My Beloved World

My Beloved World is a memoir written by Sonia Sotomayor, the first Hispanic justice on the United States Supreme Court, about her childhood, education, and life through 1992.

My Beloved World
AuthorSonia Sotomayor
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
SubjectPre-judicial life of author
GenreMemoir
PublisherAlfred A. Knopf
Publication date
January 15, 2013
Media typePrint (Hardcover)
Audio (CD, Audiobook)
Digital (eBook)
Pages336
ISBN978-0-307-59488-4
347.73/2634092
LC ClassKF8745.S67A3 2013

Background

In July 2010, Sotomayor agreed to publish a memoir, described as "a coming-of-age" book by publisher Alfred A. Knopf,[1] for which she received an advance of nearly $1.2 million.[2] A simultaneous Spanish-language edition was contracted to Vintage Español.[3] Literary agent Peter W. Bernstein represented Sotomayor.[3] Sonny Mehta, Chairman and Editor-in-Chief of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, stated, "Sonia Sotomayor has lived a remarkable life and her achievements will prove an inspiration to readers around the world. Hers is a triumph of the Latino experience in America."[1]

Sotomayor modeled her approach towards the memoir after Barack Obama's Dreams From My Father.[4] It was written by her speaking into a tape recorder and then using the services of Zara Houshmand, an Iranian-American poet, in doing the actual writing.[5] The title comes from a line by José Gautier Benítez, a Puerto Rican poet of the Romantic era in the 19th century.[5]

Synopsis

In recounting her early life, Sotomayor describes growing up in a housing project in the Bronx to Puerto Rican emigrants. Her father was an alcoholic who died when she was nine, and she was subsequently cared for in large part by her grandmother. She tells of developing diabetes at the age of seven and learning to give herself her insulin injections due to the unreliability of her parents. Despite numerous odds, she relates her experiences in becoming valedictorian of her high school class, attending Princeton and then Yale Law School, working for the New York County District Attorney, and finally being appointed a federal judge in New York.

The memoir does not cover aspects of her later life or her appointment to the Supreme Court, aside from incidental mentions.[6] It is apolitical and does not discuss or reveal her legal philosophy.[7] It discusses her 1976 marriage and subsequent divorce in 1983.[8] It reveals many details about her early life that even her closest friends and mother were not previously aware of,[9] as well as many things she had difficulty confronting ("I disclose every fear I've ever had in this book.").[4] It also includes a candid description of the effects of affirmative action upon her at Princeton;[6][9] she acknowledges that, "I had been admitted to the Ivy League through a special door," but concludes that the measures served, "to create the conditions whereby students from disadvantaged backgrounds could be brought to the starting line of a race many were unaware was even being run."[10]

Critical reception

Michiko Kakutani of the New York Times describes it as "a compelling and powerfully written memoir about identity and coming of age. ... It’s an eloquent and affecting testament to the triumph of brains and hard work over circumstance, of a childhood dream realized through extraordinary will and dedication."[11] Writing for The New York Times Book Review, Emily Bazelon says, "This is a woman who knows where she comes from and has the force to bring you there."[12] Reporter Adam Liptak of the New York Times, who has covered Sotomayor's judicial career, says that "Sotomayor turns out to be a writer of depth and literary flair, a surprise to readers of her judicial prose."[6]

Nina Totenberg of NPR writes, "This is a page-turner, beautifully written and novelistic in its tale of family, love and triumph. It hums with hope and exhilaration. This is a story of human triumph."[8] NPR's Jason Farago also finds it "intelligent, gregarious and at times disarmingly personal," but also says that "Sotomayor's tone can sometimes irritate when she whips out facile homespun wisdom."[10]

Dahlia Lithwick of The Washington Post states, "Anyone wondering how a child raised in public housing, without speaking English, by an alcoholic father and a largely absent mother could become the first Latina on the Supreme Court will find the answer in these pages. It didn't take just a village: It took a country."[13] Legal scholar Laurence Tribe has referred to My Beloved World as a "captivating memoir".[14]

Promotional efforts and commercial reception
The memoir was simultaneously published in Spanish[10] as Mi mundo adorado, with a translation by Eva Ibarzábal, on the Vintage Español imprint.

