"Joined at the Heart" by Al and Tipper Gore

Heartwarming tales of unconventional families from Mr. and Mrs. Gore? Sounds like the snooze of the year -- but against all odds their new book is endearing and even inspiring.

By Kerry Lauerman

Nov 27, 2002 | When I first saw the great Web parody "Black People Love Us!" I thought of Al Gore. He, too, proudly reached out to the Black Man, and had many of his awkward advances recorded for posterity (a good selection exists here). A highlight: Then-Vice President Al Gore, in fully Jesusfied delivery, giving the Martin Luther King Day speech before churchgoers at Ebenezer Baptist in Atlanta in 1998, and comparing inner-city turf wars between Crips and Bloods to Rwandan Hutus and Tutsis. Yow.

Sally and Johnny, the fantasy hosts of "Black People Love Us!" also make efforts to speak like their black friends ("Sally's always saying: 'You go girl!' while 'raising the roof' to mainstream hip-hop tracks at bars. That's fun! I relate to that," says one of the couple's "friends"). That's not all they have in common with Gore. They're also painfully earnest and well-intentioned, and they seem to have totally warped looking-glass self-images. When they think they're showing us how cool they are, we're actually seeing the brutal opposite.

Of course, Sally and Johnny are fictional, and Al Gore still wants terribly to be the real president of the United States. As he's made his recent reentry into public life on the promotional tour for "Joined at the Heart," the book he co-wrote with his wife, Tipper, Gore has tried to be more relaxed, more cool.

It didn't take long before he miscalculated again (his poll numbers following the media onslaught were horrific), and the criticisms returned. After his second or third interview (post-Barbara, pre-Katie) a Salon colleague of mine said, "This was supposed to be the new, spontaneous Al Gore, but he's reciting the same talking points in every interview. Jesus!" New York Times reporter Adam Nagourney pointed out that the simple act of trying to look more spontaneous "only invites Mr. Gore's opponents to portray him as reinventing himself again," while columnist Frank Rich noted that Gore's quoting of the popular song refrain "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose" -- repeatedly, interview after interview -- made it seem about as carefree an anthem as "I will fight for you!"

Even David Letterman, during Gore's recent "Late Night" appearance, offered a backhanded compliment of sorts. After Gore deadpanned a response (his most personable, if overused, technique), Letterman told him, "You're a lot funnier than I remember you." That's probably because the Gore whom Letterman remembers was simply not funny at all.

"Joined at the Heart," the nominal reason we're seeing so much of Gore lately, could easily have been another complete misfire. The narrative voice in the book shifts occasionally into a third person, as is necessary for such joint projects, threatening to make the Gores sound cloying: "When Tipper was reading several e-mails during a conversation, Al finally sent her an e-mail of his own, even though they were only a few feet apart: 'Will you please stop using your pager and talk to me?' It worked -- at least temporarily."

It's very Sweet Valley High, and the book could have wound up as rich camp, a collection of cute Gore anecdotes bouncing off profiles of the downtrodden lives of the handful of families the Gores choose to represent new American paradigms. But, against all odds, the Gores actually grow on you pretty fast in "Joined at the Heart." Their humor is sepia-toned and quaint, but it's sincere. And that imbues the book with a warmth only a true cynic can resist (and I tried). It's also a difficult exercise to pull off: a couple born into privilege trying to document the struggles of much tougher lives. The result can, and probably ought, to sound pandering or condescending. But what emerges is a fairly upbeat exploration of a few families, very different from our nuclear sitcom stereotypes, and the original ways they've devised to get along, interspersed with the Gores' comments on the restorative powers of family life.

These are not necessarily always gripping. It's Redbook reading -- people tackling awkward complications, like two divorced parents, Cindy Nalley and Mitch Philpott, organizing their lives around a severely disabled son who needs round-the-clock care. With neither willing to give up parental rights, they've split the difference, and their son stays with each parent on alternate days and weekends. That sounds crazy, of course, but it also seems to work since, as the Gores put it, "their three-parent [Nalley remarried], two-home family ... enables them to maximize the love and the energy they can devote to their son, and yet still restore and renew themselves as individuals so that they can continue to meet the challenges to do right by their unique family."

The families the Gores profile tend to be variations on a theme; most stretch the concept of a "blood relationship" by being muddled with step-dads or step-moms or, in the case of the gay couple, adoption. Their stories can be a little didactic -- these are families chosen because they work, after all -- and the struggles they recount to the Gores don't ever sound too bleak. But there's surely value in describing how unconventional families can succeed since, as the Gores amply demonstrate, they're the wave of the future. For better or worse.

Next Page: Not tough enough on divorcing couples?

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