Hillary's Choice [Paperback]

Gail Sheehy (Author)

Book Description

Release date: August 15, 2000

Why does she stay with him? Where does she go from here? The author who revealed a generation's Passages now answers all the questions about the most talked-about First Lady in American history. In Hillary's Choice, Hillary Clinton is rendered fully human for the first time. Here is the life of a woman that is also the story of a marriage--and the drama of a presidency.

From her childhood with a demanding father and frustrated mother to her life as a professional wife determined to elect her husband president . . . from the sexual betrayals that nearly broke her to the national scandal that remade her . . . this is the epic journey of a modern American woman, a saga that begins in passivity, moves through self-punishment, and ends in power.

Who was the one "other woman" who posed a serious threat to their marriage? What was the real reason for the health care failure? How did Hillary escape the snare of Kenneth Starr? How has she managed, through it all, to be a good mother? No matter what her future, the mysteries about Hillary Clinton's past have been fully resolved by Hillary's Choice, a stunning achievement from a master chronicler of our times.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Vanity Fair writer Gail Sheehy's engrossing biography of Hillary Clinton is a refreshing departure from the political hit jobs that have appeared elsewhere in print. That's not to say Hillary's Choice is a pro-Clinton book--Hillary herself would probably bristle at reading it, and her husband ("The story of the Clinton presidency has always been the story of the Clinton marriage," writes Sheehy) comes off as a bright but demented cad. Yet Hillary's Choice is broadly sympathetic and often nonjudgmental at crucial moments. Sheehy writes very little about public policy, but includes plenty of pop psychologizing. She suggests that the president is a sex addict afflicted by what "a highly qualified mental health professional who works too close to the White House to be identified" calls "dissociative identities"--what used to be known as "multiple personalities ... a sum of various identities that have been split off at some time in the past." And the president gets away with so much in his personal life because Hillary has become his unwitting enabler: "Every addict or alcoholic needs one. The enabler is usually an intimate of the addicted person who allows him to persist in self-destructive behavior by making excuses or helping him avoid the consequences of his actions."

That describes Sheehy's Hillary perfectly: a woman apparently ignorant of her husband's several flings in the White House before Monica Lewinsky came along, and then willfully deceived by the president's lies until just hours before his momentous grand-jury testimony. Theirs is a mother-son relationship in which true love must negotiate its way through astonishingly difficult periods. That's not a formula for how marriage ought to work, but it has nevertheless helped this ultimate power couple achieve enormous success. Hillary's Choice is full of on-the-record and background interviews, all assembled in an absorbing narrative. Writes Sheehy: "The saga of Bill and Hillary, with its echoes of Eleanor and Franklin, or Tracy and Hepburn with undertones of Bonnie and Clyde, is animated by melodrama, high passion, narrow escapes, and knock-down-drag-outs." And it comes alive in this biography of the most enigmatic woman of our time. --John J. Miller --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Library Journal

Although as First Lady it is impossible to protect one's privacy, much about Hillary Rodham Clinton's life is not really well known. Sheehy, renowned author of Passages and a political journalist for Vanity Fair, presents an objective portrait of this intelligent and tenacious woman. Not surprisingly, Clinton was a successful student although her parents offered little support. During law school, she found an intellectual equal in Bill Clinton and became determined to make him president. Through interviews with those close to Clinton, Sheehy portrays her as shrewd and passionate about the things she loves and values. Although promoted as an intimate biography of the senatorial candidate, Sheehy's book fails to delve into her true feelings and reactions and instead succumbs to defining Clinton through her husband's antics. In addition, Clinton's role as mother is only briefly examined. Despite these flaws, Sheehy's competent writing, which makes the book feel more like a novel, and the eternal appeal of information about Presidents and their families will make this popular in most public libraries.
-Susan McCaffrey, Haslett H.S., MI
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 448 pages
• Publisher: Ballantine Books; 1st edition (August 15, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0345436563
• ISBN-13: 978-0345436566
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (63 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,074,576 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Gail Sheehy is the world-renowned author of fifteen books, including Passages, which remained on the New York Times bestseller list for more than three years and has been reprinted in twenty-eight languages.

As a literary journalist, Sheehy was one of the original contributors to New York magazine. A contributing editor to Vanity Fair since 1984, she won the Washington Journalism Review Award for Best Magazine Writer in America for her in-depth character portraits of national and world leaders, including both President Bushes, Bill and Hillary Clinton, former speaker of the house Newt Gingrich, former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, and Mikhail Gorbachev. Sheehy is a seven-time recipient of the New York Newswomen's Club Front Page Award for distinguished journalism. She currently resides in New York City.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars RECOMMENDED FOR HILLARY WATCHERS October 22, 2002

By D. Blankenship HALL OF FAMETOP 50 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback

I have had the dubious pleasure of reading and rereading quite a number of works addressing the life and times of Hillary Clinton.
While I am not a great fan of Billie, I must admit to sort of an admiration for Hillary. Be-that-as-it-may, I enjoyed this book. It was well written and I thought pretty well ballanced. Many of the "facts" presented, will have to be tested by time, but for now, I feel they are probably as close to the truth we will get.
Ms Clinton is certainly one of the more fascinating individuals of our times and I am quite sure history will continue to judge her as such. She is an interesting subject. In many ways, she is us. The author of this book is an interesting writer and between the author and the subject, we get a very interesting story. Thank you Ms Gail for writing it.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Dishy & Satisfying November 8, 2000

By A Customer

Format:Hardcover

The Clintons' marriage may seem to be worked-over territory. But Sheehy, drawing on interviews with hundreds of subjects -- some of whom have kept silent until now -- breaks new ground in addressing the big question: Do the Clintons love one another -- or is it just a political partnership?

Her answer: Hillary is addicted to Bill. "He is her only rebellion," writes Sheehy, "the one thing she can't logically explain." The author charts the dog days of the Clintons' relationship, when, in the late '80s, Bill fell in love with a blonde Arkansas divorcée and Hillary contemplated divorce. Sheehy also explores Hillary's character -- her toughness, her ambition, her willingness to blame her husband's problems on others -- without suggesting these qualities are less appealing in a woman than in a man.

A woman of addictions and ambitions and an interesting read.

16 of 19 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars A balanced rendition of Hillary - she's not perfect May 18, 2000

By Patricia A. Powell VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

This is neither a flattering puff piece, nor a political attack. It is a balanced view of the first, first lady who acknowledges and pursues her own political ambitions.

The author presents Hillary as intellectually brilliant, but emotionally flawed. She explains a great deal about Hillary's and then Bill's early years and leads logically to where the first couple finds itself today.

Occasionally, Ms. Sheehy can't resist sniping. But, on all critically important issues, this writer remains objective. She explains Mrs. Clinton's famous "right wing conspiracy" appearance on the Today Show neither as a wife deceived, nor as a political combatant. Sheehy presents it as a wife hoping desperately that this time her defense is merited.

Hillary approaches her life and relationships through her head, not her heart. While Hillary has been heavily critisized for this, Sheehey deftly explains how this was inevitable given her background. But, she is not one dimentional. Sheehy tells a story of when Hillary was considering graduate school, she was looking first at Harvard and then at Yale as Harvard's competition. Someone from Harvard responded by saying that Harvard had no competition. Hillary chose Yale.

If you want a book the glorifies or demonizes Hillary, then look elsewhere. But, if you are interested in a book that helps explain this complicated and flawed woman, then Ms. Sheehy's book "Hillary's Choice" may well be what you are looking for.

p.s. It's good plane/beach reading.