Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s memoir, Far From Home, hits the Amazon bookseller’s site on Monday. It is being billed as the story of a principled moderate navigating the turbulent waters of Washington, DC.
Written by longtime former Alaska writer Charles Wohlforth, the book portrays Murkowski, now age 68, as a lone voice of reason, one who, according to the promotional materials, has repeatedly chosen “the road less traveled” in the nation’s capital.
The memoir’s arrival is already generating buzz in Beltway circles, as Murkowski has sought to up her profile in recent weeks, and has been doing pre-publication interview. Some in Alaska view Murkowski as a centrist heroine, while others despise her for betraying her Republican Party.
According to Amazon’s marketing copy, Far From Home offers “a candid account of how things get done in Washington,” telling the story of Murkowski’s political rise from her appointment to the Senate by her father, former Gov. Frank Murkowski, to her engineered comeback after losing the 2010 Republican primary to Joe Miller, becoming a write-in candidate — a rare feat in modern American politics.
The book also revisits pivotal national moments in which Murkowski cast defining votes, including her opposition to the confirmation of Justice Brett Kavanaugh, her vote to convict President Donald Trump during his second impeachment trial, and her stance against efforts to examine fully what happened in the 2020 presidential election.
Former Sen. Mitt Romney is quoted in the promotional material and frames Murkowski’s career as a profile in courage. “Two paths diverged — Lisa Murkowski took the one less traveled,” Romney wrote, saying that her independence “has made all the difference.”
But Murkowski critics may view Far From Home less as a memoir of courage and more as a political brand-building exercise and an attempt to define her legacy on her own terms, especially as she faces near total estrangement from Alaska’s Republican base.
Absent from the marketing pitch is any mention of the more pragmatic aspects of Murkowski’s Senate tenure, such as her support for key Biden Administration initiatives like the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and her pivotal role in confirming Deb Haaland as Secretary of the Interior, which was disastrous for Alaska and at the time raised eyebrows among Alaska’s resource development advocates. Also left unexplored in the promo: Her backing of ranked-choice voting, which helped her retain her seat in 2022 despite vocal opposition from her own party.
Wohlforth’s role as ghostwriter or co-author may also raise questions. Once a columnist and author known for progressive views, his alignment with Murkowski’s political message suggests the memoir leans more toward brand preservation.
Far From Home offers a window, although it’s a heavily curated window, into Murkowski as a politician. Whether she is a maverick as she makes herself out to be or simply a savvy politician may depend on who is doing the reading.
The book is available Monday in hardcover and digital formats at Amazon on June 24.
Title change: Far From Reality: An Alaskan senator deceives her voters and betrays her country.
Or, ‘Far From Correct!’
“A must read for every RINO traitor” – Liz Cheney
“A woman after my own heart” – Vitus Quisling
“Lisa Murkowski is an inspiration to every sociopathic globalist in the world today” – George Soros
“Never have I been more proud of my mentally challenged foster daughter” – Satan
And, don’t forget:
“We love you, mom!” – Beavis & Butthead
Far From Sovereign? Bought & Played? Self-servicing sociopath? Anything but Alaskan is what Murkowski is… chief murky murky thief Murkowski… is it about Alaska or her family’s residence in Mexico?
I could write a lot on this topic. I have known – or thought I have known – her for over forty years.
One flaw is that she too often lets the form – she will call it “the process” – control over the substance. Bad results usually follow. Life experience teaches that “the process” is almost always flawed.
On the substantive side, the Senator seems to be permanently enamoured with the notion that continued massive federal appropriations and spending is good for Alaska. Some studies suggest that such spending weakens economic networks, precludes private sector investment and creates dependency. In my view, after fifty years of federal pork this appears to be the case in Alaska. Yet, she persists. And, as a United States Senator she is undoubtedly (?!) “correct”. When was the last time that a federal appropriation benefitted the average Alaskan?
I like Must Read Ak because it’s conservative. I donate to it to keep it going.
For the most part it backs up its articles with fact.
That’s refreshing in today’s media and “ information” world
Apparently the same cannot necessarily be said for people’s comments about articles here.
Case in point is Jefferson’s George Soros “ quote about Murkowski.
Is he a donor to her campaigns too?
Do they meet in a dark alley planning the reimagining of the free world?
Maybe throw in a source or two when making these wild claims
Someone else reading this might take it mistakenly for fact.
I must apologize to Jefferson.
I re-read his comment and now realize it was a tongue in cheek comment.
So sorry.
Bad mood here.
Dear Moderator: Can we just have a “Alternate Title” contest for the Murkowski Memoir? My entry = “Far from Honest. A Pork Princess Whitewashes her Deceptive Life.” Let’s gooooo!
Our lovely pro-abortion, entitled, appointed, TDS, Catholic daughter spins another tale of self-centered aggrandizement, while her ageing parents remain in solitary confinement and banishment to Wrangell, Alaska. We will not take credit for her departure from principles raised upon.
Senator Murkowski just voted what the evidence showed on Kavanaugh and Trump, she’s not a sheep, thinks for herself, the difference between right and wrong, everybody knows that, she runs for office and whoops the Bible thumper Tshubaca walking away. Alaskan’s just have that independent spirit.
