Hillary Rodham Clinton’s new book is a salve for festering wounds
HRC’s book ‘a salve for those whose wounds have yet to close’ Ashley Csanady
The opinions on Hillary Clinton’s new book, What Happened, were as hardened as the partisan lines in American politics well before its release.
The coverage has, by and large, been predictable: her fans love her honesty, self-reflection and insight; her detractors see it as a vengeance play worthy of the Lady Macbeth they’ve seen her as since she was First Lady of Arkansas.
In short, if you hate Hillary Clinton, you’ll hate this book.
But if you’re largely ambivalent, sad Donald Trump is president but still unsure whether or not Hillary is a secret witch, it’s still worth a read. And if you love her, well, you’ve probably already bought a copy. Full of insight into the machinery that runs presidential campaigns, it’s a fascinating book for political junkies and neophytes alike.
It’s also a damn good read: funny at the right times, poignant at others, captivating and page- turning throughout.
But most of all, it’s a salve for those whose wounds from waking up on November 9 have yet to close.
Watching an unqualified reality clown win the electoral college against one of the most qualified people to ever run for president left many women reeling, Clinton included. The cold comfort of her victory in the popular vote was quickly erased by the spectacle of the tangerine Commander-in- Chief.
In What Happened, Clinton rips herself open, bares all and shares how she came through it, so those who went to bed shattered and woke up bleary and teary-eyed to watch her concede can move on with her. Still with her.
Sure, Hillary takes on her critics: noting how the FBI and James Comey turned the election against her while concealing the investigation into Trump’s ties to Russia. She rips Bernie Sanders, and rightly so, for barging into a party he never belonged to and trying to rip it apart. She calls out the press for the false balance that served up an election to Trump. How, exactly, did her emails get more coverage than the sum of his scandals?
Meanwhile, the depths of her policy chops are once again on display. She reveals how she confronted the opioid crisis at the start of the primary season – well before it was garnering headlines almost daily in the national press – and how early she wanted to tackle student debt, putting to bed the idea that only Sanders’s presence in the race pushed her toward more progressive policies.
But Clinton also takes more than her share of the blame. She lauds her staff while accepting her own failings, opening up in a way that makes it easy to lament: where was this Hillary on the campaign trail? Where was the grandma who loves jalapenos and hot sauce, and is full of quick comebacks? She shares the intimacy of her relationship with Bill Clinton, a man whose infidelities almost cost him the presidency and may have hurt her chances, too. She even reveals that they bingewatched The Good Wife together in the wake of her loss; my favourite revelation, as one can almost imagine their shared, probably tense and perhaps even cathartic experi- ence of watching a dramatized version of adultery in the public eye.
Clinton is, finally and in her own words, human and whole. That wiggle in the first presidential debate gave us a glimpse of who she is beneath the practiced facade, but this book offers so much more – a side of Clinton it would have been nice to see a year ago, before it was too late.
So much of the story of the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign has been written, its narrative set, with her aloofness, her cold demeanour likely cemented in the history books, where she will be remembered as a controversial First Lady and the first female major party nominee for president. Her effective work as Secretary of State, among other accomplishments, will likely become a footnote.
She’s well aware of this, and so the book is her attempt to give herself a voice in her own myth- making. A Maya Angelou quote unravels Clinton’s deepest feelings:
“You may write me down in history / With your bitter twisted lies, / You may trod me in the very dirt / But still, like dust, I’ll rise.”
Yet, despite the framing, the book is less bitter than it is hopeful. At times, it’s almost a self-help, offering both advice on how to move on – yoga, walks in the forest, family, books and perspective – and a rallying cry for those who still believe “Love Trumps Hate.”
If you still aren’t over the election, and if, like me, you went home to have your partner roll over, half asleep, and say, “Women’s rights really are f--- ed, huh?” – and you sobbed yourself to sleep only to wake up and go back to work – the book is a tonic. It soothes the soul.
Clinton closes the book with a nod to her campaign slogan, “Stronger Together,” with a chapter called Onward Together, which answers the question asked by so many who felt beaten and broken watching a boor take office: “What do we do now?” “There was only one answer: Keep going.”
SHE EVEN REVEALS THAT SHE AND BILL BINGE-WATCHED THE GOOD WIFE TOGETHER.