Four key moments from Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar's new memoir

Amy Klobuchar has been asked a few times if the title of her new book — "The Joy of Politics" — is sarcastic.

The 362-page memoir, released by St. Martin's Press on Tuesday, details a turbulent period in the life of Minnesota's senior senator: her ultimately unsuccessful bid for president, her father's death from Alzheimer's, her husband's hospitalization with COVID-19 and her own breast cancer diagnosis and treatment. She also had a front-row seat to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol and the surreal realities of governing during a global pandemic.

"While the story is my story, it also includes the stories of a lot of other people who went through so much over the last few years and had setbacks," Klobuchar said in an interview. "Each thing is a setback, but there's joy in the comeback."

In her third book since being elected to the U.S. Senate, Klobuchar takes the reader through the last several years from her perspective, often trying to find joy in moments that others might consider joyless.

Klobuchar, a Biden backer, isn't running for president again in 2024 — so why publish a breezy, personal memoir now? Coming out of the pandemic, she said it's helpful to reflect on the parts that "really sucked" and take lessons away from the experience. Here are four key moments from her new book:

Breast cancer diagnosis

Klobuchar publicly revealed her breast cancer diagnosis in September 2021. By then she'd already had surgery and a round of radiation treatment. Her book goes deeper into what she was going through during that time, which coincided with her father's decline and eventual death.

Klobuchar describes the moment when a constituent spotted her on the pre-op bed at Mayo Clinic, dressed in a hospital gown covering a pen-drawn target on her breast. She used the opportunity to remind an immobile Klobuchar of the ongoing conflict in Burma. Klobuchar said she would look into it but wasn't allowed to have her cellphone.

"As they put me under the anesthesia," Klobuchar wrote, "I drifted away ... to the obsessive mantra, 'Don't forget Burma. Don't forget Burma.' "

Ending her campaign for president

She famously launched her campaign for president during a snowstorm at Boom Island Park, and it was at the 2020 Bloody Sunday march in Selma that Klobuchar decided to end her presidential bid.

The next day she announced it publicly on a stage in Dallas alongside Joe Biden, whom she was now backing for president. Before giving her speech, Klobuchar and her family met the Bidens behind the backstage when she realized her longtime campaign photographer, Cameron Smith, was crying behind the lens of her camera. Biden and Klobuchar gave her a hug.

"I thought, I'm going to let Cam be my alter ego tonight. She can cry for me," Klobuchar wrote.

The pandemic

No one had an easy time during the pandemic, and Klobuchar was no exception. Her husband, John Bessler, contracted COVID in the early days and was eventually hospitalized for a week and put on oxygen. Her 92-year-old father, longtime Star Tribune columnist Jim Klobuchar, caught the virus as well but managed to pull through.

There were also surreal moments: Klobuchar conducted every one of her interviews to be Biden's running mate through screens, she was barefoot and virtual for her prime-time speech at the Democratic National Convention and she helped plan a socially distanced inaugural for Biden.

While Bessler was recovering from COVID, fellow Minnesota Sen. Tina Smith let Klobuchar stay in her apartment. "I vowed to leave it just as I found it," she wrote. "Within four days of moving in I realized I had charged three movies to her streaming accounts, worn her mittens and scarves, tried on her shoes and cleared out her refrigerator of every food item that hadn't passed its expiration date."

The insurrection at the U.S. Capitol

As the soon-to-be chair of the Senate Rules Committee, Klobuchar had a central role in the certification of Biden's victory when rioters breached the Capitol building. She also recounted the lighter moments in her new book. At one point, she scolded an unnamed senator for posting a selfie identifying their secure location. After many hours had gone by, the senators were getting hungry. Klobuchar realized they had a safe path to get to the cafeteria, so she directed staff to unlock the doors and wheel back several trays of sandwiches and salads from the refrigerators.

Pleased, one senator asked Klobuchar how she'd gotten such a great selection of items. "You don't want to know," she wrote.