The History Book Club discussion

On June 13, 2011, The History Book Club will kick off the next book in the Presidential series.

Those of you new to the group might not know about the Presidential Series; but it is a group read where the order of the presidents to be studied and the books about these presidents are all selected and voted for by the group membership. This is a completely democratic process. This is sincerely where every vote counts.

The book selected by the group membership this time is an autobiography. It is titled My Life and it is William Jefferson Clinton's memoir.

Here is the Seattle Times Review:

Like author, like book: Clinton memoir is charming, long-winded

By Melinda Bargreen
Special to The Seattle Times

Bill Clinton's "My Life" has been leaping off the bookshelves, if anything this huge can be said to leap: at 957 pages, this memoir is also suitable for bench pressing and sailboat ballast. Clinton's publisher, Knopf, reported that 400,000 copies sold the first day — doubling the sales of the formerly fastest-selling nonfiction book, Hillary Clinton's 2003 "Living History."

Bookstore crowds who lined up after midnight Tuesday morning to buy the former president's autobiography got exactly what you'd expect of this author: The book is charming, chaotic, well-reasoned, self-indulgent and exceedingly long-winded.

Churned out in longhand in more than 20 large notebooks at his study in Chappaqua, N.Y., Clinton's "My Life" may be uneven, but it's consistently fascinating, with more detail than a Breughel canvas. Some of you may be enthralled by Clinton's accounts of his childhood used-comic-book stand or his later attempts to win a tomato-eating contest, or perhaps his high-school yell (which begins "Hullabloo, Ke-neck, Ke-neck, Hullabloo").

But most readers are probably going to head straight for the index to find out what Clinton has to say about the nadir of his presidency, his involvement with That Woman, Miss Monica Lewinsky. Here we find both concealment and candor. Clinton categorizes their relationship only as "an inappropriate encounter" repeated "again on other occasions."

"I was disgusted with myself for doing it," he confesses.

"What I had done with Monica Lewinsky was immoral and foolish. I was deeply ashamed of it and I didn't want it to come out. In the deposition, I was trying to protect my family and myself from my selfish stupidity."

Finally, with the truth of the scandal about to break, Clinton told Hillary, who "looked at me as if I had punched her in the gut, almost as angry at me for lying to her in January as for what I had done." He was exiled from the bedroom and slept on the couch for an extended period. Couples therapy was to follow.

Though there have been persistent rumors of other "bimbo eruptions" during Clinton's career, he doesn't mention any of those (apart from dismissing the allegations about Gennifer Flowers, Paula Jones and the four Arkansas state troopers who claimed to have procured women for him during his governorship of that state).

What he does divulge is his theory of the "parallel lives" he has lived: serene and successful on the surface, tormented by unresolved anger and demons underneath. The hidden life took its toll, Clinton reports, in occasionally self-indulgent, self-destructive behavior, such as the Lewinsky episodes.

"My Life," too, reads like a double book: the opening chapters telling in colorful detail about his childhood, and the majority of the book reading like an expanded diary that recounts his later political successes and failures month by month. Over and over again, he calls himself a "fat kid" who was "uncool" and so uncoordinated that he couldn't ride a bicycle until he went off to England as a Rhodes scholar.

Clinton gives readers a real sense of place with his descriptions of rural Hope, Ark., during his early childhood, and his later home, the more lively Hot Springs, which boasted gambling spots, alligator and ostrich farms, and a whorehouse. The author's specific accounts of all sorts of characters and events are heavy with foreshadowing: an early encounter with a ram helped toughen him up for the battering he was later to get in politics. Clinton seems eager for us to know that he's not only "just folks" (one of their homes had an outhouse), but also politically correct (many African-American friends, for example).

More harrowing are his descriptions of his stepfather, Roger Clinton, whose addictions to both alcohol and domestic violence led to some horrifying scenarios. When Clinton's mother wanted to visit her dying grandmother in the hospital and Roger didn't want her to go, he fired a gun in her direction, and the bullet hit the wall between young Bill and his mother. The police took the older Clinton off to jail in handcuffs.

By age 14, Bill grabbed a golf club to defend his mother during one of his stepfather's beatings. It's not hard to see how this miserable homelife, filled with the "secrets rooted in Daddy's alcoholism and abuse," became the hidden "parallel life" to the public successes of this brilliant youngster. Even as an adolescent, his résumé was impressive; he won medals for his saxophone playing, earned top marks for his writing, and shook President Kennedy's hand during his Boys' Nation experience.

At 16, Clinton's political ambitions were already clear. "I knew I could be great in public service. I was fascinated by people, politics, and policy, and I thought I could make it without family wealth, or connections, or establishment southern positions on race and other issues. Of course it was improbable, but isn't that what America is all about?"

