Review by Steve Desroches
It really is remarkable how often Provincetown finds itself in the path of history. From Pilgrims to presidents, artists to ACT UP activists, drag queens to dune dwellers, the people who have congregated on the Cape tip, as well as the events that have occurred here over the centuries, one could fill a multi-volume history of Provincetown that would dwarf many other locales. So it should come as no surprise—yet, it kind of does—that former Vice President Kamala Harris’ new book 107 Days, in which she outlines her historic run for the White House, begins in Provincetown.
Books by politicians are an expected part of their holding or running for office and provide an important addition to the historical record even if they are often formulaic, reveal little that was unknown, and often cast blame if the author was on the losing side of an election. It’s not a surprise that Vice President Harris wrote about her campaign. That is to be expected. But hers was not just any campaign. As the title reminds us, she had just 107 days to mount a campaign for the presidency, something that usually takes years to formulate. True, she’d run for the office before, but this was different. Born out of a crisis, the Democratic Party asked her to hit the ground running. The tale told within is well worth reading (even though it was only last year, it feels eons away), to get the human side of a Herculean story.
On the first page of the book Harris recalls the morning of Sunday, July 21, 2024, when she was awakened by a knock at the door from her eight-year-old niece Amara at the Vice President’s residence at the U.S. Naval Observatory in Washington, DC. She recounts that the day before she’d been in Provincetown speaking up on High Pole Hill at the Pilgrim Monument and Provincetown Museum, where she fielded concerns and could feel the palpable anxiety that lingered since President Biden’s disastrous performance at the debate several weeks prior. That Sunday President Biden would drop out of the race and she’d take center stage, making the event in Provincetown the last official one of the Biden/Harris campaign for the 2024 election.
The book of course quickly moves on from the Provincetown event, but it’s fascinating that this tiny town way out in the North Atlantic found its way into the story of one of the most dramatic, important, and sadly the most disturbing presidential elections in modern times. The times we live in move far too fast for the human mind to process and assemble all that happens even in a 24-hour news cycle. And some current events aren’t quite ripe enough for even the sturdiest to want to revisit so soon. But 107 Days makes order of the blur that was the Harris/Walz campaign, and the accomplishment it was unto itself.
107 Days by Kamala Harris is available wherever books are sold. Please support Provincetown’s locally owned, independent bookstores.
