Biden announces memoir 'Promise Me, America' for 17 November release, weeks after midterms

Former US president Joe Biden announced on Wednesday that his memoir, Promise Me, America, will be published on 17 November 2026, two weeks after the midterm elections in which Democrats hope to regain control of Congress. The timing has unsettled some in his party, who would prefer the autumn campaign remain focused on Donald Trump rather than reopen the divisions of 2024.

In a video posted to social media, Biden, now 83, said he has been spending time with his family and receiving treatment for cancer. "I've been getting treatment, and it's been going really well," he said. The diagnosis, an aggressive, hormone-sensitive form of prostate cancer that had spread to his bones, was disclosed in May 2025.

What the book will cover

The memoir will examine challenges from the economy to the political turmoil surrounding his unsuccessful effort to seek a second term. Biden listed the Covid-19 pandemic, rebuilding the economy, "restoring our democracy after the attack on January 6", ending the war in Afghanistan, strengthening NATO and supporting Ukraine as subjects.

It's about why I chose to run for reelection — and why I chose to step aside.

Per publisher Little, Brown and Company, the book runs 448 pages and, for the first time, reveals "the deeply agonising calculation behind his decision in the summer of 2024 to step aside from the presidential race and to put his party and the nation before his personal ambitions." Financial terms were not disclosed, although presidential memoirs typically command deals of at least seven figures.

Health and the 2024 debate

The book arrives as Democratic memoirs have already begun offering conflicting accounts of the 2024 election's end. Jill Biden, in her memoir View from the East Wing published in June, described her husband during the June 2024 debate against Trump as "so weak and disoriented" that she "feared he was having a stroke." She wrote that the White House's initial explanation of a cold was insufficient and that "a lot of people never got over it."

The biggest lesson for us, I think, was that if you don't explain something well enough then the question won't go away.

Kamala Harris, in her book 107 Days, was more critical, describing the party's deference to Biden and his family as "recklessness" and arguing that the decision to seek reelection should never have been treated as a purely personal choice.

A crowded book cycle

Biden's title echoes his 2017 memoir, Promise Me, Dad, which centred on the death of his son Beau Biden from brain cancer. The former president will turn 84 on 20 November, three days after publication. He had previously suggested the book could appear before the midterms, telling a crowd at one of his wife's book-tour stops that it would be released in September, a remark that caused consternation among Democrats.

Promise Me, America is about the challenges we faced as a nation. It's about the decisions I made and why I made them. Most of all, it's about my faith in the promise of America.

Biden has largely stayed out of public view since leaving office nearly 18 months ago, while his son Hunter Biden has emerged as an energetic defender of the family legacy on social media and in podcast appearances.

Key milestones ahead of publication

The memoir's release date frames a political calendar that begins with the midterm elections in early November 2026, followed by the book launch on 17 November and Biden's 84th birthday three days later.