His college years are rendered in incredible detail, right down to specific exam questions and one professor's propensity for such withering marginalia as "capricious little bilge pump." Life at Oxford University, travels in Europe, the courting of Hillary (who repeatedly turned him down before accepting), and the dawn of his political career all make intriguing reading. So do Clinton's "dumb mistakes": raising car-license fees as Arkansas governor, and as president, going along with his staff consensus to request a special prosecutor in the Whitewater issue.

Clinton's own case against prosecutor Kenneth Starr, and his subsequent fight against impeachment, are clearly and convincingly set forth. He also dispenses some salvos in other directions: President Reagan's involvement in the Iran-Contra affair "might have led to his impeachment had the Democrats been half as ruthless as Newt Gingrich." The former President Bush's dispensing of pardons to six who had been indicted in the same scandal, plus a Cuban the FBI blieved guilty of several murders, meet with Clinton's disapproval as well.

World leaders figure prominently in "My Life," especially in Clinton's accounts of his efforts to bring together Yasir Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin (the latter reluctantly agreed to shake Arafat's hand, but insisted on "no kissing").

Ultimately, Clinton's zest for politics is very clear. When his term was over, he wrote, "I was going to miss my old job. I had loved being President, even on the bad days." But you have to wonder why, because there were lots and lots of bad days.

As Clinton grapples with Bosnia, tries to broker peace in the Middle East and in Ireland, deals with the disastrous FBI raid on the Branch Davidians at Waco, battles the NRA and a slew of political enemies at home, tries to advance an economic stimulus plan and a health-care package, and rushes to the rescue of Boris Yeltsin (who is "up to his neck in alligators"), the presidency doesn't look so enticing.

Here is the Table of Contents - thanks to Bryan Craig:

Table of Contents

Prologue, page 3

Chapter One, page 4
Chapter Two, page 8
Chapter Three, page 17
Chapter Four, page 22
Chapter Five, page 34
Chapter Six, page 48
Chapter Seven, page 55
Chapter Eight, page 64
Chapter Nine, page 69
Chapter Ten, page 82
Chapter Eleven, page 92
Chapter Twelve, page 106
Chapter Thirteen, page 111
Chapter Fourteen, page 134
Chapter Fifteen, page 146
Chapter Sixteen, page 154
Chapter Seventeen, page 174
Chapter Eighteen, page 202
Chapter Nineteen, page 229
Chapter Twenty, page 244
Chapter Twenty-One, page 260
Chapter Twenty-Two, page 288
Chapter Twenty-Three, page 305
Chapter Twenty-Four, page 331
Chapter Twenty-Five, page 335
Chapter Twenty-Six, page 374
Chapter Twenty-Seven, page 399
Chapter Twenty-Eight, page 422
Chapter Twenty-Nine, page 445
Chapter Thirty, page 471
Chapter Thirty-One, page 481
Chapter Thirty-Two, page 502
Chapter Thirty-Three, page 517
Chapter Thirty-Four, page 530
Chapter Thirty-Five, page 539
Chapter Thirty-Six, page 555
Chapter Thirty-Seven, page 567
Chapter Thirty-Eight, page 584
Chapter Thirty-Nine, page 606
Chapter Forty, page 620
Chapter Forty-One, page 628
Chapter Forty-Two, page 633
Chapter Forty-Three, page 650
Chapter Forty-Four, page 665
Chapter Forty-Five, page 678
Chapter Forty-Six, page 694
Chapter Forty-Seven, page 735
Chapter Forty-Eight, page 771
Chapter Forty-Nine, page 800
Chapter Fifty, page 826
Chapter Fifty-One, page 839
Chapter Fifty-Two, page 848
Chapter Fifty-Three, page 864
Chapter Fifty-Four, page 882
Chapter Fifty-Five, page 917
Epilogue, page 954

Bill Clinton

Here is the Syllabus: (also thanks to Bryan Craig)

