Gavin Newsom memoir reveals hidden family secrets and childhood trauma

Five years ago, I knew exactly the kind of book I needed to write.

It would chronicle crises and conflicts—the pandemic, catastrophic wildfires, Trump 1.0, and his relentless flywheel. California politics Grinding public policy. It would be the book people expected me to write.

She handed over the manuscript proudly.

It was quickly rejected.

I still remember the Zoom call with Anne Godoff, the legendary editor-in-chief at Penguin Press. I assumed she would ask me to cut out the personal material, and that the first chapter on my childhood wasn’t necessary or self-indulgent. I started editing proactively in my head.

“I will withdraw Biography partsI said.

You stopped me.

“This is the part I care about,” she replied. “I didn’t know anything about you.”

What followed was not a policy book. Instead it became just a memoir, and not the kind I imagined. Subtitle: “Memoirs of Discovery.”“,” It is not designed for impact. It describes what happened to me during the writing process.

Split photo with California Governor Gavin Newson and the cover of his book A Young Man in a Hurry: A Memoir of Discovery published by Penguin Press on February 24, 2026. (Fox News)

When I started reliving my childhood, I assumed I understood it. I didn’t. I thought I had a solid understanding of my parents’ story—the dichotomy between my father’s orbit and my mother’s orbit. I didn’t.

Newsom’s stall in key presidential primary state raises further 2028 speculation

My father, William Newsom III, was an intellectual, lawyer, judge, and close friend of Gordon Getty, heir To great oil wealth. They met in high school. My grandfather, William II, was a builder, skilled politician, and friend of California Governor Pat Brown. He was sometimes called “Chief Newsom.” For my parents, this world provided access to power and privilege, but not wealth. He was a friend and sometimes an employee.

For many years, I believed that if I worked harder, responded faster and explained more clearly, I could reshape public perception. But cartoons persist because they serve a purpose. Fighting them endlessly could become a trap in itself.

I started digging, and discovered interviews my father had done with the Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley. Listening to him explain in his own voice why he left our family was enlightening. I grew up with fragments and assumptions. Hearing his account forced me to reconsider memories I thought were settled.

On my mother’s side, it was even more surprising. She never talked about her childhood. She never spoke of what my aunts later described to me as her “house of horrors.” She never talked about the gun her father put to her head when she was a little girl. She never talked about his suicide. She never talked about alcoholism, secrets, and affairs Generational trauma Which I formed.

These were not simple footnotes. They were structural beams. And I’ve never really asked about any of it.

Gavin Newsom reflects on his interview with Charlie Kirk, and the “sincerity” and “grace” of the slain governor

For most of my early life, I moved between two worlds. There was my father’s proximity to privilege and influence, to the California political machine his father helped build, to Getty’s dinner tables and his books. And then my mother’s calmer, more disciplined world, rooted in determination and self-reliance. I thought I understood this tension. I even built a character to survive.

California Governor Gavin Newsom and Senior Associate Jennifer Siebel Newsom embrace during a campaign event in support of Proposition 50 in San Francisco on November 3, 2025. (Gabriel Lurie/San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)

There’s a line in the book about gypsum crumbling that wasn’t metaphorical. It was real. You have professionally crafted, polished and textured armor. I thought it was powerful. Sometimes it was. Sometimes it was fear.

Mark Arax, who worked closely with me on the book, put it plainly: If this is a memoir, it can’t be protected. “You have to open yourself up,” he said.

This means confronting the things you’ve been avoiding. Admitting that my mother’s stern warnings about entering politics were not abstract. Acknowledge it during Remember the efforts in 2021I felt deeply humiliated. Realizing that I was sometimes so self-absorbed that I couldn’t see how my ambitions affected the people closest to me. Accepting my insecurities instead of hiding them.

Newsom attacks Trump for ‘carnival of chaos’ amid Minnesota ice shooting uproar

For many years, I believed that if I worked harder, responded faster and explained more clearly, I could reshape public perception. But cartoons persist because they serve a purpose. Fighting them endlessly could become a trap in itself.

Writing this book changed that equation for me. It didn’t make me any less ambitious or less committed. It helped me see that the people I associate with strength and courage go back to my mother. That my family challenged tradition long before I entered politics.

It reminded me of that too Tell your own story It means telling stories that include others – parents, mentors, friends, and children. This carries responsibility.

In the end, I wrote this book for my children.

Click here for more Fox News opinions

If you find an audience, I’m grateful. If it doesn’t, that’s okay. I can’t control that. What I can do is make sure of that Montana, Hunter, Brooklyn and Dutch Know more than titles. They deserve to understand the full arc – the doubts, the mistakes, the sweaty hands, the resilience, the contradictions. They deserve context beyond public life.

I can choose whether to live inside a flat version of myself or tell the more complex truth: I have been blessed with extraordinary relationships, and also shaped by hardships and struggles. I am the sum of those contradictions.

Click here to download the FOX NEWS app

This book is not an argument. It’s not a refutation. It’s an attempt to tell a fuller story — one that acknowledges the advantages I had and the fractures that shaped me.

We are all more complex than the caricatures attached to our names. Writing this memoir has forced me to confront myself – to uncover the true origin story that lies beneath the surface of us all.

Click here to read more from Govt. Gavin Newsom

Related article