John Kerry's Memoir Focuses On His Time in the Political Arena

John Kerry's new memoir, Every Day Is Extra, begins like Barack Obama's literary Dreams From My Father and — over the course of nearly 600 pages — slowly morphs into Hillary Clinton's paint-by-numbers political tome Hard Choices.

The initial chapters on Kerry's childhood, college years and early private life are emotional, vivid and literary. That's especially true for the chapters on Vietnam, as Kerry recaps his steady drift from a patriotic Yale student who volunteered for the Navy, to an officer facing the daily dangers of swift-boat patrols along jungle rivers, to the shaggy-haired peace protester who denounced the war in front of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.