--- description: "Rising Star: The Making of Barack Obama" by David J. Garrow investigates the former President through the eyes of an ex-girlfriend title: All the President's Exes image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf99aa86cb5978f13/6988ccd20b72e331316edba8/barack-obama-rising-star.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [Ideas](/section/ideas/) ## Ideas Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close * [Books](/tag/books/) ## Books Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close # All the President's Exes by [Sarah Begley](/author/sarah-begley/) ## Sarah Begley Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close May 11, 2017 10:34 AM CUT  by [Sarah Begley](/author/sarah-begley/) ## Sarah Begley Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close May 11, 2017 10:34 AM CUT David J. Garrow’s [_Rising Star: The Making of Barack Obama_](https://www.amazon.com/dp/0062641832/?tag=timecom-20 "undefined"), a 1,460-page haute-tabloid tome, came under critical fire before it was even released this month. One glaring issue for the author of a Pulitzer-winning Martin Luther King Jr. biography: his treatment of the race and love life of the 20-something who would go on to become President. The author relies heavily on interviews with a former girlfriend, Sheila Miyoshi Jager, with whom Obama lived in the 1980s, as if that relationship were the key to understanding his personality. Obama’s split from her is framed as a rejection of white women (Jager is half-Japanese) in favor of the optics that would come from having a black wife. Although Garrow details the sexual chemistry between Obama and his white girlfriends, the former President’s relationship with [Michelle Obama](http://time.com/4758782/michelle-obama-run-for-office-elected/ "undefined") is presented as businesslike. Observers of the Obamas’ 25-year marriage will find the characterization of their romance as merely political plainly out of touch. Despite Obama’s many achievements as an adult, _Rising Star_‘s epilogue returns to Jager, who claimed in 2014 that “something changed in him after we went our separate ways … as if the part of him that was so vulnerable and open (and sensual?) went underground … raging ambition, quest for greatness, whatever just took over instead.” Would that we could all take credit for our exes’ success after being left behind. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4775440/all-the-presidents-exes/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4775440/all-the-presidents-exes/"},"headline":"All the President's Exes","datePublished":"2017-05-11T10:34:36.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-23T04:52:14.150Z","description":"\"Rising Star: The Making of Barack Obama\" by David J. Garrow investigates the former President through the eyes of an ex-girlfriend","url":"https://time.com/4775440/all-the-presidents-exes/","keywords":["Books"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf99aa86cb5978f13/6988ccd20b72e331316edba8/barack-obama-rising-star.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Sarah Begley","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/sarah-begley/"}],"articleSection":"Ideas","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf99aa86cb5978f13/6988ccd20b72e331316edba8/barack-obama-rising-star.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"barack-obama-rising-star","caption":"barack-obama-rising-star","creditText":"","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/ideas/","name":"Ideas"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/books/","name":"Books"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4775440/all-the-presidents-exes/","name":"All the President's Exes"}}]}] ```