The New York Times Book Review - Jonathan Alter
Bush recalls playfully informing his first art instructor, Gail Norfleet, of his objectives. "Gail, there's a Rembrandt trapped in this body," he told her. "Your job is to liberate him." Norfleet and Bush's other talented tutors fell short of that ideal, but they did liberate an inner Bush we—and maybe he—never knew existed: An evocative and surprisingly adept artist who has dramatically improved his technique…After staring at the haunting close-up portraits of wounded warriors and reading the searing accounts of their suffering, I'm beginning to understand why this beautifully published book went to No. 1 on The Times's nonfiction best-seller list.
From the Publisher
[A] departure from anything anyone named Bush — or any other President — has published after leaving office . . . Accompanying the portraits are stories, also written by Bush, about how each subject dealt with setback and then mounted a recovery. The paths are anything but straightforward, and Bush's book, in words and pictures, is a challenge and a road map for anyone who faces difficulty.”
-TIME
“What an uplifting volume. It’s a testament to, for sure, the GIs it portrays – and, by implication, to all our soldiers, airmen, and sailors. It’s also a tale of life’s capacity to surprise, its ability to hand up new and unexpected lives not only to these veterans but also to their constitutional commander.”
-Seth Lipsky, New York Post
“Evocative and surprisingly adept . . . After staring at the haunting close-up portraits of wounded warriors and reading the searing accounts of their suffering, I’m beginning to understand why this beautifully published book went to No. 1 on The Times’s nonfiction best-seller list.”
-Jonathan Alter, the New York Times Book Review
“Most of [the portraits] show the head and face full size, seemingly bursting out of the frame with genuine presence and considerable expressive energy . . . There is genuine empathy in Bush’s embrace of the stories told by these soldiers . . . He demonstrates in this book and in these paintings virtues that are sadly lacking at the top of the American political pyramid today: curiosity, compassion, the commitment to learn something new and the humility to learn it in public.”
-Philip Kennicott, the Washington Post
“[It’s] impossible to look at these 98 extraordinary images without thinking deeply about the artist who made them: A leader who sent troops off to the battlefield, and who, so many years later, spends his days channeling the damaged but determined warriors who came home . . . Spend a little time in the presence of these pictures, and one is overwhelmed by their subjects’ sacrifices, their courage, their strength and, in some cases, their turmoil.”
-Task and Purpose
