Review: 107 Days by Kamala Harris
Review: 107 Days by Kamala Harris
Kamala Harris’s 107 Days is a memoir of duration more than detail. Spanning the exact length of her presidential campaign—one hundred and seven days—it reads as both political reflection and linguistic experiment. There is no narrative arc. There is only tone.
Structured as a series of thematic meditations, 107 Days presents a candidate not so much remembered as reinterpreted, filtered through phrases, impressions, and the faint hum of self-congratulation.
Chapter One: Becoming Seen
Harris begins in Oakland, or Montreal, or both, situating herself in what she calls “a cradle of contradictions and potential.” Her mother, a cancer researcher, is described in reverent terms. Her father is cited briefly for context, then quickly replaced by Maria Elena, the Trinidadian nanny who taught her “the patience of posture.”
The political pivot comes quickly. Harris recalls her appointments to the California Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board and Medical Assistance Commission—both while dating then–Speaker Willie Brown—not as favoritism, but as “accelerated recognition of latent aptitude.”
“There are moments,” she writes, “when a woman is chosen to serve because she is ready. And sometimes, readiness is noticed across a table set for two.”
The phrase “unburdened by what has been” appears for the first time here. It returns twice more before the chapter closes—once following a description of her first press conference, and again immediately after a blank line, with no context.
Chapter Two: Grace Through Enforcement
This chapter covers Harris’s prosecutorial career, in which she characterizes incarceration as a form of civic care. Her truancy policy—prosecuting parents for their children’s school absences—is reframed as “restorative guidance through legal expectation.”
“To love a community,” she writes, “is to hold it accountable before it asks why.”
She addresses the large number of marijuana-related convictions under her office’s tenure:
“We did not target. We processed. And justice, when processed well, is scalable.”
On her office’s efforts to block early releases of low-level offenders due to the need for prison labor, Harris offers:
“Compassion must coexist with continuity. Institutions require hands.”
The phrase “unburdened by what has been” appears five more times. Once on a mug. Once in a grant proposal. Once as the title of a slideshow presentation on bail reform.
Chapter Three: The Mirror I Carry
Identity takes center stage in this chapter. Harris writes:
“I am Black. I am Indian. I am Jamaican. I am American. I am the convergence of hyphenated trajectories.”
She recalls identifying as Indian-American during her early campaigns, African-American during her presidential bid, and simply “a daughter of immigrants” when her polling collapsed in Iowa. She insists this was never strategic, only layered.
“To be many things,” she writes, “is to be honest about how others need to see you.”
The phrase “unburdened by what has been” appears nine times. Once in italics. Once printed vertically down the side of a photo caption. Once immediately after a paragraph ends with “race is resonance.”
The chapter concludes with a single, quiet line:
“Love is complex. Especially when the nanny knows too much. But that’s Doug’s story.”
No further detail is given.
Chapter Five: I Forgot What Number Comes After 3
There is no Chapter Four.
Chapter Five opens with the sentence:
“I forgot what number comes after 3.”
It is centered. Bolded. And completely unaddressed.
Here, Harris explores her role as the Biden administration’s “border czar.” She never visited the southern border, but insists this decision was deliberate:
“Proximity is not presence. Presence is not performance. I visited the border with my absence.”
She outlines her “root cause” strategy:
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Climate memory
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Water destabilization
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Agricultural trauma
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Seasonal influence
She includes a transcript of a speech delivered in Guatemala, in which she distributed reusable bags with the slogan “Do Not Come” screen-printed in lowercase Comic Sans.
“They received it not as instruction,” she writes, “but as invitation to reflect.”
“Unburdened by what has been” appears seven more times. Once handwritten on a Post-it note. Once as the closing line of a diplomatic cable. Once repeated twice in the same sentence.
Chapter Six: Democracy as Whisper
In Chapter Six, Harris reflects on her communication style—what she describes as “intentional resonance through restrained volume.”
She recalls her time on the campaign trail, during which she gave speeches that were often described as “confusing,” “unfinished,” or “heavily reliant on nouns.” To Harris, this criticism misses the point entirely.
“A message doesn’t have to arrive to be heard,” she writes. “Sometimes, it only needs to hover.”
She revisits her most quoted lines, including the now-iconic “That little girl was me,” and the lesser-known “America is a place where the thing that has never been is always still happening again.”
Regarding the frequent viral clips of her nervous laughter during public appearances, Harris offers a diagnosis:
“Laughter is a leadership tool. It releases tension while reaffirming distance.”
One anecdote recounts a donor dinner in Des Moines where she described the Constitution as “a living document, but also a tired one—like a retired teacher who still volunteers but no longer wears a watch.”
The phrase “unburdened by what has been” appears eight more times—twice in the same sentence, once followed by a comma, a semicolon, and the word “still.”
Chapter Seven: The Glass I Carry
In this closing chapter, Harris turns inward—again—but this time with a glass in hand.
“Some people journal. Some people meditate. I sip.”
What follows is less an epilogue than a long-form justification for what she calls “emotional hydration.” She writes fondly of the quiet evenings after campaign events, when she'd “decompress with a small pour that sometimes grew.”
She recalls debate prep with staff:
“The questions were tough. The expectations were high. The Chardonnay was room temperature.”
There are multiple references to “the calming properties of vineyard-based insight,” which she claims helped shape her rhetorical style.
“A good vintage smooths the edges. A better one dissolves them entirely.”
She describes rosé as “affirming,” Zinfandel as “assertive,” and boxed wine as “efficient.” A brief footnote clarifies that boxed wine was for the policy team—not her, “except that one time.”
“Unburdened by what has been” appears ten more times. Once to describe a stemless glass. Once scrawled in lipstick on a campaign van window. Once as part of a memory she “can’t fully place, but know happened near a hotel ice machine.”
She ends the chapter—unintentionally, it seems—with this paragraph:
“I believe in America. I believe in tasting notes. I believe in pacing. I believe in... what was I saying? Anyway. To more.”
There is no formal goodbye. Just a smudge where punctuation should be.