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| Why is Kevin Powell smiling? He's lost three elections, but he just inked a big book deal for a memoir. |
Kevin Powell, the former MTV “Real World” star turned frequent Congressional candidate, has bounced back from his three electoral failures by landing a book deal with Simon and Schuster to publish a memoir and an authorized biography of rap legend Tupac Shakur.
But in a clear case of redacted history, Powell’s memoir won’t highlight his three bungled bids to unseat Rep. Ed Towns (D–Fort Greene), he told this paper.
“The memoir’s going to end in the year 2000,” he said. “In the late 1990s, I was in a deep depression and was doing a lot of drinking, but by 2000, I had decided to change my life and get back to the community. I want to end it on a high note.”
Too bad; if Powell were to continue scribbling, he would be forced to address his recent low periods: how he was bounced from the ballot in his 2006 run for Congress, how he got only 33 percent of the vote in the 2008 bid, and how he got only 31 percent of the vote this time around.
Also probably excised from the pages will be his history of violence to women or how he owed the taxman $615,000 — chapters of his life that came out during the past two elections.
Instead, he said the memoir will focus on how he was raised in a poor single parent home, describing his story as a “hip hop version of ‘Angela’s Ashes.’ ”
“I’m a big fan of Frank McCourt,” he said.
Powell has already published 10 books, the most recent being “Open Letters to America” — his thoughts on the aftermath of Barack Obama’s “magical and historical” presidential campaign. He also published “The Black Male Handbook: A Blueprint for Life” and a book of selected poems aptly entitled “No Sleep Till Brooklyn.”
He also penned a political manifesto, “The Plan,” which was released during his failed 2006 bid.
Towns’s supporters were unfazed by the latest big-time book deal announcement.
“It only shows that you don’t have to be an expert in politics to write books about politics,” said Hank Sheinkopf, spokesman for Towns’s 2010 campaign.
