In November, two DC-related memoirs debuted on the same day with similar titles: Unfettered by Pennsylvania senator John Fetterman and Unscripted by actor Cheryl Hines, who is married to HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. So what else do these books have in common? Unfettered Grievance s: Not one but two chapters in Unfettered are devoted to Fetterman’s beef with Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro. An abridged list of additional enemies includes Joe Manchin, Conor Lamb, Malcolm Kenyatta, Dasha Burns, and the New York Times. “I have been told I have a persecution complex,” he writes, “but that’s the way I am.” Long-suffering Wives: In italicized passages written in her own voice, Gisele Fetterman describes how her marriage–amid her husband’s depression and high-stress career–grew strained to the degree that it’s a “miracle” they’re still together. “I don’t like politics,” she writes. “I don’t enjoy it. It’s not a sacrifice I wanted to make.” Washington Residences: In DC, Fetterman rented a windowless basement apartment that one of his staffers dubbed “the Murder Den.” It was furnished, according to Unfettered, with a “cheap, thin mattress from Amazon” and one shower curtain. In the pantry, he kept only dried seaweed. Eyebrow-raising Passages: Fetterman writes, “I’ve drunk deeply of the venom of both the left and the right. And as a connoisseur, I can confirm that the most poisonous, the bitterest, is from the far left. The right tells me I suck and calls me names. The far left calls for my death.” Sleights of Hand: Fetterman, whose staunch support of Israel has alienated him from the Democratic base, mentions that the “war in Gaza has been a humanitarian disaster.” It’s cleverly phrased to obscure Israel’s role. Unscripted Grievances: While Hines wishes the other Kennedys had been nicer, her fiercest ire seems reserved for Bradley Whitford, who played Josh on The West Wing and once accused her on X of enabling her “lunatic husband.” But she claims that reading the comments was “oddly healing,” since many people took her side. Long-suffering Wives: Hines describes multiple moments when her marriage seemed nearly to collapse due to her husband’s anti-vax crusade, his alleged affair with a reporter, and his endorsement of Trump: “I had never had any desire to be part of a political conversation–or to be married to a polarizing public figure,” she writes. Washington Residences: Hines’s life in Washington isn’t discussed in Unscripted, but last year, she and Kennedy bought a ritzy townhouse in Georgetown for $4.4 million. Apparently, it’s nearly 5,000 square feet with multiple fireplaces, a chef’s kitchen, and an outdoor terrace. Eyebrow-raising Passages: Hines describes Kennedy outside their home, “shirtless, calling the wild ravens he’d trained to come to him. He’d make a loud caw, caw type sound as he threw out bits of meat, then he’d sit still as they came right up to eat out of his hand.” Sleights of Hand: Of her husband’s embrace of Trump, Hines writes that Kennedy simply wanted to “continue his leadership in a new health movement by joining forces with President Trump in a bipartisan effort”–a fairly innocuous spin on endorsing the President’s agenda. This article appears in the January 2026 issue of Washingtonian.The post John Fetterman vs. Cheryl Hines: We Actually Read Their Meh Books first appeared on Washingtonian. ...read more read less