Al Franken; Giant of the Senate

New York: Twelve, 2017. First Hardcover Edition [stated]. Second Printing [stated]. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. vi, [4], 406 pages. Illustrations (color). Index. DJ has slight wear and soiling. DJ has autographed edition sticker on front. Alan Stuart Franken (born May 21, 1951) is an American comedian, writer, producer, author, and politician who served as a United States Senator from Minnesota from 2009 to 2018. He became well known in the 1970s and 1980s as a performer on the television comedy show Saturday Night Live (SNL). After decades as a comedic actor and writer, he became a prominent liberal political activist, hosting The Al Franken Show on Air America Radio. Franken was first elected to the United States Senate in 2008 as the nominee of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL, an affiliate of the Democratic Party), defeating incumbent Republican Senator Norm Coleman by 312 votes out of nearly three million cast. He won reelection in 2014 with 53.2% of the vote over Republican challenger Mike McFadden. From Senator Al Franken - #1 bestselling author and beloved SNL alum - comes the story of an award-winning comedian who decided to run for office and then discovered why award-winning comedians tend not to do that. This is a book about an unlikely campaign that had an even more improbable ending: the closest outcome in history and an unprecedented eight-month recount saga, which is pretty funny in retrospect. It's a book about what happens when the nation's foremost progressive satirist gets a chance to serve in the United States Senate and, defying the low expectations of the pundit class, actually turns out to be good at it. It's a book about our deeply polarized, frequently depressing, occasionally inspiring political culture, written from inside the belly of the beast. In this candid personal memoir, the honorable gentleman from Minnesota takes his army of loyal fans along with him from Saturday Night Live to the campaign trail, inside the halls of Congress, and behind the scenes of some of the most dramatic and/or hilarious moments of his new career in politics. Has Al Franken become a true Giant of the Senate? Franken asks readers to decide for themselves.