Just weeks after he abandoned his long-shot bid for the Republican presidential nomination, former Vice President Mike Pence’s second book is set to hit the shelves.
The Columbus native’s second title, “Go Home for Dinner: Advice on How Faith Makes a Family and Family Makes a Life,” will be released Tuesday. It fulfills a two-book deal Pence signed with New York publisher Simon & Schuster after he left the White House in January 2021. CNN estimated at the time Pence’s book deal was announced that it was worth $3 million to $4 million.
Written with daughter Charlotte Pence Bond, the new book is a departure from Pence’s first title, “So Help Me God.” That autobiographical volume chronicled Pence’s life from his upbringing in Columbus to his political rise as an Indiana congressman and governor, through the final, tumultuous days of the Trump administration.
In the book’s final chapter, Pence Bond writes most extensively about a fateful day for the former vice president, his family and the nation during that time — Jan. 6, 2021.
The day of the insurrection on Capitol Hill that interrupted her father’s duty as vice president — administering the counting of electoral votes certifying Joe Biden’s election as president — the family had gathered together on what they knew would be a difficult day. Pence’s boss, then-President Donald Trump, had publicly urged his vice president not to certify the vote.
Among Trump’s legal woes, he faces multiple federal criminal charges for his actions leading up to the events of Jan. 6, when a violent mob attacked police and forced its way into the Capitol, disrupting the usually routine electoral vote certification.
“As we drove to the Capitol, Dad looked outside the Secret Service limo and saw Trump supporters walking in groups, beginning to gather downtown. They cheered our motorcade, clearly thinking that he was about to do something he was not — and had made clear to the president he could not.
“‘They’re going to be so disappointed,’ I heard him say softly as he looked out the window,” Pence Bond writes of her father.
Pence’s daughter then describes the pandemonium that ensued after it became clear that the vice president intended to live up to his duty and certify the results of the 2020 election, which Trump lost.
After the mob pushed its way inside the Capitol, many famously chanting “Hang Mike Pence!,” Pence Bond details how her mother and father and members of the vice president’s staff were moved to a secure location within the Capitol — a loading dock.
“As the situation escalated, I made a comment about the president that I quickly regretted,” Pence Bond writes. “‘It’s unforgivable,’ I said.
“Mom gave me a look and corrected me, rightfully telling me that I was in the wrong. She was right. My faith commands me to forgive others.
“… In the days after January 6, Dad would continue to do the right thing. He refused to let politics prevail over decency and duty,” instead turning to lessons of faith and family: “… Go together, stand together — and when the mob is at the door — stay,” Pence Bond concludes.
According to the publisher, Pence’s book takes its title from a question he was commonly asked earlier in his career.
“When Mike Pence was a young politician, reporters used to ask him: ‘where do you see yourself in five, 10 years?’ Without fail, the former vice president would reply, ‘home for dinner’,” Simon & Schuster said in a press release.
“In short chapters, Pence walks us through the principles that he and his wife, Karen, developed to raise their family,” the publisher’s press release said. “He gives credit to his parents for setting the precedent of gathering around the dinner table and for being attentive listeners. He discusses how he and Karen prioritized their relationship, even when they struggled professionally through two failed congressional races and personally with infertility.
“… The Pence family is far from perfect, but the values portrayed in this book have helped them remain together — and thrive — through their extraordinary journey in public service,” the publisher says.
The 244-page, $30 hardback book contains 47 chapters, each beginning with a Bible verse. The book opens with a preface from Pence, who now lives in Zionsville, that focuses faith and family.
“I’m going to begin with a secret: our culture tells us that ‘you can have it all,’ but you can’t — not without somebody paying the price,” Pence writes.
“… I often tell people that if God did not exist, it would be nonsensical to give up your productive time for your family, because it would set you back professionally. But when you make God’s priorities your priorities, when you trust Him that family and serving Him are the most important things in life, He will bless you in unexpected ways.
“… Some say that America should come first, but I believe that God should come first, then the family, then America,” the former vice president writes.
Pence prescribes being home for dinner and intentionally prioritizing a family led by Christian faith as a foundation for a successful life that he says he has seen time and again in his family and others.
“This lesson has its roots in my childhood. My parents raised four boys and two girls in a little house in the Everroad Park West neighborhood of Columbus, Indiana,” he writes, noting the children were expected to be at the dinner table when called.
He later writes that being home for dinner often meant sacrifices. For instance, he recalls a time as a congressman when he turned down a White House meeting with then-President George W. Bush in favor of his daughter Charlotte’s violin recital.
“It’s easy to cave when money, influence, or people pleasing — three things that are abundant in Congress — is on the line,” Pence writes. “But whenever anyone questioned my decision, I repeated a mantra often heard around the Pence campaign and congressional office. I simply said, ‘I would rather lose an election than lose my family.’”
