An extraordinary life, but too much self-help

Contrary to the headlines, The Next Day is neither a divorce memoir nor a riposte. Melinda French Gates — who's gone by a double-barrel since leaving her ex-husband, Bill Gates, in 2021 — has decided to write something of a memoir/self-help hybrid.

- William Hosie

The Next Day following 2019's clunkily titled The Moment Of Lift - is about "periods of transition" which she calls "formative": leaving home for college, becoming a parent, losing a best friend and (yes) ending a marriage. It follows Gates's memoir, Source Code - the first of three - exploring his origin story and published in February.

Her divorce from the Microsoft founder is mentioned sparingly. French Gates doesn't bring up Jeffrey Epstein, whose business dealings with her ex-husband played a key role in their unravelling. She nods only very briefly to his infidelities. Mostly, it seems, she thinks of him as co-parent: someone she used to love and with whom she's built a wonderful family. She seems neither acrimonious nor nostalgic. You can't help but feel, though, that she's playing her cards close to her chest.