Justin Trudeau has been news since conception. Long before being elected a member of Canada’s parliament—and decades before he rose to his current leadership of the Liberal Party—front pages trumpeted his birth, on Christmas Day 1971. His original crib: 24 Sussex Drive, the official Canadian state residence, in Ottawa. His parents: then prime minister Pierre Trudeau and his flower-child bride, Margaret.

Dad was one of the 20th century’s great characters. A scholar turned politician, he famously slid down banisters, did pirouettes in the presence of the Queen, and dated Barbra Streisand when he was a bachelor P.M. Mom, meanwhile, was nothing short of capricious: she sewed her own wedding dress, “ran away” with the Rolling Stones, dated Jack Nicholson, hobnobbed with Andy Warhol, and was generally part of the louche jet set. And now the son of these two—the closest thing Canada has to J.F.K. Jr.—is positioning himself as the next prime minister.

A onetime high-school teacher and snowboarding instructor, Justin gave off the aura of a political agnostic for many years, until his father’s death, in 2000. He delivered the eulogy at the grand memorial service in Montreal. By the time it was done—Justin concluding tearfully, *“Je t’aime, Papa”—*a star had been born. Once he embarked on his political career, he made rapid strides within his party. Next year’s election will be a stark tug-of-war between the avuncular incumbent, Conservative Stephen Harper, and Trudeau, the Gen X spark plug. Taking a page out of the Obama playbook this month, Trudeau is releasing a memoir, Common Ground, published by HarperCollins.

The dynastic theme persists. Today, Trudeau (who has three children of his own with his wife, Sophie) says his greatest inheritance is from his father: “The principle at the core of my father’s legacy, and of my own values, is fairness.”