How Justin Trudeau's memoir is a political 'rite of passage'

With the release this fall of Justin Trudeau's memoirs, the Liberal leader will join the ever-growing ranks of political candidates penning autobiographies to use as campaign tools to shape their political narrative.

"Everyone does it. It's a riteof passage, almost, for political leaders," Toronto-basedpolitical strategist MarcelWieder said.

"A book has the penumbra of authority and expertise even if,as is the case with most candidates' books, it was ghost written by somebody else," said Steve Ross,aformer publisher at Crown Publishers, which published U.S. President Barack Obama's best-selling books.

As Ross points out, there's a range of types of books by politicians, "some of which are very obviously campaign books they donttry to disguise themselves as something else."

But Trudeau's publisher,HarperCollins Canada,has promised that his book,Common Ground: My Past, Our Present and Canadas Future, will be a"candid memoir" that "will reveal to its readers the experiences that have shaped him over the course of his life."

While manypoliticalmemoirs are written after a politician leaves the public stage, candidates arenowreleasing these campaign booksas a precursor for a run forhigher office.

It's not a new phenomenon.Freelance writerCasey N.Ceppoints out in a recent article for Politicotitled"Why are politicians'books so terrible"thatJimmy Carter may have actually started the campaign book trend with the publishing of hispre-presidency volumeWhy Not the Best? But nowadays,there certainly seemto be more of them.

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It may alsobe more of an American trend. Although former prime minister Jean Chrtien wrote Straight From the Heart before he became prime minister, most Canadian politicians have waited until after they haveretired from politics to pentheir memoirs.

Yet that trend may be slowly changing here. Toronto mayoral candidate Olivia Chow recentlyreleased her memoirs to coincide with her run, and now Trudeau is prepping the electorate with his narrative before the fall 2015 federal election.

Both may havetaken theircues fromObama, whosepersonal memoirDreams FromMy Father andthe more political tome TheAudacity of Hope certainly helped his successfulpath tothe White House.

"Although it came out with the beginning of his campaigning for president, and it does have some similarities with traditionalcampaignbooks, Ibelieve it transcended the genre or at least defines thehighest form the genre can create," Ross said.

'Political memoirs have become political strategy'

Obama'ssuccessmay have also been responsible for prompting other politicians tofloodthe market with their own personal stories. In the 2012 presidential race, former Massachusetts governorMitt Romney, Texas Gov.Rick Perryand former Godfather's Pizza CEOHerman Cain all had books outleading up to the Republican presidential nomination race.

Most recently,Hillary Clinton, a potential Democratic presidentialcandidate, has been hitting the stump with her book Hard Choices(a follow to her Living History memoirs).

"Clearly now thesepoliticalmemoirs have become political strategy designed to really help develop apoliticalbrand for the candidates," public relations strategist JohnCreanof National Public Relations said.

"It's allabouta way to create a brand or a narrative around the candidate thatwill start to inform theircampaignonce it hits the road."

It also allows candidatesto have exposurewithoutthepoliticalcampaigning, Wieder said.

"There's aveneerofrespectabilityof being a published author, and that's whypeopledo it,to show a little a more substance thanwhat the general press would write about them in their political capacity."

Most importantly, books like these humanizethe candidateand showa differentside than what's portrayed in the media on a day-to-day basis, Wieder said.

But the booksalso run the risk of attracting criticism.Generallythey tend to be very vanillaflavoured, not likelyto offend anyone, offering noshockingrevelations,Wieder said.

As Cep wrotein her article for Politico, the move to control the narrative "points to the reason these campaign books make for such lousy reading."

"Any politician who is popular enough to attract a publishers attention already has too much to jeopardize with personalcandouror political complexity," she wrote. "Mostly, these books provide the candidates the chance to say nothing at all for pages and pages and pages."

Striking the right balance between writing something that is interesting, candid and real versussomethingthat is clearly designedto create and establisha brandimage can be a difficult balance to achieve, Crean said.

"It's striking that balance. HillaryClinton'sbook is thought tobe too public policy-oriented and less abouther own personal observations of what it was like to do the job that she did."

Trudeau has already been knocked by some critics, who question whether he has sufficientlife experience to fill an autobiography.

"You kind of have to wait and see the book before you reallyjudge whether this is supposed to be life lessons for us or whetherthis is simply a life in progress and [Trudeau] is just sharing with you a littlebit more about who [he is]," Crean said.