Against All Odds: My Life of Hardship, Fast Breaks, and Second Chances

Against All Odds is the extraordinary personal story of the man who rose up to meet the challenge of terrific opposition and become one of America's most promising new political figures—Senator Scott Brown. Brown is famous for succeeding popular Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy after Kennedy’s death in 2010—but, as he reveals in a compelling memoir reminiscent of Sarah Palin’s Going Rogue and Clarence Thomas’s My Grandfather’s Son, his experiences with struggle and achievement go back a lifetime.

Scott Brown’s greatest win did not occur on a cold January election night in 2010 when he came from behind to capture the U.S. Senate seat held by Ted Kennedy for nearly fifty years. It began when he survived a savage beating at the drunken hands of a stepfather when he was barely six years old while trying to protect his mother.

In this gripping memoir of resilience and redemption, written with clear-eyed conviction and unflinching candor, Brown recalls his difficult childhood marked by innumerable hardships. He tells the story of how basketball showed him the way out of family chaos. Later, as a law student and member of the Massachusetts National Guard, he was picked as Cosmopolitan’s “America’s Sexiest Man” and vaulted into the glamorous world of New York modeling. But the man who was once ushered into the backrooms of Studio 54 returned to Massachusetts to raise a family, and soon found an unlikely path that would lead him to national political stardom.

Poignant, heartfelt, humorous, and profound—including details from the unprecedented Senate race and victory that captured the country’s imagination—this is the story of one man’s dream and determination to fight for a better future.

“Powerful stuff. . . .This isn’t your typical memoir. It is brutally honest, difficult to read, and important.” - The Tucson Citizen

“A fresh, compelling memoir of a childhood that could have led to a miserable life, but didn’t. . . .Brown’s straightforward narrative makes for a good read.” - Louisville Courier Journal

“A[n] engaging autobiography. . . . A rags-to-riches narrative that sometimes recalls Horatio Alger. . . .The real surprise of the book, and surely among the reasons that it has soared to the top of best-seller lists nationwide, is the searing account of Brown’s childhood. . . . Lyricism and occasional symbolic richness emerge in these pages.” - The New York Review of Books

“A[n] engaging autobiography. . . . A rags-to-riches narrative that sometimes recalls Horatio Alger. . . . Lyricism and occasional symbolic richness emerge in these pages.” - The New York Review of Books

“Dramatic. . . . Poignant. . . . Scott Brown’s life could have veered horribly wrong so many times, as he amply demonstrates in his disquieting memoir. . . . A reader will get an everything’s-finally-right-with-the-world thrill from his success in life. - The Washington Post