Former Vice President Joe Biden reflects on 'powerful relationship' with late son Beau in new memoir
Joe Biden‘s upcoming memoir is a look back at one of the most momentous years of his life — and the most painful.
In Promise Me, Dad: A Year of Hope, Hardship, and Purpose, due out Nov. 14, the former vice president reflects on the death — and life — of his late son Beau, who died of brain cancer at 46 in May 2015, as well as the challenges he faced fulfilling his political duties while in mourning.
“I wrote this book because I wanted everyone to know what a remarkable man my son Beau was, and what a powerful relationship he had with his family,” Biden said in a statement to PEOPLE. “Honor, duty, responsibility: the values that Beau held dear are the things that continue to inspire us as a family every day. I wanted to share that. And in sharing it, I hope I can help others who have endured what we’ve endured to find hope, solace and purpose.”
Beau Biden, the vice president’s elder son and a lawyer who served as the former attorney general of Delaware from January 2007 to January 2015, was diagnosed with brain cancer nearly two years before his death.
The book’s title was inspired by a conversation between the former vice president and his son during their final Thanksgiving together in 2014.
“Promise me, Dad. Give me your word that no matter what happens, you’re going to be all right,” Beau Biden told his father, according to The New York Times.
The memoir, which will also touch on Joe Biden’s decision not to run for president in 2016, is part of a two-book deal with publisher Flatiron Books. His wife, Jill Biden, is also writing a book for the publisher. The topics of the two other books have not been revealed.