Sotomayor staged an eleven-city book tour to promote her work,[9] with appearances intermingled with Supreme Court deliberations in Washington and two swearings-in there of Vice President Joe Biden for the inauguration of his second term.[15] Indeed, the time of Biden's first, official swearing-in (on a Sunday, with the public one held the next day) was moved up from around noon to around 8 a.m. to accommodate Sotomayor's previously arranged book signing at a Barnes & Noble store in New York on Sunday afternoon.[15][16][17]

In Sotomayor's appearance on The Daily Show, she described the book's primary purpose as a way "to remember the real Sonia" and to remind herself of her humble beginnings and the obstacles she had to overcome throughout her childhood.[18] A signing at an Austin, Texas book store attracted estimates of 700 to 1,500 people.[4][19] In an appearance at New York's Spanish Harlem-located El Museo del Barrio before a capacity crowd of 600 people, she engaged the audience by answering questions in both Spanish and English.[17] The popularity of the book caused, in writer Jodi Kantor's estimation, Sotomayor to be "suddenly the nation’s most high-profile Hispanic figure."[4]

My Beloved World debuted at the top of the New York Times Best Seller List for Hardcover Nonfiction for the week of February 3, 2013, a position it retained for several weeks.[20][21] It sold 38,000 hardback copies in its first week, per Nielsen BookScan, putting it on track to become one of the top-selling books by a Supreme Court justice.[21] For all of 2013, it sold over 190,000 hardcover copies.[22]

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See also

References
  1. "Sonia Sotomayor to Publish Memoir" (Press release). Knopf Publishers. July 12, 2010. Retrieved January 24, 2013.
  2. "Justice Sotomayor gets over $1 million for memoir". San Francisco Chronicle. Associated Press. May 31, 2011. Retrieved June 11, 2011.
  3. Andriani, Lynn (July 12, 2010). "Knopf to Publish Sotomayor Memoir". Publishers Weekly. Retrieved February 16, 2013.
  4. Kantor, Jodi (February 4, 2013). "Sotomayor, a Star on the Book-Tour Circuit, Sees a New Niche for a Justice". The New York Times. p. A11.
  5. Bravin, Jess (January 14, 2013). "Memoir Details Justice's Difficult Ascent". The Wall Street Journal.
  6. Liptak, Adam (January 13, 2013). "Washington Is Home (for Now at Least), but Sotomayor Stays True to New York". The New York Times. Retrieved January 14, 2013.
  7. Main, Carla (January 17, 2013). "A Tale of Aspiration". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved January 26, 2013.
  8. Totenberg, Nina (January 12, 2013). "Sotomayor Opens Up About Childhood, Marriage In 'Beloved World'". NPR. Retrieved January 24, 2013.
  9. Wolf, Richard (January 13, 2013). "Sotomayor makes surprising revelations in book". USA Today. Retrieved January 26, 2013.
  10. Farago, Jason (January 14, 2013). "Of The People: Sonia Sotomayor's Amazing Rise". NPR. Retrieved January 27, 2013.
  11. Kakutani, Michiko (January 21, 2013). "The Bronx, the Bench and the Life in Between: 'My Beloved World,' a Memoir by Sonia Sotomayor". The New York Times. Retrieved January 24, 2013.
  12. Bazelon, Emily (January 20, 2013). "The Making of a Justice". The New York Times Book Review. p. 11.
  13. Lithwick, Dahlia (January 11, 2013). "Book review: 'My Beloved World' by Sonia Sotomayor". The Washington Post. Retrieved January 24, 2013.
  14. Tribe, Laurence; Matz, Joshua (2014). Uncertain Justice: The Roberts Court and the Constitution. New York: Henry Holt and Company. p. 10. ISBN 0-8050-9909-3.
  15. Mears, Bill (January 20, 2013). "Shuttling justice: Sotomayor administers oaths, sells books". CNN. Retrieved January 26, 2013.
  16. Sakuma, Amanda (January 20, 2013). "Sotomayor bolts after Biden swearing-in ceremony". msnbc.com. Retrieved January 26, 2013.
  17. Bloomgarden-Smoke, Kara (January 22, 2013). "Justice Is Swift – and in a Hurry". The New York Observer. Retrieved January 26, 2013.
  18. "January 21, 2013 - Sonia Sotomayor". The Daily Show. Comedy Central. Retrieved January 22, 2013.
  19. Rudner, Jordan (January 24, 2013). "Justice Sonia Sotomayor visits Austin to promote new memoir". The Daily Texan. Retrieved January 26, 2013.
  20. "Best Sellers – February 03, 2013". The New York Times. Retrieved January 26, 2013. Go forward on date for subsequent weeks.
  21. Totenberg, Nina (January 30, 2013). "Sotomayor's Memoir Already A Best-Seller". NPR. Retrieved February 2, 2013.
  22. "In Hardcover, It Looks the Same, but It's Not: Facts & Figures 2013". Publishers Weekly. March 14, 2014. Retrieved March 8, 2015.
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