Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Book That Should Be Republished, November 23, 2000
By A Customer
Intriguing,informative and positive-Reading this first autobiography by Gennifer Flowers was an amazing journey into the woman's life,thoughts and,so to speak,"inner world". Because it not only describes her most famous one-time lover,Bill Clinton's attractive but complicated personality from all angles as it is supposed to,but also reveals her insightful observations on every single thing that happened to her life,regardless of whether it was private or public,and her ability to express them to the fullest.I was struck as I read one page after another,especially by her excellent sense of humor which remains unwavering both in times of euphoria and in times of trouble and ordeal,even at the moment when her life itself seems to be in jeopardy because of the relationship with Clinton. Yes.Although completely betrayed by none other than her caring but cunning and powerful lover,she never flinches,and after going through so much pain caused by the man,she finally overcomes it with that remarkable attitude.It is at that moment that she "betrays" him in return,by leaving him behind inwardly and moves forward,free of any hatred or obssession.Thoroughly affirmative and positive-that may be the reason why I found it so refreshing when I finished reading. Therefore,I believe that this book is worth 100 times as much as the more famous similar book,Monica's Story,and that this one definitely needs to be republished at this particular moment-the end of the Clinton Presidency.
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6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Very Believeable, July 1, 1998
By A Customer
Why I believe everything Gennifer says in her book. She has said many times on television interviews what she tells in her book. She never trips up when asked over and over about the twelve years she had the relationship with Clinton.She describes Clinton to the (T) just how he acts today. When she tells about the things he talked about with her alone, it sure sounds like him when we hear him talk to us the American people. Gennifer describes Clinton as she had been the wife, as a wife usually knows the husband better than anyone else. Hillary seems as though she does not even know her own husband. There are a lot of shocking chapters also in Gennifer's book on what kind of man Clinton really is.
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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
I'm a big fan of this book, March 1, 2005
Can anyone dare to be comical about PASSION AND BETRAYAL by Gennifer Flowers? This book from 1995 fueled scores, if not hundreds, thousands, or millions, of jokes which showed how ludicrous and infantile our feelings are when the basic situation of "millions of women everywhere" (dedication, six pages before page 1 starts "a chain of events that would forever alter the course of my life") is subjected to the nightly descent into entertainment values in an effort to show the American alter ego who we are, really. The book has no index, so people who did not want to miss important themes were bound to read every page or guess if the chapter called "Baring It All" was what they wanted. People who doubt that anything in this book actually happened might try paying more attentions to the Romans who had seen a statue by Bernini and proclaimed: Truth is only at Bernini's house.
Books have been an individual art-form that generally say more than any patient could expect to cover in therapy sessions. In a culture which places more emphasis on money than on enduring relationships, it is not surprising to find Gennifer Flowers admitting, "I intended to relax and have fun. I had always been a free spirit who liked to have fun, but now I intended to really pursue it." (p. 57). So she was hired as a membership director at the Cipango Club in Dallas, and when "Finally someone yelled, `Gennifer, it's time for you to get up on that bar and dance.' I didn't hesitate for a second. I climbed right up, high heels and all, and danced through two complete songs. Everyone was applauding and egging me on, and I was in heaven." (p. 58). Moving from there to Branson, where "I would look out over the audience and see acres of white hair" (p. 59) and Roger Miller had to apologize for saying a word that happened to be in a joke he was telling. "You'd have thought he slapped their mothers!" (p. 60). Then "I needed Bill to work his magic and recharge me again--I needed a `Bill fix.' " (p. 60).
Entertainment has become so much like an addiction that it is no wonder politics seems more closely related to the behavior of stars and fans than to maintaining a decent foundation for mutual trust in the future. Entertainers need to make a lot of money when they are young because trends go out of style, and privacy has never been big when a society becomes as dominated by its communications media as the modern global world. "The security guard would walk around the building and see Bill coming in through the side door, and the guard had a real loose tongue." (p. 63). Soon she was concerned with "the reports and rumors that had begun to surface about what happened to those who tried to cross or become a threat to that all-powerful Arkansas power structure that stood behind Bill Clinton." (p. 84). After Bill announced that he was running for president, "the possibility that my actions might have dangerous consequences for my mother scared me to death." (p. 93). An attorney named Gary Johnson placed a video camera "so that it had a view directly out his front door and down the hall. Because our doors were close together, he also got a very clear view of my apartment door. When rumors began circulating that Bill and I were having an affair, Gary let it be known that he actually had a videotape of Bill coming to my apartment. Big mistake. Not long after that, some large men forced their way into his place, beat him senseless and left him for dead. According to Gary, they kept asking where `the tape' was. Sure enough, the videotape with Bill on it disappeared.
"Gary, it seems, was a double threat because he was also acting as counsel for Larry Nichols, the man who filed the lawsuit against Bill Clinton." (pp. 93-94).
Later, "my whole apartment had been ransacked" (p. 96). "Thank goodness I had put the tapes of our conversations in what I thought was a safe place, away from my apartment, a few days earlier." (p. 97). Soon she had the opportunity to read about her troubles in the Star supermarket tabloid. "Next to that was a picture of the apartment manager, who said in a caption that he had seen Bill visit me there ten to twenty times." (p. 103). On a personal level, "What about all those people who had been hurt or killed when they became a threat to Bill Clinton and his circle of power?" (p. 105). So she spent two weeks talking to the Star reporter Marion Collins in New York "to make sure I had the chronology of events correct. She was insistent I not slip up on dates and give anyone the opportunity to discredit my story on the basis of a factual error." (p. 108). Also on a personal level, "I had spilled my guts so thoroughly to her that she almost seemed like my personal psychiatrist." (p. 109).
The shrink business is not what it used to be, what with so many mental people being thrown into prisons where the authorities refuse to give them their medications, and the most effective personal drug preferences are likely to be illegal or considered contraband. Dodging other reporters even became an adventure, as "Meanwhile, I was thrust into a cloak-and-dagger existence in New York." (p. 110). Watching Bill and Hillary on Sixty Minutes following the 1992 Super Bowl "was sensational and they had a built-in audience. . . . It was all hype, and Bill took advantage of every opportunity to make himself look good." (p. 111). Gennifer still thought it was possible that "Bill would have been a hero! He would have created the appearance of a politician who could tell the truth, even if it was painful." (p. 111).
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