Radical Tenderness: The Value of Vulnerability in an Often Unkind World

Fetterman, founder of the nonprofit Freestore 15104 and wife of Pennsylvania senator John Fetterman, debuts with an intimate account of how vulnerability has shaped her life. After immigrating to the U.S. with her family when she was seven—and becoming undocumented when their tourist visa expired—the author found that a safe and welcoming home and school environment helped her to “freely be who I was, which in my case was a big softy.” Contending that gentleness is a strength, she describes how vulnerability gave her the courage to start a nonprofit to address food insecurity in her early 20s; to reach out in 2007 to her future husband, who was then the mayor of Braddock, Pa., after reading an article about his initiatives to revitalize the town; and to cry in interviews as she grappled with the aftermath of her husband’s stroke during his Senate campaign (she notes that such public displays of vulnerability can offer others implicit permission to express their own emotions). The author’s compassionate and plainspoken tone will easily endear her to readers, and she draws on her husband’s public struggles with depression to make valuable points about the need for open public discourse about mental health issues. It’s an inspiring testament to the ways emotional honesty can empower and heal. (July)