In his recently published memoir, Gov. Gavin Newsom takes readers along on his hurried journey of self-discovery. 

What, exactly, does Gavin Newsom believe? 

It’s hard enough for us Californians to answer that question. It’s probably even more difficult for the typical American voter in other states, who will determine whether he has a shot at the presidency in 2028.

There are, after all, a lot of contradictions. 

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Newsom first made international headlines with his trailblazing decision as mayor of San Francisco to allow same-sex couples to marry, despite prohibitions in federal and state law and the disapproval of many mainstream Democrats. Contrast that with his recent comments that it’s “deeply unfair” for transgender athletes to compete in girls’ and women’s sports and his argument that Democrats need to be more “culturally normal.”

This week, Newsom provoked an international uproar when he said that some commentators are “appropriately” describing Israel “as sort of an apartheid state.” This is the same Newsom who flew to Israel weeks after the horrific Oct. 7, 2023, attack by Hamas and asserted Israel’s right to defend itself, saying, “We stand by you.”

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Is Newsom a man of nuance or a political opportunist?

With his gelled hair, designer suits, taste for expensive wine and deep family connections to San Francisco’s elite, he exudes — more than any other sensibility — privilege. He often acts like a caricature — as when he was caught dining at the Michelin-starred French Laundry restaurant with a group of lobbyists amid pandemic lockdowns. 

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The title of Newsom’s new book, “Young Man in a Hurry: A Memoir of Discovery” — with its somewhat pretentious echoes of James Joyce’s “Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man” — implies it will offer, finally, some fundamental insights into his character: who he is, what he believes and why.

It does, but perhaps not in the way Newsom intended.

Newsom’s book and its accompanying tour, which began in Tennessee, Georgia and South Carolina and is scheduled to wrap up next week in Florida, are all part of his attempt to convince the country that he’s just like us — kind of.

Sure, his father may have been best friends with Gordon Getty, at the time the richest man in the world, and Newsom may have taken all-expenses-paid safari trips in East Africa, partied with Jack Nicholson and lived rent-free in the Getty mansion.

But, Newsom’s memoir insists, there’s more to the story.

He never felt like he fully belonged in the Gettys’ world. He suffered from severe undiagnosed dyslexia, which made him dread going to school. He overcompensated for his insecurities by wearing suits and carrying briefcases. His parents divorced when he was very young. He and his sister, Hilary, mostly lived with his mother, Tessa, who worked as many as three jobs and took in boarders to stay afloat. Newsom himself bused tables and worked as a paper boy to contribute. Until he gained confidence through sports, he was bullied. 

Newsom, however, doesn’t land the “poor me” routine — no matter how many times he brings up his 960 SAT score or talks about being a latchkey kid who cooked himself mac and cheese for dinner. And his efforts to do so come across as cringeworthy at best and patronizing at worst. 

The memoir’s passages about Newsom’s childhood — and the pages he devotes to the troubled upbringings of his parents and grandparents, all of whom seemed to think the less said and fewer emotions shared the better — are genuinely affecting. They are beautifully rendered by Newsom’s ghostwriter, the longtime California journalist Mark Arax. Yet the book still fails to explicitly outline how Newsom’s personal journey shaped his political values.

Instead, the memoir treats politics as merely a byproduct of Newsom’s true aim: connecting with his father, William, and making him proud. 

When San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown asks Newsom if he wants to fill an open seat on the Board of Supervisors, Newsom runs the proposition past his father, who ran for the job the year Newsom was born and lost.  

“I’m sure he provided me with wise counsel … but that’s not what I recall,” Newsom writes. “What sticks with me is how he literally glowed with pride.” 

Later, Newsom reflects, “Steadily, politics was becoming the medium by which my father and I were building a fuller relationship.” 

When he was elected governor, Newsom notes, “My memory of that evening, November 6, 2018, begins and ends with my father,” who was dying of cancer but “had summoned the last bit of life force to see his only son become the fortieth governor of the state he loved so much.” After the speech, William’s caretaker urges him to tell Newsom that he loves him. 

“He would not utter those words,” Newsom writes in the book’s emotional climax. “And yet I had not one ounce of doubt that he loved me dearly.” 

The memoir ends with Newsom finding one of his father’s journals after his death. He flips through a few pages but decides to stop.

“I’m not sure I have the desire to read what’s inside,” he writes. “I’ve gone where I’ve gone. I know what I know.”   

This puts a neat little bow on the book and attempts to extend a sense of closure to the reader — and to Newsom himself. Don’t worry, the authorial voice intones: The insecure, fractured pieces of the young Newsom have been integrated into a coherent and well-adjusted whole. 

Throughout the book, Newsom grapples with understanding his own motivations. 

He runs for lieutenant governor knowing the job is a “backwater,” and he’ll spend eight years “playing second fiddle to Jerry Brown.” He knows it will prevent him from teaching his kids “the game of baseball, a sport that had saved me when I was a kid.” Like his own father, he will be a “distant presence.”  

Why, then, does he do it? 

Newsom cites the vague buzzword of “ambition.” But ambition for what? To do what? 

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It may not matter. Details are swept away by the internal momentum, the inevitability, of climbing the political ladder. Although Newsom gripes about his parents’ “passivity,” his family recognizes the same traits in him. Newsom’s sister chides him for his “lax assent.” His mom fears that in his first marriage, he displays “a ‘go along to get along’ that was itself a devil’s bargain.” 

Ultimately, this “memoir of discovery” is no clearer on what Gavin Newsom believes than the rest of us. On a political level, for one of the leading presidential contenders, that’s concerning. But on a personal level, Newsom’s struggle to understand himself may very well be the most humanizing thing about him. 

Emily Hoeven is a columnist and editorial writer for the Opinion section.

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