into his first mayoral term, he was called up for a seven-month deployment in Afghanistan in 2013, which spurred new insights on being of service and on foreign relations. After his service, he came out to his parents and then the city (via a newspaper editorial) and met and married his husband, Chasten, about whose family he writes warmly. In the final section, he discusses how “obvious” it seems to him that “economic fairness and racial inclusion could resonate very well in the industrial Midwest.” Buttigieg’s memoir is an appealing introduction of its author to a larger potential constituency.

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  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

Languages

  • English

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