Takeaways From Gavin Newsom’s Memoir 'Young Man in a Hurry'

Gavin Newsom’s new memoir, Young Man in a Hurry: A Memoir of Discovery, focuses on his upbringing, marriages and personal struggles rather than contemporary politics, according to an early copy provided to The New York Times and a report published Feb. 1, 2026. Newsom says he originally intended a book about his governorship and California’s place in the country but that his editor convinced him to change course: "We just shedded all of that," he said, and the result became a memoir that ends as he wins the governorship in 2018 and includes a tour of fire‑torn communities with President Trump.

He writes that his approach to Mr. Trump has shifted, and when recording the audiobook he laughed, "Boy, was I wrong about that!" He reflects on his 2001 marriage to Kimberly Guilfoyle, portraying it as a match of "two ambitious climbers" and less intimate than convenient; he calls their split "amicable" and describes an affair he had with his deputy chief of staff’s wife as "the worst betrayal of my life." The article notes Guilfoyle later dated Donald Trump Jr.

and is now the ambassador to Greece. The memoir also digs into his upbringing: Newsom writes about close ties to the Getty family and extraordinary childhood experiences alongside a more hardscrabble home life in which his mother worked multiple jobs and he struggled with undiagnosed dyslexia.

He describes a strained relationship with his father, saying his father rarely expressed love.

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