Kirkus Reviews
2023-10-24
A firsthand account of crisis in the governor’s mansion.
DeRosa, who served as communications director and chief of staff for Andrew Cuomo, recounts her tenure, revealing in eye-opening detail the insidious forces that impelled him to resign. The daughter of a prominent Albany lobbyist, DeRosa was drawn to politics early, interning for Hillary Clinton when she was 19. Recruited to become Cuomo’s communications director in 2017, she quickly learned that her boss was “a micromanager who obsessively and single-mindedly focuses on the problem in front of him until it’s resolved.” The problem that engulfed the governorship in 2020 was the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic. With growing case numbers and a scarcity of reliable information from federal agencies, Cuomo, serving as “de facto commander in chief,” demonstrated his capacity to be “consummately cool” in a crisis, mounting a “massive operational undertaking” to find protective gear for hospital workers, set up testing sites, find labs to process tests, and procure hospital beds and ventilators. In addition, he made crucial decisions about lockdowns, quarantines, and masking, often in conflict with New York Mayor Bill di Blasio and a hostile President Trump. As she dealt with marital problems and infertility, DeRosa admits that the early weeks of the pandemic pushed her to her limit. The author admires Cuomo’s decisive leadership, but she admits that “his hard-charging style and aggressiveness had earned him a host of political enemies.” That enmity coalesced in the spring of 2021, when a whirl of “vague claims of sexual harassment” became a storm, whipped up by a voracious media. “Everyday interactions” were “weaponized,” contorted into vicious claims of abuse, and eventually led to his resignation. DeRosa counters those allegations, asserting that they “didn’t comport with the Andrew Cuomo I knew,” whom she portrays as compassionate, respectful, and dedicated.
An angry, raw, and briskly told memoir.
Publishers Weekly
11/13/2023
DeRosa presents herself as the plucky sidekick of a besieged hero in this by turns cloying and combative debut memoir of her role as chief of staff to New York governor Andrew Cuomo during the myriad crises and scandals leading up to his 2021 resignation. In the final two years of her tenure (which began in 2017 after an earlier stint as communications director), DeRosa advised her boss through several headline-making episodes, including disputes over the administration’s accounting of Covid nursing home deaths and numerous sexual harassment accusations against Cuomo. DeRosa defends the former governor at every turn, suggesting that New York’s higher nursing home death rate was due to a complex quirk of accounting (and that the federal investigation was spurred by President Donald Trump’s jealousy over Cuomo’s spotlight-stealing leadership during the pandemic). Elsewhere, she posits that the sexual harassment allegations were overblown, driven by a vindictive former staffer who recruited other women to join her suit. DeRosa interlaces her accounts of these scandals with intriguing if somewhat wooden recreations of behind-the-scenes political wrangling with state and federal officials around the unprecedented crises faced by Cuomo’s administration in 2020: the Covid pandemic and protests following George Floyd’s murder. While this glowing defense of Cuomo will appeal to his supporters, it’s unlikely to mollify his detractors. (Oct.)
From the Publisher
"A vivid read ... DeRosa’s memoir is pocked with scenes of a marriage gone south, of trying to cope with Covid-19 and of general governmental strife. She punches hard. Her anger is white hot. Her book is deliberate and focused."
—The Guardian “This inside look at politics from the Cuomo admin is a detailed view of the chaotic times in the Cuomo governor’s office around Covid, the press, the dog eat dog politics and the toll dedication can take on personal life. DeRosa shows life behind the curtain of what we read and hear. You don’t have to be a political junkie to enjoy this one.”
—Lee Woodruff “A page turner.”
—Bill Maher "A juicy new memoir... packed with scandal [and] political intrigue... [from the] headline-making right hand to one of the most powerful figures in New York."—Extra “DeRosa has written a critically acclaimed thrilling page-turner that you may well find yourself reading in a single sitting. It’s a book that’s hard to put down as you feel you’re in the center of non-stop, high-stakes action.”—Campaigns and Elections "DeRosa, who served as communications director and chief of staff for Andrew Cuomo, recounts her tenure, revealing in eye-opening detail the insidious forces that impelled him to resign. . . . [A] raw, and briskly told memoir."
—Kirkus Reviews “DeRosa has written a scorching memoir, What’s Left Unsaid, that is loaded with insider detail and throws punches at President Joe Biden, New York governor Kathy Hochul, New York attorney general Letitia James, and TheNew York Times, among others.”
—Vanity Fair
“This insider’s view of the political storm that led to Cuomo’s forced resignation raises serious questions about the roles played by power politics, a compliant media, and an attorney general who wished to be governor, in orchestrating the forced resignation of a duly elected governor. . . . At the end of her book, DeRosa signals, much like a prize fighter, that she is ready to step into the ring again. She will surely fight another day as a fierce partisan who passionately believes in her causes. But in this moment, she shines a bright light on some important questions.”
—New York Law Journal
