By Bridgette Bartlett Royall ·Updated April 24, 2026 < /> Getting your Trinity Audio player ready… Keisha Lance Bottoms is a lot like your favorite friend, auntie, niece or sister. You know the one who is super smart and successful but never pressed to broadcast her grades or accomplishments. You’re more likely to learn that she made the Dean’s List (again) or landed yet another promotion from anyone but her. She’s not a bragger but she exudes confidence. She doesn’t shrink to accommodate any space, be it personal or professional.
She embraces her flaws and she’s proud of her Southern roots, her HBCU education and even the adversity she’s experienced on her life’s journey. She realizes that her challenges have informed the wife, mother and woman she has ultimately become and is still evolving into. Oh, and she has a head full of thick, healthy hair that looks equally great in a short pixie cut or in a long, shoulder length >Rough Side of the Mountain. Let the church say: Amen. Out the gate, Bottoms received praise on her literary debut from the likes of hip-hop luminary Common, political powerhouse Susan E. Rice and media mogul Tyler Perry. The latter had this to say about the book, “Keisha opens her heart on the page and shows incredible vulnerability about her family, her choices and maintaining her humanity while in the spotlight. This is uncommon in politics, but it shouldn’t be…This is a gorgeous and necessary book.’
Opening up is something Bottoms does effortlessly throughout her memoir, beginning with telling readers about her early days growing up on the Westside of Atlanta. She vividly recalls her childhood as the youngest of nine siblings and daughter to a hair stylist mother and musician father. While her beginnings might have been humble, she never lacked parental love. “If Mama is the one going to the moon with me, then it was Daddy who made me believe such a trip would be possible.” Bottoms was loved and supported fiercely by not just her parents but her wider village as well. The mother of four has fond memories of her grandmother gifting her with a subscription to ESSENCE magazine when she turned 18, as she proudly did for all of her granddaughters. “I wanted to capture the wisdom of my mother and my grandmother [in this book]. For so long I was dismissive about it,” Bottoms admits.
Bottoms also reveals parts of her background in the book that aren’t Hallmark-friendly. This is what helps make it so compelling: she weaves in stories that are dark and scary with times of triumph and joy. The authenticity resonates in a memorable way. A wife and mother or four, Bottoms details deeply personal parts of her past including eating disorder struggles, her father’s incarceration and drug addiction and being sexually molested. It was not easy for her to be vulnerable about these things. The old “what happens in this house stays in this house” mantra was prevalent in her formative years. Still, Bottoms knew she had to share all of her journey, not simply her highlight reel.
“My husband read the book several times. At times he had to put it down. He saw my family in a very different light after [reading the book],” confesses Bottoms who agrees with the notion that many Black people hide family secrets as a defense mechanism and feels sharing our collective stories is, on the contrary, a powerful healing tool. “Sometimes when we ‘re so protective of our stories, they get erased. Telling my truth while still being protective of other people’s stories was probably the hardest part of writing this book,” she says.
Then White House Public Engagement Advisor Keisha Lance Bottoms speaks at a White House press briefing on January 13, 2023. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images) Equally as important to this book as the words are the archival family photographs that Bottoms intentionally included in her memoir. She begins with an arresting pic of her maternal great-great grandparents and makes her way through a 16 page section with pics of both her maternal and paternal grandparents, her parents and photos of her as a baby and as a first grader with long, puffy pigtails. There are also dance recital pics, graduation pics from high school, Florida A&M University (“I was 17 when I started at FAMU. I grew up there.”), law school and even one of Bottoms proudly “duck walking” with her linesisters of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. The specially curated section is rounded out with images of Bottoms in a professional capacity as a history-making politician and with her loving husband Derek of more than 30 years with their four children: Langston, Lincoln, Lennox and Lance.
Just halfway through the book, it becomes abundantly clear that her family, faith and foundation have given her the fortitude to step into the big shoes (or stilettos if she chooses) she has throughout her career. She is the first person in the city of Atlanta to serve in all three branches of government: as a city council member, a judge and a mayor. Major. But all of her ambition and achievements have been tested time and time again. “There were times in court when people assumed I was the defendant’s girlfriend instead of an attorney,” remembers Bottoms who received her J.D. from Georgia State University in 1994. Even now, she admits that imposter syndrome can rear it’s manipulating little head. “It’s a work in progress. There are still times I have to stop and catch my breath. It’s like, ‘Girl, don’t mess this up. I remind myself that I am enough.’ You’re there because I deserve to be there.”
Now, the old-school R&B enthusiast (Yes, she did go see New Edition on their last tour!) is moving in the direction of yet another major milestone. A lover of summers in
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