Thirty Ways of Looking at Hillary: Reflections by Women Writers (Hardcover)

~ Susan Morrison (Author)
Key Phrases: olive burger, political wife, Hillary Clinton, White House, Bill Clinton (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Whatever your political leanings, you'll be alternately pleased and dismayed by the parade of highly intelligent contributors-including fiction author Lorrie Moore, New Yorker staff writer Susan Orlean and Vanity Fair editor Leslie Bennetts-offering their views on presidential candidate and former First Lady Hillary Clinton. Though many issues are covered, the most prevalent is the gender question: "I wish I could vote gender blind," says novelist and essayist Kathryn Harrison, but admits that, "everything else being equal, I will vote for a woman over a man." Rarely, if ever, has cookie-baking (or not baking), hairstyles and spouses been so often brought up in relation to a presidential candidate, but the question of authenticity dogs the every move of both Clinton and her critics; says Laura Kipnis, "the specter of loss looms at the moment, at least for men... So what gets spoken of instead? Well, hair for one thing." Elsewhere, Daphne Merkin looks at Bill and Hillary as a couple; Susan Cheever examines Clinton's list of favorite books; and Deborah Tannen explores the "damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't paradox of women in charge." Readers interested in Hillary, gender politics or the evolution of the presidential campaign should find this book fascinating.
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Review

"A timely book of essays (or critiques, it often seems) written by many of today’s prominent women writers....the book is decidedly fluid....the contributors share a certain elegance in tone....the collection is a unique study and more insightful, if critical, than a general biography." -- Forbes.com

"An unusually insightful and particularly well written collection." -- Daily News

"As these witty, insightful voices struggle to get a grasp on this larger-than-life figure, they expose how difficult a task that really is." -- Redbook Magazine

"Clever, entertaining, provocative, and elegantly written." -- Newsweek

"Intriguing…. These essays attest to the infinite subjectivity of people’s views, the pure relativism of perception….This volume of reflections corroborates Mrs. Clinton’s own long-ago observation that she is ‘a Rorschach test’ for voters." -- Michiko Kakutani, New York Times

"Pithy, imaginative, and bold essays by exceptionally shrewd women writers....In all, a discerning, engrossing dissection not only of a galvanizing figure but also of our conflicted feelings about women and power." -- Booklist

"The collection gathers strength as the variety and ferocity of opinions, insights, disappointments, and projections unfolds, often revealing more about the writers than about Hillary, and more about our warring notions of power, politics, and sex roles than it seems possible to hold in any brain at one time." -- Elizabeth Benedict, Huffington Post

"Thirty Ways does provide grist for thought....canny and thoughtful." -- New York Observer

"This original collection features a stellar group of women writers." -- Newsday

"Well-written...thoughtful." -- Miami Herald

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Harper; First Edition, First Printing edition (January 22, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0061455938
• ISBN-13: 978-0061455933
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.8 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #204,755 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Leslie Bennetts' essay is worth the price of the book, January 22, 2008

By	Jonathan H. Gerard "midrash" (Easton, PA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is a fun book, though mixed. (Who cares if you think Hillary is a cat or a dog? or what she eats?) Roz Chast is Hillaryous. Leslie Bennetts' "Beyond Gender" is the longest essay and also the last, so many will never get to it. But it is a scathing, funny, thoughtful review of Hillary's career in the context of feminism's failure, thus far, to change archtypes, stereotypes, and monotypes. She catalogues how the public overlooks or forgives the sins of male politicians while demanding that women politicians conform to society's traditional view of the role of women.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beyond the Yellow Pantsuit, March 10, 2008

By	takingadayoff "takingadayoff" (Las Vegas, Nevada) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

Is there anyone who is neutral about Hillary Clinton? It isn't even as simple as you love her or you hate her, although there are plenty of people who do simply love her or hate her. Many of us want to like her or used to like her or liked her during the brief period between finding out about Bill's Oval Office tryst with an intern and the moment she uttered "vast right-wing conspiracy." Quite a few people would love to see a woman as president but can't bear the thought of that woman being Hillary Clinton. What is it about her? What is it about us?

Thirty Ways of Looking at Hillary gathers thirty essays by women who think and write for a living. Most of the pieces here take the subject seriously, notwithstanding a trivial piece by Susan Orlean on whether Clinton is a cat person or a dog person and a mock high school yearbook page by Patricia Marx ("pet peeves: bad punctuation, martial law"). Some essays seem frivolous at first, but turn out to be quite thoughtful, such as Mimi Sheraton's look at Hillary through her taste in food and Lauren Collins on Clinton's apparent lack of hobbies.

Several writers have written about Hillary Clinton before and stand by their controversial opinions such as Robin Givhan on Clinton's cleavage. On the other hand, Judith Warner all but apologizes for her 1992 biography, Hillary Clinton: The Inside Story: Revised and Updated, which at least one reviewer called a hagiography.

There are no right-wing hit jobs in this collection, but Laura Kipnis does a survey of Hillary biographies (many of which fall into the hit job category) and finds they reveal more about the authors than about Clinton. Rebecca Mead examines how women presidents have been portrayed in movies and TV.