Murkowski’s voting record is identical to Senator Ted Stevens on abortion rights, Defense spending, pebble and both brought a lot of money to this state.
Summarize; Run against Lisa and see what happens to you.
When you just don’t fit, it’s tempting to describe oneself as “moderate”, but that’s a lie. “Imposter” is more apt. For example, her support for abortion is a violation of both the Republican Party platform and the tenets of
Roman Catholicism, but she sees it as some sort of superhero crusade, as if she’s going to change anything. She’s just a soldier in a failed and sinful ideology, and as her ideology begins to die an appropriate death around her, she publishes a tome in an attempt to portray herself yet again in her fur cape, ready to fly to the rescue of yet another dying campaign. Even her “far from home” title isn’t accurate. She graduated from Georgetown with her BA the same year that Daddy was elected to the Senate for the first time, actually preceding Daddy in his ideological/political exit from Alaska and into the deep, dark, dank swamp along the banks of the Potomac. She’s at home in DC, but hopefully not for much longer as a Senator for the Great State of Alaska, and she’ll end up “retiring” like Daddy Outside, not here “at home”……….
Lisa Murkowski’s Memoir: A Progressive Portrait, Not a Profile in Courage. Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s new memoir, Far From Home, arrives on the political scene this week, and the timing could not be more revealing. Marketed as the story of a “principled moderate” navigating the turbulent waters of Washington, D.C., the book is being pushed as a personal profile in courage, one woman’s lonely stand for reason amid partisan storms. Written by progressive Alaska journalist Charles Wohlforth, long known for his columns supporting climate activism and big government, the memoir’s framing leans less toward history and more toward brand preservation. At 68, with her political future uncertain and estranged from much of Alaska’s Republican base, Murkowski clearly hopes this book will cement her legacy in the eyes of the D.C. establishment that now praises her. But for many Alaskans, the portrait that emerges is not one of courage, but one of steady progressive alignment. A senator who has drifted far from her party and far from the values of the state she represents. Is the cover of Lisa Murkowski’s memoir, Far From Home, a revealing piece of political hypocrisy? Draped in a Native-style parka, a garment rooted in Alaska’s Indigenous subsistence culture, Murkowski postures as an Alaskan traditionalist even as her Senate record shows repeated votes that have harmed Native communities, including her support for Deb Haaland’s Interior policies that shut down ANCSA lands and resource projects. The tagline, “Facing the extreme climate of Washington,” tries to cast her as a maverick outsider, when in truth Murkowski has spent years aligning herself with D.C. elites, progressive judges, and Biden’s legislative agenda. And the title itself, Far From Home, could not be more apt: politically and culturally, Murkowski today is far from the conservative values of Alaska’s voters. The cover perfectly illustrates the brand of Beltway progressivism now wrapped in a borrowed image of Alaska tradition, a calculated piece of stagecraft, not courage. The memoir highlights key episodes from Murkowski’s career, her vote against Justice Brett Kavanaugh, her vote to convict President Donald Trump in the second impeachment trial, and her refusal to consider any serious investigation of the 2020 election. These choices, celebrated by her admirers in the corporate media and the Beltway elite, put her squarely in alliance with the Democratic narrative at every pivotal moment of the last several years. Missing from the promotional materials, and likely from the pages of the book itself, are some of Murkowski’s most consequential progressive acts: her enthusiastic support for Joe Biden’s $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, a bill loaded with climate mandates and DEI requirements that are actively working against Alaska’s resource-based economy. Or her pivotal role in confirming Biden’s radical Interior Secretary, Deb Haaland, who has aggressively weaponized federal power against Alaska’s oil, gas, and mineral development, shuttered ANWR, locked up NPR-A lands, and slowed critical minerals permitting; all with Murkowski’s vote. Just as glaring is her central role in the Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) scheme that now governs Alaska elections. Murkowski’s allies and donors were deeply involved in pushing Ballot Measure 2, knowing that RCV would allow her to bypass an increasingly conservative Republican primary electorate. Without RCV, she likely would not have survived 2022. Far from the “independent” image her memoir projects, this is the calculated politics of a careerist protecting her position through election manipulation. Murkowski’s votes have also aligned with the Biden administration on nearly all judicial appointments. She helped seat far-left judges who will reshape American law for decades. And when the integrity of the 2020 election was in question, Murkowski not only refused to examine it, she joined with progressives in dismissing all calls for investigation as “election denialism.” What emerges, then, is not the story of a lonely maverick, but that of a senator who has chosen alignment with the progressive establishment at every critical fork in the road, abandoning the core Republican and Alaskan values that once defined her. Nor does the book, it seems, explore the growing alienation of Murkowski from the voters who once elected her. In recent years, she has been absent from virtually every major conservative fight on border security, election integrity, opposition to federal DEI mandates, or protection of parental rights. She has embraced the corporate-media-driven narrative of her “independence,” while carefully avoiding the conservative grassroots of her own state. Ultimately, Far From Home may say more than Murkowski intends. It is the memoir of a senator who long ago left Alaska’s conservative values behind and who now seeks to write her own political epitaph before the voters do. For many Alaskans, this is not a story of courage. It is the biography of a Beltway progressive in Republican clothing.