Patrick Johnston, former Senator of California
"...an engaging memoir that should inspire more people to enter politics."


Patrick Johnston, former Senator of California
"...an engaging memoir that should inspire more people to enter politics."


Senator Barbara Boxer
"I know Joan Darrah well. She's a woman of integrity who helped Stockton make impressive strides during her tenure in office."


Senator Dianne Feinstein
"A compelling read for those interested in...a woman's role in this demanding yet rewarding arena."


Book Description
At the age of fifty-four, Joan Darrah was elected mayor of Stockton, California, a city of a quarter of a million people located in the middle of California's huge Central Valley. She had never held elective office. She had not even been to many city council meetings before she declared her candidacy. The product of a conservative business family, the sorority scene at the University of California, Berkeley, and the somewhat genteel world of Junior Aid and the United Way, Darrah, a committed Democrat, soon discovered she would have to master the confrontational ways of politicians and learn to maneuver among the competing pressure groups that throw their weightaround in city governments if she were to function as an effective mayor.The learning curve was not without bumps. Early on a newspaper headline labeled her a racist, city council politics provoked the city manager's resignation, and frightening homophobic rhetoric filled the council's chambers after Darrah voiced support of a Stockton gay pride march. Darrah eventually discovered that "one of the hardest tasks of practical politics is that of choosing those issues on which principle needs to yield to expediency if the politician is to remain viable and live to fight another day."In the end, Darrah's two terms as Stockton's mayor spanned a pivotal period in the city's history. A period in which the city began to change from a scandal-racked, crime-ridden municipality with a rotting downtown core to one where city leadership is respected, the streets safer, and the downtown area has been launched on a journey of revitalization


About the Author
Joan Darrah was elected mayor of the city of Stockton, California, in February 1990 and re-elected in 1992 to a four-year term. Previously she had been a high school English teacher and counselor and a leader in volunteer organizations, including the United Way of San Joaquin County and the Board of Regents of the University of the Pacific. She now serves on the board of Planned Parenthood Mar Monte. She and her husband Jim live in Stockton. Alice Crozier and Joan Darrah were classmates at Radcliffe. A specialist in American literature and the author of The Novels of Harriet Beecher Stowe (Oxford University Press), Crozier is now Professor of English Emerita from Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersy. She has had a life-long interest in American politics. Crozier currently lives in Hoboken, New Jersey.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

At the age of fifty-four, Joan Darrah was elected mayor of Stockton, California, a city of a quarter of a million people located in the middle of California's huge Central Valley. She had never held elective office. She had not even been to many city council meetings before she declared her candidacy.

The product of a conservative business family, the sorority scene at the University of California, Berkeley, and the somewhat genteel world of Junior Aid and the United Way, Darrah, a committed Democrat, soon discovered she would have to master the confrontational ways of politicians and learn to maneuver among the competing pressure groups that throw their weight around in city governments if she were to function as an effective mayor.

The learning curve was not without bumps. Early on a newspaper headline labeled her a racist, city council politics provoked the city manager's resignation, and frightening homophobic rhetoric filled the council's chambers after Darrah voiced support of a Stockton gay pride march.

Darrah eventually discovered that "one of the hardest tasks of practical politics is that of choosing those issues on which principle needs to yield to expediency if the politician is to remain viable and live to fight another day."