People Noticed Something Strange With Jill Biden’s Book Debut

If only the memories of Joe Biden’s presidency could disappear this quickly.

Former First Lady Jill Biden’s memoir, “View from the East Wing,” has been mocked plenty since its June 2 release. But nothing captures the book’s collapse quite like this: After debuting at No. 1 on the New York Times Best Sellers list, it vanished from the list altogether just a few weeks later.

That is enough to make a person wonder whether something about that big debut was a little off.

As it turns out, there was at least one reason to be skeptical. And this time, The New York Times itself left the clue sitting in plain sight.

As the New York Post reported Monday, Jill Biden’s memoir debuted at No. 1 with a dagger symbol next to it. That symbol indicates bulk purchases.

Take a second to appreciate the irony. The New York Times, the same institution that did everything it could to avoid dealing honestly with Joe Biden’s obvious decline for as long as possible, ended up flagging the suspicious part of Jill Biden’s book success itself.

To be fair, bulk purchases are common with celebrity authors and major book tours. Jill Biden announced just such a tour on Facebook in April. Publicist Lauren Cobello, founder of Leverage with Media PR, told the Post that “it’s almost impossible to not have bulk orders” when celebrities are involved, since bookstores hosting author events often buy hundreds of copies ahead of time.

Fine. That may explain how the book got a strong opening.

But it also raises an obvious question: How much of that “best seller” status reflected genuine public demand, and how much of it came from the machinery built around selling the book?

Once that initial wave passed, the book’s momentum collapsed. According to the New York Post, it fell to No. 3 in its second week. On the latest list, dated July 5, it was gone entirely.