Who is Jerry Brown? New book views California governor’s life through spiritual lens

“Who is Jerry Brown?” asked Jacques Barzaghi, the Sphinx-like Frenchman who spent three decades as Brown’s closest friend and most trusted advisor.

I called him to verify a detail in “Man of Tomorrow: The Relentless Life of Jerry Brown,” Jim Newton’s new biography of California’s elder statesman. Barzaghi first demanded that I define “Jerry Brown.” He then proceeded to dismiss each of my attempts.

Brown is hard to pin down. In the late 1970s his own father, Gov. Pat Brown, told journalist Orville Schell: “Sometimes I’m not sure I really know Jerry.” The 10 or so books about him provide elliptical glimpses of a man for whom constant, unpredictable zig-zags seem both natural instinct and deliberate strategy.

When I started working for Brown at Oakland City Hall in 2003, I made a point of reading many of them. So, I was excited to receive this new installment. It covers some periods during which I worked closely with Brown, who always understood the power of mystique and evaded personal questions. For Newton, however, he apparently stopped moving long enough to proffer an explanation for his life.

Most Californians know the basics: A governor’s son seeks impoverished contemplation in the Jesuit seminary, then breaks faith, enters politics, dates Linda Ronstadt and runs for president. Later, he studies Zen Buddhism in Japan and visits Mother Teresa in an unusual orbit back toward politics. Resurrected as Oakland mayor, he goes on to save a struggling California — temporarily.

Newton, a veteran Los Angeles Times newsman, views Brown through the twin lenses of Catholicism and Zen. His book depicts Brown as a seeker on a journey of reconciliation. Even Brown’s decision to trade seminary life for the cafés of Beatnik North Beach becomes part of his vision quest. Brown told Newton he was “still looking for beatitude” when he abandoned his vows. But as the 60s unfolded, Brown eschewed the zeitgeist.

Free love, acid and revolution could not distract from his single-minded focus. What was Brown’s focus? Newton depicts it as one long spiritual quest, with politics fitting neatly into a Zen Jesuit framework. Publishers Weekly dismissed this framing as “hagiography,” but that seems harsh.

What besides an extreme mixture of privilege, ego and spiritual thirst could propel a character like Brown to California’s governorship at 36? What, if not an intense search for meaning, explains his relentless drive? Writing of Brown’s concern for the environment, for example, Newton says: “For Brown, spiritual inquiry led to immersion in nature, to deep contemplation of its disinterested laws and the consequences that befall those who ignore or defy them.”

Analyzing Brown’s ability to shift with the political winds, Newton writes: “Brown was not balancing for the sake of balance: he was practicing something closer to what the Jesuits call discernment, exploring ideas by looking at them individually and assessing their moral foundation, their appeal to what Jesuits sometimes call a ‘reasoning heart.’”

Perhaps, but the Brown I knew channeled Machiavelli and Sun Tzu more than the saints. He pored over polls, not Psalms. I do not say this to diminish Brown, who taught me a lot. But Jerry’s main religion was always politics, a pursuit to which he brought both a missionary zeal and a boundless faith — mostly in himself — to win progress.

Before I worked for him, I imagined him as a calm presence guided by lofty Buddhist principles — the meditative man I’d seen on the cover of Shambhala Sun magazine. But the Jerry I came to know reminded me more of the Tasmanian Devil cartoon — a self-generated (and irascible) tornado of chaos, energy and political brilliance. Brown may now ascribe his acts to philosophical or religious motives, but it all seemed decidedly more earthly in the stark reality, peppered with cuss words, behind the scenes. And the need to win elections and maintain power resulted in some curious moral decisions along the way.

For example, Brown morphed into a “crime fighter” Oakland mayor to get himself elected attorney general. But later, as governor, he presided over unprecedented prison reforms. He decried humankind’s apathy toward catastrophic climate change. But he also blessed environmentally-destructive fracking and gladly accepted money from the fossil fuel industry (though he had previously denounced political contributions as “bribes”). He maintained a lifelong opposition to the death penalty, but at the height of his own power — with nothing to lose — he left it to Gavin Newsom to effectively abolish it.

Of course, Brown also achieved things that others considered impossible. Conventional opinion doubted him at every step of the way, but he remained steps ahead. He proved California governable, at least momentarily, leaving behind a wise surplus and a prescient warning. Posterity may relegate him to footnotes, but he towered over most of his contemporaries.

How did this disorganized genius become one of the most effective California politicians in history? How does Brown reconcile so many opposites? He appears to be saving his full testament for St. Peter.

How unfortunate. Brown is at his most interesting off-camera, sipping bourbon, incautiously explaining the dynamics, strategies and tactics that drive politics. In this mode — full politician — he reveals his most interesting contradiction: a studied balance of cynicism and idealism.

Earlier books exposed his profane edges, but Newton captures his latest incarnation as the sage of Colusa — rooted on his family ranch, removed from the political hustle, reciting ancient quips.

Brown’s nostalgia for the earnest inquiry of his early days is understandable, as is his urgent appreciation of the sacred. His spirituality, like his frugality, is authentic. At the same time, this wily politician knows the power of symbols to simplify complexity (think: blue Plymouth).

What we really need from him, however, is a blunt encyclical on how to move this suffering world toward all possible progress.

Who is Jerry Brown? We still don’t have the definitive answer, but he still has some time.

“Man of Tomorrow: The Relentless Life of Jerry Brown” by Jim Newton. Little, Brown and Company. 448 pages, $30.

This story was originally published May 22, 2020 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Who is Jerry Brown? New book views California governor’s life through spiritual lens."