--- title: 'Rising Star' by David Garrow Review: A Look at Obama's Exes description: "Rising Star: The Making of Barack Obama" by David J. Garrow investigates the former President through the eyes of an ex-girlfriend canonical: https://time.com/4775440/all-the-presidents-exes/ author: Sarah Begley article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-05-11T10:34:36.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-23T04:52:14.150Z article:section: Ideas og:title: All the President's Exes og:description: A review of David J. Garrow's haute-tabloid tome on Barack Obama og:url: https://time.com/4775440/all-the-presidents-exes/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf99aa86cb5978f13/6988ccd20b72e331316edba8/barack-obama-rising-star.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2650 og:image:height: 1491 og:image:alt: barack-obama-rising-star og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: All the President's Exes twitter:description: A review of David J. Garrow's haute-tabloid tome on Barack Obama twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf99aa86cb5978f13/6988ccd20b72e331316edba8/barack-obama-rising-star.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # All the President's Exes > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. 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Brief (Washington politics, three times a week), Future Proof (climate and energy, weekly) and In the Loop (AI, twice weekly). All are free at time.com/newsletters and together reach more than 1.1 million engaged readers. #### Which TIME newsletter should I subscribe to? It depends on what you follow. For a daily briefing, The Brief. For health, Health Matters. For Washington politics, D.C. Brief. For AI and technology, In the Loop. For climate and energy as a business story, Future Proof. For culture recommendations, Worth Your Time. For how TIME's journalism gets made, Inside TIME. Readers can select any combination at time.com/newsletters. #### Are TIME's newsletters free? Yes. All seven TIME newsletters are free to join at time.com/newsletters. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes TIME's newsletters? TIME journalists write them. Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. by [Sarah Begley](https://time.com/author/sarah-begley/) ## Sarah Begley May 11, 2017 10:34 AM UTC  by [Sarah Begley](https://time.com/author/sarah-begley/) ## Sarah Begley May 11, 2017 10:34 AM UTC David J. Garrow’s [_Rising Star: The Making of Barack Obama_](https://www.amazon.com/dp/0062641832/?tag=timecom-20), 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/) 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. 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