NEW YORK (AP) – Hunter Biden, son of President Joe Biden and a constant target for conservatives, has a memoir due out April 6.
The book is called “Beautiful Things” and will focus on the younger Biden’s much-discussed struggle with substance abuse, according to Gallery Books, a print by Simon & Schuster. Acquired in the fall of 2019, “Beautiful Things” was kept under wraps even as Biden’s business dealings became a fixation of then-President Donald Trump and others during the election and his finances a matter of Justice Department investigation.
Beautiful Things has been distributed to various authors and includes praise from Stephen King, Dave Eggers and Anne Lamott.
“In his poignant and compulsively readable memoirs, Hunter Biden proves once again that anyone – even the son of a US president – can ride the pink horse down a nightmare alley,” writes King in his blurb. “Biden remembers it all and tells it all with a courage that is both heartbreaking and beautiful. He starts with a question: Where’s Hunter? The answer is that it is in this book: the good, the bad, and the beautiful. “
In an excerpt from Gallery, Biden writes in his book, “I come from a family forged by tragedy and bound by a remarkable, unbreakable love.”
During one of last fall’s presidential debates, Joe Biden defended his son against Trump attacks.
“My son, like many people, like many people you know at home, had a drug problem,” said the Democratic candidate. ‘He has caught up. He made it. He worked on it and I am proud of him. I’m proud of my son. “
Hunter Biden, who turned 51 on Thursday, is the president’s oldest surviving child, who lost his first wife and 1-year-old daughter, Naomi, in a car accident in 1972, and son Beau Biden to brain cancer in 2015. The title of Hunter’s book refers to a phrase he and his brother would use with each other after Beau’s diagnosis, meant to emphasize what was important in life.
Hunter Biden is a lawyer and former lobbyist whose work contributed to Trump’s initial impeachment. Biden joined the board of the Ukrainian gas company Burisma in 2014, around the time that his father, then Vice President of the US, was helping to conduct the Obama administration’s foreign policy in the region. Trump and others have insisted that Biden exploited his father’s name, and they raised unsubstantiated allegations of corruption. The House of Representatives voted in 2019 to impeach Trump after hearing that he pressured Ukraine’s president to announce it was investigating the Bidens. Trump was acquitted by the Senate.
Last December, Hunter Biden confirmed that the Justice Department was investigating his tax cases, and The Associated Press subsequently reported that he had received a subpoena asking about his interactions with numerous business entities. While Trump made it publicly clear that he wanted special counsel to handle the investigation, then Attorney General William Barr did not appoint one. Biden has denied any wrongdoing.
Financial terms for Beautiful Things, co-written with author and journalist Drew Jubera, have not been disclosed. Biden and his publisher are likely to receive criticism from Republicans for his memoirs, although books by presidential family members are nothing new. During Trump’s presidency, son Donald Trump Jr. two books, “Triggered” and “Liberal Privilege.”
New York publishers often hire authors with a wide variety of political views, and Simon & Schuster have released books by Trump and Sean Hannity, along with anti-Trump bestsellers such as former National Security Advisor John Bolton’s ‘The Room Where It Happened’ and ‘Too Much and Never Enough’ by presidential cousin Mary Trump.
The publisher signed a book last fall by a prominent Trump supporter in Washington, Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri, but dropped it after Hawley’s backing. for the Jan. 6 protest that led to the violent siege of the Capitol by Trump supporters who falsely believed the president had been reelected.