Her Way-The Hopes and Ambitions of Hillary Rodham Clinton
by Jeff Gerth and Dan Van Natta Jr
Published by Little, Brown and Company
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Reviewed by Beth Cummings
I normally do not read biographies of living people. However, I have been interested in Hillary Rodham Clinton since she came onto the national stage as the wife of a presidential candidate and then as First Lady and Senator. So, it was with great anticipation that I began reading.
Unfortunately, I found the book to be less than I had hoped for. It reads like a college research paper or perhaps a textbook study. Nearly every paragraph is footnoted, some two or three times. This does lend credibility to an unauthorized biography that was written without actually interviewing the subject matter, but it also makes the writing feel choppy and disconnected. To me it seemed as if statements were cobbled together with little regard to the final flow. It is also quite clear that the authors are not fans of Hillary Clinton.
The book basically begins in 1970 when Hillary Rodham was a student at Yale Law School. Approximate three pages summarize her life prior to that time—with a few other paragraphs focusing on her undergrad years at Wellesley College. What I found most disappointing in the early sections of the book was the lack of any new information. A great deal of space was spent rehashing the Whitewater investigation that was carried on while the Clintons were in the White House. There is also a further rehashing of Bill Clinton’s sexual infidelities. I felt both of those issues have been covered many times over and that nothing new was added in this book.
The final third of the book, as it moves into the areas of Hillary Clinton’s Senate participation, and her preparation to run for President, are much more interesting than the first sections. While the biases of the authors are still evident, the material has a freshness that is lacking in the beginning.
This book could be a starting point for research into Hillary Clinton’s life. The over 30 pages of endnotes could certainly lead to other source material. I would not recommend it for casual reading though.
Armchair Interviews says: Worth reading if you want to better understand Hillary Rodham Clinton.