A NO-HOLDS-BARRED VIEW

BOOKS: THE TRUMP PRESIDENCY

- By D.B. Venkatesh Varma

NEVER GIVE AN INCH: Fighting for the America I Love

by Mike Pompeo

HARPERCOLLINS ₹1,199; 464 pages

It's an American ritual, essential but with no guarantee of success: students write essays for college admission and politicians write autobiographies to signal presidential ambition. And so, Mike Pompeo, former US President Donald Trump's Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director and Secretary of State, has written his book Never Give an Inch: Fighting for the America I Love.

It is a story in Pompeo's telling of high achievement, of a Kansas Boy graduating first in class from West Point, Harvard Law School and being the longest-surviving senior member of the Trump administration, which he puts down to his selfless devotion to Trump. His 'lick-up-and-kickdown' approach endeared him to Trump, who called him 'My Mike'. The cover of this 843-page biography has a much slimmed-down version of Pompeo with an uncanny resemblance to a vegan diet-induced Bill Clinton a decade after he left the presidency.