This spring journalist Janny Scott will publish a biography of Stanley Ann Dunham entitled A Singular Woman: The Untold Story of Barack Obama’s Mother. Penguin has embargoed the book until its release.
Scott traveled to the locations where Dunham had lived (Indonesia, Kansas, and Hawaii) and interviewed almost 200 subjects. Both President Obama and his half-sister Maya Soetoro-Ng gave interviews for the book.
The project began in 2008 when Scott wrote a New York Times article about Dunham. Here’s an excerpt from that piece: “As a mother, Ms. Soetoro was both idealistic and exacting. Friends describe her as variously informal and intense, humorous and hardheaded. She preached to her young son the importance of honesty, straight talk, independent judgment. When he balked at her early-morning home schooling, she retorted, ‘This is no picnic for me either, buster.'” (via The New York Times)
Full Disclosure: This GalleyCat Contributor has interned at Penguin Group (USA) in the past.