Syllabus

Week One - June 13th - June 19th -> Prologue, Chapter ONE, and TWO p. 3 - 16
Week Two - June 20th - June 26th -> Chapters THREE, FOUR, and FIVE p. 17 - 47
Week Three - June 27th - July 3rd -> Chapters SIX, SEVEN, and EIGHT p. 48 - 68
Week Four - July 4th - July 10th -> Chapters NINE, TEN, ELEVEN p. 69 - 106
Week Five - July 11th - July 17th -> Chapters TWELVE, THIRTEEN, and FOURTEEN p. 107 - 145
Week Six - July 18th - July 24th -> Chapters FIFTEEN, SIXTEEN, and SEVENTEEN p. 146 - 201
Week Seven - July 25th - July 31st -> Chapters EIGHTEEN, NINETEEN, and TWENTY p. 202 - 259
Week Eight - August 1st - August 7th -> Chapters TWENTY-ONE, TWENTY-TWO, and TWENTY-THREE p. 260 - 330
Week Nine - August 8th - August 14th -> Chapters TWENTY-FOUR, TWENTY-FIVE, and TWENTY-SIX p. 331 - 398
Week Ten - August 15th - August 21st -> Chapters TWENTY-SEVEN, TWENTY-EIGHT, and TWENTY-NINE p. 399 - 470
Week Eleven - August 22nd - August 28th -> Chapters THIRTY, THIRTY-ONE, and THIRTY-TWO p. 471 - 516
Week Twelve - August 29th - September 4th -> Chapters THIRTY-THREE, THIRTY-FOUR, and THIRTY-FIVE p. 517 - 554
Week Thirteen - September 5th - September 11th -> Chapters THIRTY-SIX, THIRTY-SEVEN, and THIRTY-EIGHT p. 555 - 605
Week Fourteen - September 12th - September 18th -> Chapters THIRTY-NINE, FORTY, and FORTY-ONE p. 606 - 632
Week Fifteen - September 19th - September 24th -> Chapters FORTY-TWO, FORTY-THREE, FORTY-FOUR p. 633 - 677
Week Sixteen - September 25th - October 2nd -> Chapters FORTY-FIVE and FORTY-SIX p. 678-734
Week Seventeen - October 3rd - October 9th -> Chapters FORTY-SEVEN and FORTY-EIGHT p. 735-799
Week Eighteen - October 10th - October 16th -> Chapters FORTY-NINE and FIFTY p. 800 - 838
Week Nineteen - October 17th - October 23rd -> Chapters FIFTY-ONE and FIFTY-TWO p. 839 - 864
Week Twenty - October 24th - October 30th -> Chapters FIFTY-THREE and FIFTY-FOUR p. 865 - 881
Week Twenty-one - October 31st - November 6th -> Chapters FIFTY-FIVE and EPILOGUE p. 882 - 957
Week Twenty-two - November 7th - November 13th -> Book As a Whole

This group discussion will be led by Bryan Craig - Assisting Moderator in charge of the Presidential Series here at The History Book Club. We look forward to your participation.

Here is an Amazon.com Review of the book:

"An exhaustive, soul-searching memoir, Bill Clinton's My Life is a refreshingly candid look at the former president as a son, brother, teacher, father, husband, and public figure. Clinton painstakingly outlines the history behind his greatest successes and failures, including his dedication to educational and economic reform, his war against a "vast right-wing operation" determined to destroy him, and the "morally indefensible" acts for which he was nearly impeached. My Life is autobiography as therapy--a personal history written by a man trying to face and banish his private demons.

Clinton approaches the story of his youth with gusto, sharing tales of giant watermelons, nine-pound tumors, a charging ram, famous mobsters and jazz musicians, and a BB gun standoff. He offers an equally energetic portrait of American history, pop culture, and the evolving political landscape, covering the historical events that shaped his early years (namely the deaths of Martin Luther King Jr. and JFK) and the events that shaped his presidency (Waco, Bosnia, Somalia).

What makes My Life remarkable as a political memoir is how thoroughly it is infused with Clinton's unassuming, charmingly pithy voice:

I learned a lot from the stories my uncle, aunts, and grandparents told me: that no one is perfect but most people are good; that people can't be judged only by their worst or weakest moments; that harsh judgments can make hypocrites of us all; that a lot of life is just showing up and hanging on; that laughter is often the best, and sometimes the only, response to pain.

However, that same voice might tire readers as Clinton applies his penchant for minute details to a distractible laundry list of events, from his youth through the years of his presidency. Not wanting to forget a single detail that might help account for his actions, Clinton overdoes it--do we really need to know the name of his childhood barber? But when Clinton sticks to the meat of his story--recollections about Mother, his abusive stepfather, Hillary, the campaign trail, and Kenneth Starr--the veracity of emotion and Kitchen Confidential-type revelations about "what it is like to be President" make My Life impossible to put down.

To Clinton, "politics is a contact sport," and while he claims that My Life is not intended to make excuses or assign blame, it does portray him as a fighter whose strategy is to "take the first hit, then counterpunch as hard as I could." While My Life is primarily a stroll through Clinton's memories, it is also a scathing rebuke--a retaliation against his detractors, including Kenneth Starr, whose "mindless search for scandal" protected the guilty while "persecuting the innocent" and distracted his Administration from pressing international matters (including strikes on al Qaeda). Counterpunch indeed.

At its core, My Life is a charming and intriguing if flawed book by an equally intriguing and flawed man who had his worst failures and humiliations made public. Ultimately, the man who left office in the shadow of scandal offers an honest and open account of his life, allowing readers to witness his struggle to "drain the most out of every moment" while maintaining the character with which he was raised. It is a remarkably intimate, persuasive look at the boy he was, the President he became, and man he is today. --Daphne Durham