ALBANY – On a Friday afternoon last summer, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo convened his closest aides and advisers at the Executive Mansion for a project that would take up much of their weekend.
At that time, with the state five months into the coronavirus pandemic, it was not an unusual request: Cuomo's inner circle frequently met at the Albany mansion, his official residence, to prepare for a press conference or work on the latest COVID-related issue that had cropped up.
This was no ordinary brainstorm session.
When they arrived, Cuomo's senior aides were greeted with printed-out copies of a manuscript that would become the governor's best-selling book that fall,