Nancy Pelosi is the first female speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. Vincent Bzdek is an editor and reporter at The Washington Post, and a former Sunday editor at The Denver Post. Bzdek became fascinated by the accomplishments of Pelosi in electoral politics, so he decided to write a biography quickly, capitalizing on her unprecedented elevation and on her role in the 2008 national elections.
The result is an informative biography that reads like it is hastily composed but worth the effort to complete.
Born in 1940, Pelosi knew electoral politics while a child. Her father was Tommy D’Alessandro, an Italian-American, Catholic, Democratic politician who served as mayor of Baltimore, as well as in the U.S. House.
Nancy D’Alessandro, the fifth of five children and the only girl, also watched as her older brother Tommy served as mayor of Baltimore. She knew she would encounter gender prejudice if she tried to enter electoral politics, but from an early age she refused to discount the possibility.
After attending an all-girls high school in Baltimore and an all-female college in nearby Washington, Nancy married young and quickly entered motherhood. During the 1960s, she gave birth to four sons and a daughter. Her husband, Paul Pelosi, made good money as an entrepreneur. They moved to the San Francisco area because of his business investments. She took her mothering duties seriously but never divorced herself from Democratic politics, volunteering for candidates at all levels.
Although Bzdek occasionally drifts into a gee-whiz tone and attitude about Pelosi’s gender-based accomplishments, he mostly overcomes those passages to provide serious consideration of how full-time mothering aided Pelosi later in life as a politician.
“When most politicians of her age were cutting their teeth in state legislatures or city councils, Pelosi was changing diapers — gladly and proudly,” Bzdek reports. “Ironing was God’s work in her world; she refused to outsource any of the child- rearing chores. She also turned down invitations to run for office until her youngest . . . was nearly finished with high school.”
During an interview with Bzdek, Pelosi noted, “I was really forged by my children. Having five children in six years and understanding the differences in personalities, from one to the next, is a real lesson, but you also become so disciplined in terms of schedule and use of time and respect for everyone’s needs that I think I’m a much different person coming out of raising my kids than I was going in. I didn’t realize I had as much energy as I did. Let’s put it that way.”
Full-time mothering was not the only obstacle to the eventual attempt at electoral office. Having moved to San Francisco, Pelosi could not count on a built-in support network as she could have in Baltimore or Washington. So she built a network by becoming involved in state, county and local politics as a Californian. When a U.S. House seat came open in 1987, Pelosi sought it and won.
Bzdek effectively chronicles Pelosi’s rise within the old boys’ network dominating the House. The book emphasizes political maneuvering more than it emphasizes Pelosi’s positions on substantive issues, but that is almost certainly a wise choice. By teaching readers about the complex and sometimes dirty realm of intra-party politics, Bzdek plays to his strength as an author. He seems more comfortable chronicling procedure than he does chronicling policymaking.
The story of Pelosi’s role in national politics is not over. Perhaps Bzdek will write a sequel. Perhaps another biographer will supersede Bzdek’s ripped-from-the-headlines account. For now, though, “Woman of the House” can serve well as a contemporary chronicle during a fascinating campaign cycle.
Steve Weinberg, a former Washington correspondent for newspapers and magazines, is author of a just-published dual biography, “Taking on the Trust: The Epic Battle of Ida Tarbell and John D. Rockefeller.”
Nonfiction
Woman of the House: The Rise of Nancy Pelosi, by Vincent Bzdek, $24.95
