Clinton's 'Life' is taking on a life of its own
The former president's autobiography comes out to unprecedented anticipation
At long last, Bill Clinton's autobiography, "My Life," reaches stores tomorrow. Constitutionally ineligible to seek the presidency again, Clinton now seems to be running against Harry Potter. Certainly, "My Life" has already redefined the genre of presidential autobiography.
"We don't have to read it to know it's a blockbuster," says historian Douglas Brinkley, author of "The Unfinished Journey: Jimmy Carter Beyond the White House." "Even if the book itself turns out to be lame, it's still going to be radioactive."
"My Life" started out as a publishing event, when Alfred A. Knopf Inc. purchased the rights to it for $10 million in 2001. It became a marital event when "Living History," the book by Clinton's wife, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, became a runaway bestseller last summer. Recently it became a political event, when commentators began to speculate about how its publication might affect the campaign of presumptive Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry.
Now "My Life" is an event, period.
"It's huge," says Frank Kramer, owner of Harvard Books in Cambridge, of "My Life." Kramer, whose store has more than a thousand copies on order, says, "I'm not sure we're going to get them all, because demand is so high."
Last night, "60 Minutes" devoted the entire program to a Dan Rather interview with Clinton. That kicked off a weeklong media blitz.
Knopf has a first printing of 1.5 million copies of "My Life," a record for the publisher. Already, it has reportedly received 2.3 million orders.
"I've been doing this work for 20 years, and there's been nothing like the response to this book," says Paul Bogaards, Knopf's executive director of publicity. "If interest is an indicator of demand, we're in a pretty good place."
On the basis of preordered copies, "My Life" has been the best-selling book at
Those are not names generally associated with presidents, let alone presidential authors. Historically, White House autobiographies have been high profile -- but not much else. They've neither made news nor stormed the bestseller list.
One reason Clinton's book has been getting so much attention is cultural. "Everything in our society gets hyped," Brinkley notes. "There's so much more hoopla around anything dealing with the presidents. There's no longer a sense of privacy with presidents. Everything about their lives gets digested for public consumption."
Few presidential memoirs have been memorable. The great exception is Ulysses S. Grant's "Personal Memoirs." Coincidence or not, the book ignores his presidency and focuses on the Civil War.
"Most presidents can't write," says Columbia University historian Henry Graff. "And by the time they get to write, the newspapers and other media have covered the whole thing. There's nothing new to say."
Even so, Graff has a copy of "My Life" on order at Amazon. "I'm sure there'll be a liveliness to it," Graff says.
"Liveliness" has seldom characterized presidential memoirs. Even presidents who could write and might have something new to say have tended to do so with an inflated dignity, even solemnity, that readers find off-putting.
Clinton is aware of this. In an interview last year with James Fallows of The Atlantic Monthly, he noted that what Harry Truman wrote in his memoirs was far less interesting than what he said in Merle Miller's "Plain Speaking," a posthumously published set of interviews. In those interviews, candor and pungency were the order of the day. Candor and pungency rarely, if ever, show up in presidential memoirs.
"A certain almost platitudinous demeanor" defines the genre, Clinton told Fallows.
The president who not only entertained but answered the infamous "Boxers or briefs?" question is no more likely to indulge in platitudinous demeanor in print than he was in his personal life. And Clinton's personal life is another factor in his book's buildup.
"It's a great soap opera, a steamy tale, and steamy tales sell," says Peter Osnos, publisher of PublicAffairs Books. "Clinton is our most colorful and, in many ways, most compelling public figure -- flawed but immensely attractive. There's a great story there. As president, Bill Clinton was a remarkable political figure and a very bad boy."
Brinkley agrees. "How does he deal with Paula Jones, Monica Lewinsky? Sex is a big seller, and, with the exception of the Kennedy White House, the sex life of no other administration has captured the public imagination.
"Clinton's also been a pop-culture figure. So in his memoirs we're not just looking for public policy. There's the `I feel your pain' Clinton. His stepfather beat his mother. There's meeting Hillary and his relationship with her. This all adds to the mix. George W. Bush on `Oprah' would be sort of tight-lipped, whereas Clinton will really be an emotional, feeling person, which brings in a whole new audience."
It's not just the story Clinton has to tell. It's also readers' anticipation of how he'll tell it. Clinton, Graff says, "has a special way of talking to people. It's unique. People like to listen to him. They can sit by the hour listening to him, and, with the book, they think this is now going to be in print." Clinton is the reader on the audiobook version of "My Life."
Brinkley suggests part of the excitement over "My Life" has as much to do with Clinton's future as with his past.
"The fact is, most presidents when they leave office are really saying goodbye to public life as we know it -- even if they repackage themselves, as Carter did. There's a sense of being retired with ex-presidents. That's not the sense with Bill Clinton. He's still a vibrant political force. In many ways, he's still the leading light of the Democratic Party and certainly its leading fund-raiser. All these things are coming together."
Mark Feeney can be reached at mfeeney@globe.com.
