Description

“I come from a family forged by tragedies and bound by a remarkable, unbreakable love,” Hunter Biden writes in this deeply moving memoir of addiction, loss, and survival.

When he was two years old, Hunter Biden was badly injured in a car accident that killed his mother and baby sister. In 2015, he suffered the devastating loss of his beloved big brother, Beau, who died of brain cancer at the age of forty-six. These hardships were compounded by the collapse of his marriage and a years-long battle with drug and alcohol addiction.

In Beautiful Things, Hunter recounts his descent into substance abuse and his tortuous path to sobriety. The story ends with where Hunter is today—a sober married man with a new baby, finally able to appreciate the beautiful things in life.

My Take

From its first pages I knew Hunter Biden’s memoir Beautiful Things would be a beautiful book, not because of its subject matter for that is extremely ugly, but because of the writing, and the way he presents his story with raw honesty. I doubt he held much back because the tale he tells of his spiral into alcohol and crack addiction following the death of his beloved brother Beau is harrowing, and I can’t imagine much worse. The Biden family’s story is well-known by anyone paying attention to recent events in America: A wife and mother, a baby daughter and sister killed in a tragic car accident. Two brothers left motherless and injured in a hospital, forging a lifelong bond that remains strong even through death. A father who becomes President of the United States at one of the worst times in our nation’s history. In spite of the tragedy and politics they are a simple family at their core, loving one another deeply and persevering in spite of their pain, building lives of service, using their own experience to comfort others. Hunter’s story is the dark side of all of that love and altruism. His story leaves us with a glimpse into a world that most of us never encounter, except perhaps in the movies, or on TV, or in novels. Here are some of his observations I will carry with me forever:

“The most insidious thing about addiction, the hardest thing to overcome, is waking up unable to see the best in yourself.”

“Sobriety is easy. All you have to do is change everything.”

“Even when the ghosts of addiction have been banished, they still exist.”

As a nurse who encounters people with addictions often and a woman who once cared for a man plagued with similar demons these words help me to empathize and better understand those who fall into the belly of this beast. Recommended for lovers of memoir, addictions specialists, and readers who enjoy entering new (though ugly) worlds.

About the Author

Hunter Biden is a lawyer and an artist. A graduate of Georgetown University and Yale Law School, Hunter has worked as an advocate on behalf of Jesuit universities, and served on numerous corporate and nonprofit boards, including as vice chairman of Amtrak and chairman of the board of World Food Program USA. The son of Joe and Jill Biden, Hunter is the father of three daughters: Naomi, Finnegan, and Maisy. He lives with his wife, Melissa Cohen Biden, and their son, Beau, in California.