Invisible Storm

May 23, 2022
In this powerful memoir, Missouri politician Kander (Outside the Wire) recounts withdrawing from the 2019 Kansas City mayoral race to seek treatment for PTSD. He describes how the 9/11 attacks motivated him to join the military after he finished his undergraduate studies in 2002, resulting in a four-month tour of duty in Afghanistan. Upon returning stateside, Kander developed symptoms he would later recognize as PTSD, including nightmares and a need to sit facing the door of any room he’s in. His illness dovetailed with his ambition and drove his political ascent, starting with his election to the Missouri House of Representatives in 2008: “I constantly told myself I’d feel better when I hit this quarterly fundraising goal, when I drew even in the polls, when I won the Senate race, and on and on and on.” While having suicidal thoughts and working to the point of exhaustion during his Kansas City mayoral run, Kander realized that “winning an office had never made any of it any better.” He dropped out and sought treatment, improving after learning to accept that “97 percent of what happens” is beyond one’s control. Kander displays a level of vulnerability not often seen in political memoirs, offering a bracing portrait of untreated PTSD and an insightful psychological profile of political ambition. Readers will appreciate the candor of this harrowing tale.

May 15, 2022
Redefining courage. In his 2018 memoir, Outside the Wire, Kander shared lessons in courage he learned from serving in the ROTC, the Maryland National Guard, and as an officer during a deployment in Afghanistan from December 2006 to February 2007. For him, being a soldier was "the truest test of manhood," giving him both a sense of purpose and order. "Every day I was a soldier," he writes, "was a day I woke up and I knew exactly what I was doing and why I was doing it." He strived to regain that sense of purpose in politics. He won a seat in the Missouri House of Representatives, was elected as Missouri's Secretary of State, and was narrowly defeated for the U.S. Senate in 2016. Involved in ethics reform and voting rights, he founded the nonprofit Let America Vote. As he rose in stature, he was urged--including by Barack Obama--to enter the 2020 presidential race. However, as he reveals in a forthright chronicle of intensifying mental illness, years of undiagnosed PTSD sent him plummeting to a nadir of self-hatred. After he returned from Afghanistan, where he had been assigned to intelligence-gathering, he was overwhelmed by debilitating symptoms: night terrors, paranoid fear that someone would harm him or his family, volatile anger, and "unrelenting guilt and punishing shame" because he had not been involved in direct combat. By the time he sought help, he was thinking of suicide. Interwoven with Kander's narrative are reflections by his wife, who suffered sadness, frustration, and isolation. With the support of therapists and the Veterans Community Project, both the author and his wife came to understand that his dangerous, terrifying experiences in Afghanistan--interviewing men who might kill him or whom he might have to kill--were no less traumatic than physical combat. Kander's advice is urgent and relevant: "Either you deal with your trauma, or your trauma deals with you. A heartfelt message borne of pain and true sacrifice.

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Starred review from July 1, 2022
In 2019, Kander was about to be elected mayor of Kansas City, Missouri. He had become a rising star in the Democratic Party in the decade prior, having nearly won a U.S. Senate seat in a state that had been leaning heavily Republican. He had even been handpicked by Barack Obama for a possible presidential run. In the lead-up to election day, however, Kander dropped out of the race, citing his battle with PTSD and depression, which he attributed to his time serving in Afghanistan. Here, Kander outlines that, despite all of his personal successes, he was dealing with some real mental-health struggles, including intense night terrors and a general sense of heightened paranoia. Intermixed with his story, which ranges from the war zone of Afghanistan to contentious Missouri state politics, are vignettes from his wife, Diana, describing her view of what their life was like as Kander's symptoms began to show. As he navigates the difficulties of seeking help within the VA, Kander writes plainly of where we are failing veterans as they return home. This is essential reading for those interested in the veteran experience as well as fans of political memoirs.

COPYRIGHT(2022) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.