You're going to be hearing a lot from Senator Lisa Murkowski on national news outlets in the coming weeks. She has a book coming out June 24. It's a political memoir called ‘Far From Home.’ So she's going on all the shows, including CBS Sunday Morning, the New York Times’ The Daily, and in a few days, All Things Considered. Alaska Public Media Washington correspondent Liz Ruskin got an advance copy and sat down with Alaska News Nightly host Hannah Flor to talk about it.
The following transcript has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Hannah Flor: Hi Liz! What's in the book?
Liz Ruskin: Well, Murkowski traces all the major moments in her political life - how she got the Senate seat from her dad, her wild write-in campaign in 2010, the controversy over the Supreme Court confirmation vote of Brett Kavanaugh - many Alaskans remember that. The two impeachment votes, one where she voted to convict Donald Trump. And if you followed all of these events in real life, it's interesting to hear what was going on in her head at the time, or for me, on the other side of the microphone. And no matter how closely you followed it, you are going to hear some surprises.
Hannah Flor: Did you enjoy it? Is it a good book?
Liz Ruskin: Oh, it's a good read. Her co-author is Charles Wohlforth. He's a long time Anchorage journalist, and the two of them go way back. I believe he represented her on the Anchorage Assembly before she went into politics, if I've got the timing right. They've been doing interviews and just sort of long talks for years for this book. He's a talented writer. He had tremendous access. And he told me, for instance, that he was at the capitol for the first impeachment trial, and she just told him what was going on behind the scenes as it was happening.
Hannah Flor: Wow, that is incredible access.
Liz Ruskin: Also, this book is more down to earth than you might expect from a U.S. senator. She recounts in the very introduction of the book a few years ago when she landed at Newtok to check on the progress of that village's relocation upriver. This is her reading from the audio book. We got it from the publisher Penguin Random House.
“We would go see the new barge landing at Mertarvik that had been built as part of a military training exercise…but first I had to use the toilet. The Community Hall had no facilities, so one of the leaders took me to the home of the mayor's mother.”
Liz Ruskin: So as Murkowski tells it, they go to this rundown plywood home, and there are two women doing beadwork at the kitchen table. There are only two rooms in this house, a sleeping room and a room for everything else. So right there in the kitchen, as Murkowski tells it, is a bucket with a toilet seat on top.
“This was the so-called honey bucket. The ladies chatted with me cheerfully as I sat down, and as I reached for the toilet paper, which was resting next to me on the stove top. Families would dump honey buckets such as this one in a sewage lagoon near the school at the edge of the village. I thought they deserved better.”
Liz Ruskin: Hannah, in all my years of writing about the infrastructure challenges in rural Alaska and the billions spent to try to move beyond the honey bucket, I had never read such a personal account of just what it's actually like to use a honey bucket in a family home.
Hannah Flor: Yeah, it's really evocative.
So Murkowski has become a very well known political figure nationally. She's known for her moderation and for standing up to President Trump. Does she explore that in the book - explore how she ended up in that position?
Liz Ruskin: She does, and she talks a lot about how that 2010 race, where she won on a write in, how that liberated her from the constraints of the party. Sometimes she just describes her position as a given, like accepting the reality of climate change when so many other Republicans don't. Sometimes her explanations are so succinct that I have more questions.
Hannah Flor: You've covered her a lot. Are you in the book?
Liz Ruskin: Yeah, a teeny bit. She - or Charles - said some very nice things about this show, Alaska News Nightly, and its statewide reach. The book recounts a segment that the usual host, Casey Grove and I recorded at the height of the Kavanaugh controversy. It's when I asked her if she had ever had her own #Metoo moment she said ‘Yes,’ in such a way that it was clear, I could not ask anymore. But her parents, Frank and Nancy Murkowski, heard that segment, and they asked her about it, and she eventually told them the story of something that happened when she was a child. It’s a pretty sad moment.
Hannah Flor: Wow, and she goes through all of that in the book?
Liz Ruskin: She does, even though she says that she had never told anybody before, even her sisters, when it happened.
Hannah Flor: That's incredible.
What else is in the book? Does it get gossipy?
Liz Ruskin: She says that she was not writing a book to gossip or to seek retribution, but yeah, she doesn't hide her disdain for Sarah Palin. She says she was embarrassed to have her represent Alaska as John McCain's running mate in the presidential race. She says Donald Trump was not equipped for leadership, and she recounts a truly bizarre meeting in the Oval Office where she was there to talk about Alaska issues - they did. But he also brought up, of all things, her hair. He made several comments about her hair.
Hannah Flor: And when is the book out? If people want to know more about this incident, all the rest of the stuff that's in it, when does it come out?
Liz Ruskin: The book is going to be out on Tuesday, June 24. There's a book event at the Anchorage Museum on June 30, I'm told that’s sold out. But I suspect there will be other book events around the state.