Deborah Tannen explores the double standard that women in authority face in the most even-handed piece in the book. Letty Cottin Pogrebin observes that for women leaders, widowhood is a plus. Susan Lehman speculates on how fifteen years as a corporate lawyer formed Clinton's outlooks and habits. Lara Vapnyar gives us the Russian view of women in power (not favorable).

The writers here ponder Clinton's name changes, her changes in appearance, her vote to go to war in Iraq. They consider her marriage, her career as a lawyer, and the compromises she's made as a politician. You may not come to any new conclusions about Clinton, but Thirty Ways of Looking at Hillary will give you some original angles on a very provocative subject.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Pantsuit Makes the Woman?, May 23, 2008

By	Kelly Garbato "www.easyvegan.info" (Kearney, MO USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Whether you love Hillary or hate her, no doubt you've got a strong opinion about the woman. But the emotions evoked in you by Hillary Clinton probably speak less to Hillary's character than to your underlying attitudes about strong, independent, self-reliant women. So goes the premise of THIRTY WAYS OF LOOKING AT HILLARY: REFLECTIONS BY WOMEN WRITERS. (And, um, pretty much anyone who's been overwhelmed by the misogyny and racism permeating this year's election cycle, natch.)

In THIRTY WAYS OF LOOKING AT HILLARY, thirty prominent female journalistas wax poetic on what Hillary means to them. No aspect of Hillary's life and character is too mundane or sacrosanct: everything from Hillary's infamous pantsuits to her marriage to Bill (or "secret pact," as some paranoid pundits might call it) and her every-changing coif goes under the microscope. As a result, some of the pieces are rather fluffy (Mimi Sheraton's "How Hungry is Hillary?: Reading the Culinary Clues" and Susan Orlean's "Political Animals: Is Hillary a Cat Person or a Dog Person?" spring to mind), but it's all in good fun. In this vein, Patricia Marx's satirical "From the 1965 Eyrie Yearbook" is especially entertaining; it reads like a transcript of an SNL segment. (Hello, Amy Polar!)

Most of the thirty essays, while entertaining, are far from frivolous. While many of the writers tackle seemingly trivial topics (pantsuits, hairstyles and surnames, oh my!), these are usually circuitous routes to grander points; the way in which changes in Hillary's wardrobe correspond to her increasingly moderate (pandering?) political positions, for example, or what Hillary's favorite books reveal about her child- and adulthood. The pieces of Hillary expounded upon by each individual author also say a great deal about that author; in "Hello, My Name Is...," Cristina (no "H"!) Henriquez speaks eloquently about her conflicting identities as an Panamanian woman born and raised in America.

While I expected that most of the thirty essays would touch upon the misogyny that's colored this campaign season, not all of the writers deal explicitly with the anti-woman backlash that Hillary inspires in so many men (and not a few women). However, there are a few great pieces on the subject, including an essay by the always-awesome Katha Pollitt ("Hillary Rotten: Sexist Sticks and Stones") and must-read from Leslie Bennetts ("Beyond Gender: The Revenge of the Postmenopausal Woman"). Though I'm not familiar with all of the contributors, most seem somewhat feminist-minded, with the sole exception of Robin Givhan ("The Road to Cleavagegate: What Do We Want Female Power to Look Like?"). Givhan, you might recall, is the Washington Post reporter who "broke" the Cleavagegate "story." (Scare quotes because it's neither breaking nor a story. "This just in! Hillary Clinton, the female Senator from New York, HAS BREASTS! More on this shocking development at nine!") She spends much of her essay defending her own misogyny, arguing that it's perfectly a-ok to judge Hillary - and, by extension, all women - on her physical appearance. What's next, repenting to the Fashion Gods for wearing scrunchies and headbands after 1991? I don't agree wholeheartedly with every sentiment expressed in THIRTY WAYS OF LOOKING AT HILLARY, but Givhan's was the only essay that truly strikes me as out of place.

The other twenty-nine essays, on the other hand, represent a diverse and enjoyable read. At the end of the book, I found myself wistful for '70s Hillary, in all her radfem blamer glory. 2008 Hillary, not so much.

Full disclosure: I voted for Kucinich in the primaries. I'm not crazy about Hillary or Barack, but I'll most likely vote for the Democratic nominee in November. Unless it comes out that Barack eats puppies or Hillary is a closet Ann Coulter fan. And, for the record, I'm disgusted with the misogyny and racism emanating from either side of the Dem aisle.

P.S. Dear Mimi Sheraton - If your Boca Burgers resemble "miserably limp, grassy-tasting little disks that might be produced by Rubbermaid," then you're doing it wrong. Unless you're rubbing defrosted Boca Burgers on your lawn, ain't no way they come out tasting like grass. As for the so-called "limpness," the only time I've cooked up a limp Boca Burger is by over- or under-cooking it in the microwave. Grilling and pan-frying them, not so much. So stop hating on the Boca Burgers when it's clearly the cook's fault. (Yeah, I'm a vegan. What of it?)