Book review: Lisa Murkowski takes readers inside her years in the Senate
“Far from Home: An Alaskan Senator Faces the Extreme Climate of Washington, D. C.”
By Lisa Murkowski with Charles Wohlforth; Forum Books, 2025; 308 pages; $28.99.
It seems as though every politician these days, usually after retirement, publishes a political memoir with the intent of gilding his or her reputation and legacy; cashing in financially is usually also part of the plan. None of this seems to be the case for Alaska’s Sen. Lisa Murkowski.
First, Murkowski shows no sign of planning to leave her job until Alaskans themselves decide they no longer want her to represent them. Second, the painfully honest account of her political career, admitting its insecurities and vulnerabilities, is the opposite of ego-stroking and self-aggrandizing. Then, modestly, she shares the stage with co-writer Charles Wohlforth, the talented former Alaska journalist who has teamed up with other political figures to tell their stories. Victor Fischer’s “To Russia with Love: An Alaskan’s Journey” is one of these. Finally, the publisher, Forum Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House, is not a giant.
What readers get instead is the authentic Lisa Murkowski’s refreshingly frank, unapologetic and introspective take on her unorthodox political career and the values that she’s lived by since she first went to Washington in 2002.
In her introduction, Murkowski contrasts her Alaska life with her years in Washington, where she watched “as the practical needs of Americans increasingly took second place to partisan fights and political point-scoring.” She positions herself as someone who “never sought the role” but found herself so often in the middle, “standing up to the extremes.” She laments the loss of bipartisan colleagues and appeals to voters to elect “people who want to solve problems” and to follow her example of building American democracy from the community level, as she did by starting with the PTA at her children’s school.
Readers needn’t be “political junkies” to find Murkowski’s story a lively and revealing personal one, and those who do follow politics will learn fascinating insider details. Take, for example, her lengthy account of a meeting she and Alaska Sen. Dan Sullivan had with President Donald Trump after his 2016 election, to discuss Alaska issues. She found the president to be like an “excited tourist”; he really only wanted to talk about the size of bears and halibut, Alaska’s reality TV shows, and Alaska as the place where his grandfather made a fortune — with “hotels” — during the Klondike gold rush.
When Murkowski steered Trump to maps and graphics to explain Alaska’s need for icebreakers, “the theme of the meeting became how easy it would be for him to solve Alaska’s problems.” The president also said that he wanted to change Denali’s name back to Mount McKinley; after Murkowski and Sullivan both explained why that would not sit well with Alaskans, he promised not to. He later seemed to forget his promise. At the close of the meeting, he complimented Murkowski’s “great hair” and confirmed his assessment with Melania — who was, with others, inexplicably present in the Oval Office. Murkowski writes, “I learned valuable insights about the president that day.”
Before that scene, which occurs in the chapter titled “Staying Strong in Trump’s Washington,” Murkowski tells of her very reluctant entry into politics, first in working with other PTA parents to win approval of a school remodel, then in being talked into running for the Alaska Legislature when no one else could be recruited. In 2002, when her father Frank Murkowski became Alaska’s governor and resigned from his 20-year tenure in the U.S. Senate, he insisted on appointing his daughter to finish his term. The nepotism accusation stung the very reluctant Lisa and caused her to work exceptionally hard to prove herself. She was only the 32nd woman to serve in the Senate and one of a dozen at that time. In 2010 she won reelection in a historic write-in campaign against the Republican primary winner, Joe Miller. In 2022, after being targeted by Trump for defeat, she won under Alaska’s new voting laws that provide for open primaries and ranked choice voting.
A later chapter focuses on Supreme Court confirmation hearings and her shock at the overturning of Roe v. Wade, after each nominated judge had promised to respect settled law. She expresses her concerns about the sexual abuse of women and girls, based on Alaska’s record rates and a high-profile child murder at the time, and explains her “present” vote — “definitely no” — regarding Judge Kavanaugh. Later chapters center on the two Trump impeachments and her decisions to vote first against conviction and, after the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol, for conviction — “an easier decision. How could it not be?” She also writes about her successes organizing bipartisan groups to work on and pass energy and other legislation.
Murkowski has often been accused of being indecisive, and her book again and again details the wrenching decisions she’s made over the years. It’s not that she doesn’t know her mind, she explains, but that she always wants to research issues and possible outcomes carefully and decide not in favor of what serves herself but what is best for Alaska. She explains how she came to understand and address the “urban-rural divide,” her support for exploiting Alaska’s natural resources, and why Alaska’s “difference” encourages her to work in a bipartisan fashion.
These days, Sen. Murkowski frequently makes national news headlines, not with the grandstanding of many senators but because she is one of the few who speaks up about the rule of law, the need for civility and the responsibilities of government. She is the rare Republican senator who breaks with her party when her conscience and service to Alaska require it. Americans of every stripe might learn something from “Far from Home,” not just about the “extreme climate” in Washington politics, but about integrity, love of country, commitment to principles and what it takes to make hard choices.
Near the end Murkowski writes, “If I could offer a single message to my colleagues and our entire political system, this would be it: Do the work. Don’t worry so much about keeping your job.” And, for the rest of us: “Get involved.” School boards, town councils and the like “are the seedbeds of American democracy,” where citizens learn to participate and lead in the “realm of true service.”
[Works by 2 Alaska authors selected for National Book Festival]
[Review: New book provides a different window into the demise of the Franklin Expedition]
