Updated July 22.
Attendees filled nearly all of the red auditorium chairs in the Performing Arts Center at the Martha’s Vineyard High School (MVRHS) on Thursday night to hear Dr. Jill Biden, former first lady, discuss her new book, “View From the East Wing: A Memoir.”
The talk was a part of the Martha’s Vineyard Author Series, and a stop of Biden’s book tour after her memoir was released in June. It was moderated by Sunny Hostin, an awardwinning journalist, author, and co-host of ABC’s “The View.”
Biden and Hostin sat on the same Performing Arts Center (PAC) stage where MVRHS students performed the musical “Hadestown” and the Minnesingers’ spring concert took place just a few months prior. The salutatorian of MVRHS’s class of 2026, Teagan D’Arcy, was honored by Biden on Thursday for winning an essay contest by the Vineyard Gazette, who were co-sponsors of the event.
In the discussion about her memoir, Biden broached issues that ranged from her family’s experience with grief and cancer to former President Joe Biden’s health and the moment he bowed out of the running for a second term, to her work as a professor at a community college. She also touched on lighter topics, such as the food service in the White House kitchen, her security codename (“Capri,” for her Italian heritage), and her favorite Island brunch spots, which were mostly on Nantucket. She said she wrote the memoir to bring people into the Bidens’ world.
“When Joe got out of office, all these people were writing books about their analysis of the White House: what happened and what didn’t happen. And I thought, ‘I want to tell my story,’” Biden said to the crowd.
Biden’s new memoir takes the reader into the White House for the four years her husband was president, from 2021 to 2025. Joe Biden took office less than a year into a global pandemic that rewrote everyone’s reality, drove up housing and grocery prices, and altered federal health policy. And it was during his presidency when the public started to actively question his health and age, which was 78 when he was sworn in.
Although President Biden began a campaign to run for office for a second term, he eventually removed himself from the running, a move for which he received criticism from both sides of the political aisle. His wife addressed some of this on Thursday.
Her husband’s health was a concern of hers, Biden said. During a presidential debate on June 27, 2024, where Biden went up against Trump on key policy issues on a live CNN stage, Joe Biden stumbled over his words. Jill said that as she watched her husband, in his black suit and bright blue tie, struggle to find the right words under the bright stage lights, she wondered if he was “having a stroke,” she said to the audience at the PAC.
Biden announced his decision to drop out of the race and endorse his vice president, Kamala Harris, on July 21, 2024, a few weeks after videos from the debate went viral online. Nearly 10 months later, he found out his private doctors missed a Stage 4 prostate cancer diagnosis, which Jill said he’s still receiving treatment for. Biden’s cancer metastasized to his bones, she said Thursday.
“You look at him and you say, ‘God, he looks great, and he seems fine.’ But I know the real story. And those of you — and I know there are many in the audience, and I’m so sorry — any of you who are dealing with family members who have cancer, or who have had cancer, may I say, I know how hard it is, and screenings are so important,” Biden said.
The Bidens have grappled with cancer, both with loved ones and through Jill Biden’s advocacy for survivors of breast cancer, throughout their adult lives. They lost their son, Beau Biden, to glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer, in 2015, when he was 46 years old.
Their other son, Hunter Biden, grappled with a different disease. He struggled with addiction to alcohol and crack cocaine, which he has since discussed publicly, including in his own memoir, “Beautiful Things.” Hunter Biden has been sober, he said, since 2019. He was also pardoned by his father for any federal crimes he could have committed between Jan. 1, 2014, to Dec. 1, 2024.
Biden said on Thursday that it was very difficult for her to write, or say, the word “addict,” when it came to her son.
“There are so many families, I think, in this country, dealing with addiction. I’m a little sorry that I didn’t address it more while I was first lady, but it was so hard to deal with, knowing what my family went through, and I didn’t really want to take my grandchildren through that again. I mean, they had so much pain and anguish from it,” she said.
Health has shown up in the Biden family’s life and work in many ways. Biden’s work with women’s healthcare was a massive part of her work as first lady. She was the only first lady to continue holding a job outside the White House in history; her advocacy for women remained throughout the four years.
On Thursday, Biden and Hostin talked about the importance of female friendships, and the endurance of those bonds through difficulties — health concerns among them. “Women have been a big part of my life, and I have lots of friends. And I think women are so good at keeping up friendships. And I have to warn you, men in the audience, you’re not so good at it,” Biden said to laughs from the audience.
“But when you get to retirement, you better think about it,” she added.
The Bidens are not on their retirement track, however. While Joe Biden has focused on his health since dropping out of the presidential race, he also announced an upcoming memoir of his own last week, titled “Promise Me, America.” In a video announcement for the book, he said it will be about “the challenge we face as a nation, about the decisions I made, and why I made them.”
Jill Biden’s own book tour is almost six weeks long, from June 8 to July 28. To the hundreds of onlookers in the MVRHS auditorium, Biden read a passage of her memoir.
“Joe’s presidency was unprecedented in so many ways,” she read. “He was sworn in with the city shrouded in barbed wire because the prior president’s refusal to concede had caused the violent January 6th insurrection. I’m sure we all remember that.”
Biden said while she began as a “reluctant participant in politics,” she “vowed to make the most of [her] platform.”
She pointed to perhaps the most visual example of her efforts as the East Wing of the White House. While she was first lady, she made that wing of the white-pillared building, which housed generations of presidents before them, a symbol of their welcoming attitude toward the public, she said.
To the crowd on Thursday, Biden described the area in detail. She adorned the East Wing of the White House with artwork from the children of active military personnel, in an educational multimedia display, with interactive exhibits that depicted both the history of American life, and modern examples that young people would recognize. It was “magical,” she wrote in her book.
“I wanted people to know that the Bidens were a military family, and how much we honored our military. And as you continued down the hall, the pictures used to be static, and they didn’t move. But as a teacher, I knew people have so many different ways of learning,” Biden said. “So I decided to change it.”
Last October, Trump ordered that the East Wing be torn down to build a 90,000-square-foot ballroom instead. The former structure was reduced to rubble, the artwork removed, and the entrance demolished.
“The East Wing is where visitors come. That’s where they enter, and it’s so special, or it was,” Biden said.
That moment, Biden said on Thursday, was one of many that’s been devastating to grapple with since her husband left office. For her, the demolition of the East Wing is symbolic of the Trump administration’s attitude toward the public, of grief, and of watching a violent act (she used the example of animals and hunting) without being able to stop it.
Editor’s note: Updated with more information about the book talk.
