We Were Eight Years in Power is an essay collection, but the presence of Coates’s eight introductory notes and frequent use of autobiographical detail in his writing make Coates a dynamic figure in the book. Over the eight years of the Obama presidency, Coates evolves from struggling writer to Black public intellectual and respected writer.

Early in the collection, Coates presents himself as the child of parents who embraced Black nationalism and who insisted that he learn to stand up for himself as he confronted bullies in West Baltimore. Coates later represents himself as a budding writer who reveled in the defiant and irreverent voices of hip-hop artists of the 1980s. Coates spent some time as a student at Howard University, where he was exposed to formal study of Black writers such as James Baldwin. These early experiences were pivotal in shaping Coates into a person and artist who embraced a pessimistic view of America’s racial politics, who valued his autonomy, and who understood himself to be part of an artistic tradition that required skillful, beautiful writing created in the service of one’s vision and the needs of the Black community.

From 2008 to 2015, Coates’s self-representation is one of a man who had a steep ascent that Obama’s presidency accelerated.