December 18, 1972. Joe Biden, the newly elected senator of Delaware, was in Washington. His wife Neilia Hunter Biden took her three children—Hunter, Beau and Naomi—to pick up a Christmas tree when a tractor hit the car. Hunter woke up with his brother lying next to him in hospital “like he’s just been clobbered in a playground brawl, mouthing ‘I love you’ over and over again”. Forty-one years later, Beau—Hunter’s best friend and soulmate—succumbed to brain cancer at 46.
The story of the devastating loss that the family carries in their hearts has always been central to understanding President Joe Biden. Beautiful Things is that story through the eyes of Hunter; of a family as American as apple pie coping with tragedies and shaped by the gigantic hole left by them. Hunter, who was attacked viciously during the presidential campaign, has chosen to come clean in this moving book.
The book is an unsparing, honest look at Hunter’s life. “I’ve bought crack cocaine on the streets of Washington, DC, and cooked my own inside a hotel bungalow in Los Angeles,” he writes. “I’ve been so desperate for a drink that I couldn’t make the one-block walk between a liquor store and my apartment without uncapping to take a swig.”
Hunter offers no excuses for his behaviour, instead presents a ringside view of his descent into addiction. He vividly narrates the depth of his addiction, scrounging for crack in the dark and trying various therapies, the unravelling of his marriage, his relationship with his sister-in-law, and finally finding love.
It is a memoir of loss as much as it is about going off the rails from the pain. It is also a story of love and an ode to Beau Biden. “Beau and I talked virtually every day of our lives,” writes Hunter. “While we argued as adults almost as much as we laughed, we never ended a conversation without one of us saying, ‘I love you’ and the other responding, ‘I love you, too’.
The book was difficult for him to write, but is breathlessly easy to read. For anyone who has felt unmoored or lost, this might be the book you are looking for.
Beautiful Things: A Memoir
By Hunter Biden
Published by Gallery Books UK
Price Rs699, pages 255