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

Morrison, Susan

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0061455938 ISBN 13: 9780061455933

Publisher: Harper, 2008

Synopsis

No other politician inspires such a wide range of passionate feelings as Hillary Rodham Clinton. As America's first viable female candidate for president, she has become the repository of many women's contradictory hopes and fears. To some she's a sellout who changed her name and her hairstyle when it suited her husband's career; to others she's a hardworking idealist with the political savvy to work effectively within the system. Where one person sees a carpetbagger, another sees a dedicated politician; where one sees a humiliated and long-suffering wife, another sees a dignified First Lady. Is she tainted by the scandals of her husband's presidency, or has she gained experience and authority from weathering his missteps? Cold or competent, overachiever or pioneer, too radical or too moderate, Hillary Clinton continues to overturn the assumptions we make about her.

In Thirty Ways of Looking at Hillary, New Yorker editor Susan Morrison has compiled this timely collection of thirty original pieces by America's most notable women writers. This pointillistic portrait paints a composite picture of Hillary Clinton, focusing on details from the personal to the political, from the hard-hitting to the whimsical, to give a well-balanced and unbiased view of the woman who may be our first Madam President. Taken together, these essays—by such renowned writers as Daphne Merkin, Lorrie Moore, Deborah Tannen, Susan Cheever, Lionel Shriver Kathryn Harrison, and Susan Orlean—illuminate the attitudes that women have toward the powerful women around them and constitute a biography that is must reading for anyone interested in understanding this complex and controversial politician.

About this title

About the Author

Susan Morrison has been the articles editor of The New Yorker for twelve years. She is the former editor in chief of the New York Observer, an original editor of SPY magazine, and the onetime features director of Vogue. She lives in New York City with her two daughters.

Review

“Immensely satisfying and very entertaining.” (Tina Brown, author of The Diana Chronicles)

“A cascade of crackling insights about gender, marriage, work, and politics that yields genuine literary pleasure.” (Hendrik Hertzberg, author of Politics: Observations and Arguments)

“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)

“An unusually insightful and particularly well written collection.” (New York Daily News)

“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)

“This original collection features a stellar group of women writers.” (Newsday)

“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)

“Clever, entertaining, provocative, and elegantly written.” (Newsweek)

“Thirty Ways does provide grist for thought....canny and thoughtful.” (New York Observer)

Edition details

• Publisher: Harper
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0061455938
• ISBN 13: 9780061455933
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 272