An overblown (and this is but the first volume, ending with the crushing defeat of Bush I), often out of tune, but oddly fascinating account of William Jefferson Clinton’s pre–White House life and career.
Hamilton, a British biographer (JFK: Reckless Youth, 1992, etc.) writing for a British audience (whence words like “podgy” and “gramophone”), seems uncertain about whether to scorn Billy Blythe (for so Clinton was born) as colonial white trash or to admire him for his many and evident gifts, and so his long narrative lurches between the poles of condemnation and approbation. Hamilton is also maddeningly given to sweeping psychologizing: young Bill Clinton, as he became along about August 1962 with his bohemian mother’s remarriage, was drawn to politics out of psychic necessity, born of the need to please and be loved, maybe to prove the schoolyard bullies wrong; he was shaped in equal measure by the Bible-solid town of Hope and the iniquitous den of Warm Springs; and so on. As grudging in his praise as Sidney Blumenthal is lavish, Hamilton nonetheless gives Clinton high marks for hard work, intellectual brilliance, mastery of political skills, and, well, persistence in overcoming, through charm or plain steamrolling, just about anyone who stood in his path. Along the way, Hamilton turns in any number of juicy, telling anecdotes: while at Oxford, for instance, Clinton offers his telephone number to the visiting firebrand Germaine Greer, “in case you ever decide to give bourgeois men another chance.” Hamilton also offers a refreshing outsider’s perspective on several issues that have divided American commentators, wisely observing that almost no politician of Clinton’s generation has clean hands on the matter of Vietnam (though he chides Clinton for not having lived up to his ROTC contract) and hinting that Clinton’s sexual drive should not particularly bother grownups (though the endless lying should). Yet Hamilton also scoops up innuendo, mostly on matters sexual, that will make serious students of the Clinton era cringe.
Still, for the moment it’s the most complete life yet of the man, and though it will at turns puzzle both fans and detractors of Clinton and his legacy, it’s well worth reading for all concerned.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2003
ISBN: 0-375-50610-1
Page Count: 736
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2003
Categories: GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | POLITICAL & ROYALTY
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Doyle offers another lucid, inspiring chronicle of female empowerment and the rewards of self-awareness and renewal.
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More life reflections from the bestselling author on themes of societal captivity and the catharsis of personal freedom.
In her third book, Doyle (Love Warrior, 2016, etc.) begins with a life-changing event. “Four years ago,” she writes, “married to the father of my three children, I fell in love with a woman.” That woman, Abby Wambach, would become her wife. Emblematically arranged into three sections—“Caged,” “Keys,” “Freedom”—the narrative offers, among other elements, vignettes about the soulful author’s girlhood, when she was bulimic and felt like a zoo animal, a “caged girl made for wide-open skies.” She followed the path that seemed right and appropriate based on her Catholic upbringing and adolescent conditioning. After a downward spiral into “drinking, drugging, and purging,” Doyle found sobriety and the authentic self she’d been suppressing. Still, there was trouble: Straining an already troubled marriage was her husband’s infidelity, which eventually led to life-altering choices and the discovery of a love she’d never experienced before. Throughout the book, Doyle remains open and candid, whether she’s admitting to rigging a high school homecoming court election or denouncing the doting perfectionism of “cream cheese parenting,” which is about “giving your children the best of everything.” The author’s fears and concerns are often mirrored by real-world issues: gender roles and bias, white privilege, racism, and religion-fueled homophobia and hypocrisy. Some stories merely skim the surface of larger issues, but Doyle revisits them in later sections and digs deeper, using friends and familial references to personify their impact on her life, both past and present. Shorter pieces, some only a page in length, manage to effectively translate an emotional gut punch, as when Doyle’s therapist called her blooming extramarital lesbian love a “dangerous distraction.” Ultimately, the narrative is an in-depth look at a courageous woman eager to share the wealth of her experiences by embracing vulnerability and reclaiming her inner strength and resiliency.
Doyle offers another lucid, inspiring chronicle of female empowerment and the rewards of self-awareness and renewal.Pub Date: March 10, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-0125-8
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
Categories: GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | SELF-HELP
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SEEN & HEARD
The authors have created a sort of anti-Book of Virtues in this encyclopedic compendium of the ways and means of power.
Everyone wants power and everyone is in a constant duplicitous game to gain more power at the expense of others, according to Greene, a screenwriter and former editor at Esquire (Elffers, a book packager, designed the volume, with its attractive marginalia). We live today as courtiers once did in royal courts: we must appear civil while attempting to crush all those around us. This power game can be played well or poorly, and in these 48 laws culled from the history and wisdom of the world’s greatest power players are the rules that must be followed to win. These laws boil down to being as ruthless, selfish, manipulative, and deceitful as possible. Each law, however, gets its own chapter: “Conceal Your Intentions,” “Always Say Less Than Necessary,” “Pose as a Friend, Work as a Spy,” and so on. Each chapter is conveniently broken down into sections on what happened to those who transgressed or observed the particular law, the key elements in this law, and ways to defensively reverse this law when it’s used against you. Quotations in the margins amplify the lesson being taught. While compelling in the way an auto accident might be, the book is simply nonsense. Rules often contradict each other. We are told, for instance, to “be conspicuous at all cost,” then told to “behave like others.” More seriously, Greene never really defines “power,” and he merely asserts, rather than offers evidence for, the Hobbesian world of all against all in which he insists we live. The world may be like this at times, but often it isn’t. To ask why this is so would be a far more useful project.
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-670-88146-5
Page Count: 430
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1998
Categories: GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | PHILOSOPHY & RELIGION | PSYCHOLOGY | HISTORICAL & MILITARY
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