Biden Getting an Autobiography From The Onion (Whether He Wants It or Not)

The Onion The cover of “The President of Vice,” a new autobiography (of sorts) about Joe Biden.

“Hombre, you’ve just done Uncle Joe a real solid buying this book,” begins the foreword to a new autobiography attributed to Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. “I ain’t the kind of guy who forgets his debts. Next time we meet there’s a tallboy of ice cold Beast on me. And if you’re a lady, I know a few tricks to repay you with interest, if you catch my drift.”

This may not be the Mr. Biden the public has seen during his four years at the White House, 36 years as a Senator from Delaware or in any version of established reality or fact. Bu it is an incarnation of the vice president that is familiar to readers of The Onion, the satirical newspaper, in which he has variously been depicted wearing a ponytail to President Obama’s first inauguration; getting banned for life from Dave and Buster’s restaurants; and washing his Trans Am in the White House driveway.

Now The Onion is publishing an e-book titled “The President of Vice,” about the life of Mr. Biden and ostensibly written in his voice. This autobiography (of sorts) will be released on Friday at the Kindle Singles store of Amazon.com, promising the vice president’s insights on ! his beloved muscle car (“I still get butterflies fluttering around in my stomach every time I lock eyes with those gold snowflake rims”); religion (“God’s a pretty down-to-earth dude”) and former Senator Carol Moseley Braun (not suitable for this publication).

Asked to explain his readers’ longstanding interest in the vice president, Chad Nackers, who is sports editor of The Onion and one of its lead correspondents on the Biden beat, said of Mr. Biden in a telephone interview: “He doesn’t really hide behind this façade, whatsoever. He’s real and raw, and he’s relatable in that way. He says a lot of things that everybody else would want to say, and we would hope that someone in power would say.”

Alex Blechman, an Onion editor for whom “The President of Vice” represents his first opportunity to cover Mr. Biden, said that the book offered more depth than individual news articles.

“With articles it’s usually smaller moments in time - his latest adventure or mistae,” Mr. Blechman said. “If you go back and look at his story, you can see whole chapters of his life: his time in college; his time road-tripping to Mexico; all the hot ladies he’s hooked up with over the years.”

“I think we forget that politicians are real people,” Mr. Nackers said. He added: “Some of them are real people.”

To promote the release of “The President of Vice” (and to further blur the lines between reality and fiction), The Onion will have Joe Biden â€" the one who wrote this book, anyway - take part in an online “Ask Me Anything” session at reddit.com on Friday at 3 P.M. Eastern time.

A version of this article appeared in print on 01/18/2013, on page C2 of the NewYork edition with the headline: A Biden ‘Autobiography’ Coming From The Onion.