David Maraniss's Reading List

"It was an effort to write about the first member of my generation—the post-war baby boom generation—to make it to the White House. It’s a biography of Bill Clinton, but you can’t write about him without writing about Hillary. From the time they first met at Yale Law School, in 1971, they saw that together they could get places that they could not get to apart. She has been an essential part of his rise, and vice versa. “There is always that tension between family and career.” For all politicians, just as for all human beings, there’s a tension between ambition and idealism. The Clintons are a kind of exaggeration of that tension. Hillary has built up an encrusted defensiveness over her more than forty years with Bill Clinton, largely in defense of him and their rise together and, in great part, because of his own personal vulnerabilities. Over the course of that period, in defense of him and in defense of their partnership, she’s been less than transparent out of the belief that her ends justified her means. He is a gifted politician and he also is a great campaign strategist, but none of his skills seem to be transferable to her. She doesn’t have his fluidity or his ability to make everyone who is listening think that he’s talking to them. On the contrary, he has said many things that have not helped her. It’s a curious thing. In part, her political career is possible because he became president. And yet, since then, I don’t know how much of a help he has been."

"Hillary Clinton is of a generation that was at the heart of the feminist movement. Books by Betty Friedan, Simone de Beauvoir and others had a profound influence on Hillary and millions of other women from her generation. In Hillary’s case, many people who knew her thought she would be the one to lead the movement. Yet in 1974, when she was in her twenties, she decided to move to Arkansas and attach her career to Bill Clinton’s. There is always that tension between family and career. Hillary’s life represents that. Betty Friedan’s book explains it. It’s always more complicated than that, but it’s certainly a factor in the hostility to Hillary. The chant “Lock Her Up” has such an evocation of the way women have been demonized throughout history that there’s an undeniable aspect to the pillorying of Hillary as a strong woman. But that is on a larger scale and you also have to weigh up her behavior and characteristics, as you would with any politician or human being. “I have no reason to be suspicious or cynical about the role of faith in her life.”"

"When she was a kid, Hillary wanted to be an astronaut. She’s always been attracted to flying and space, she grew up near O’Hare Airport. She’s always been attracted to strong women and she’s always been attracted to daring people, even though she is not the most daring person herself. Her mother named her in honor of Sir Edmund Hillary, the great mountain climber. Her attraction to adventurers is evident throughout her life. More than she likes to show in public. Much like Barack Obama couldn’t show too much of his identification as an African-American – because as president, you are president of everyone – Hillary has been cautious. But internally, and increasingly outwardly, she is identifying as a pioneer. And I think that will wash over her and over much of the country if she is elected."

"When Hillary was the young wife of the Governor of Arkansas, she would read books together and talk about them with her best friend, Diane Blair, a professor at the University of Arkansas. She and Diane read that book, loved it, and talked a lot about it. I read it long ago. The book has a bleak aspect to it, in terms of marital relations. I think so. She definitely understood that her husband suffered from some addictions, you might say. Again, those are things that are very difficult to talk about in public, when you’re a politician. That is another part of the internal side of Hillary."

"One time, when I interviewed Hillary, she kept talking about this book and the discipline of gratitude. She brought it up because she was trying to emphasize the role that her faith, as a Methodist, has played in her ability to keep going. She cited that book as one which she would turn to again and again, having a profound influence on her ability to keep going no matter what. “Neither of those books impressed me in the least. They were typical political books that don’t really add much to the equation.” She has a very complex character. It’s hard to say that one thing is the tent pole. But I have no reason to be suspicious or cynical about the role of faith in her life. Well, she’s had to forgive her husband a million times. I don’t know whether she’ll be able to forgive all of her opponents for all that she’s been put through. People are complicated. You can have forgiveness in you and a little anger in you at the same time. But I don’t doubt that striving for gratitude and forgiveness is one of the things that keeps her going. Neither of those books impressed me in the least. They were typical political books that don’t really add much to the equation. In one sense there will be a little déjà vu, because from the very beginning, maybe even more intensely than with Bill, her Republican opposition is going to be targeting her to try to delegitimize her presidency. She is much better organized than her husband was. Maybe we can expect less chaos in her White House staff. The political climate has changed. Her husband was a survivor and he was surviving in a climate that was divisive but more conservative. She’ll be somewhat to the left of her husband, if she can be. In her years as a Senator, she was able to find compromises and get along with Republicans in the Senate. I think that her ability to work across the aisle might surprise people, if work across the aisle is allowed to happen, which is increasingly dubious."