Hillary Clinton takes stock of life’s wins and losses in a memoir inspired by a Joni Mitchell lyric
NEW YORK (AP) — At the end of her new memoir, Hillary Clinton offers up what sounds like a far-off wish: “I hope I’m alive to see the United States elect a female president.”
Turns out her book went to the printers a tad too soon. Clinton wrote that sentence before Kamala Harris became the Democratic presidential nominee, suddenly making that wish feel a whole lot more immediate. It was too late to update the print version of “Something Lost, Something Gained,” which comes out this week, though the audiobook now has an epilogue.
So how does Clinton feel about that wish now?
“Really optimistic,” she says, praising the vice president as a candidate and in particular her recent debate performance. “I think I’m going to be around to see the first woman president!”
Clinton, 76, has written memoirs before – from “Living History” in 2003 up through “What Happened?” in 2017, about the painful loss to Donald Trump that thwarted her own quest to be the first female U.S. president. This latest feels more intimate. Inspired by the song “Both Sides Now” by one of her favorite musicians, Joni Mitchell, the book aims to be a snapshot of how she sees the world now, she says — rather like catching up with her over dinner.
So it goes from the macro – for example, a chapter on how she imagines the years following a Trump re-election, starting with troops patrolling America’s cities – to the micro, describing life as a grandmother or mornings at home with Bill, competing over the Spelling Bee puzzle in The New York Times.
First lady, lawyer, senator, secretary of state, and of course presidential nominee. University professor, fledgling Broadway producer. Clinton has lived many chapters, and the book’s actual chapters shift easily between eras.
She recounts in spy-novel-worthy detail an operation to save threatened women in Afghanistan as the Taliban were taking over in 2021, then reflects in the next chapter on the unique “sisterhood” of former first ladies, at one point defending Melania Trump from criticism of her attire at Rosalynn Carter’s memorial service: “She came. That’s what mattered.”
But she makes no secret of her animosity toward Donald Trump. It’s clear that in the “something lost” category of her title is the election that still hurts, deeply. In one recent anecdote, she recounts running into a retired FBI official who apologized for his role in how the bureau handled the investigation over her emails, a probe that was reopened days before the election.
She writes that she stared for a minute, unable to speak. “I would have been a great president,” she then told him, before walking off.
Clinton spoke to The Associated Press last week ahead of her book’s release. Some more takeaways:
The ever-present glass ceiling
Clinton wore white, honoring women’s suffrage, when she accepted the Democratic nomination; Harris did not. Clinton spoke of “18 million cracks” in the ultimate glass ceiling when she lost; Harris has not emphasized gender in her speeches. Why the difference?
Well, says Clinton, it’s been eight years. When she ran, it was so new for the country to have a female major-party candidate that it had to be a focus. Nearly a decade later, the country’s gotten more used to the idea.
”We now don’t just have one image of a person who happens to be a woman who ran for president – namely me,” she said. “Now we have a much better opportunity for women candidates, starting with Kamala, to be viewed in a way that just takes for granted the fact that yes, guess what? She’s a woman.”
On ‘being right’
Clinton writes that admirers often come up to her and say “You warned us, and I wish we had listened.” (She adds: “What am I supposed to say to that? Yes, I did.”)
But Clinton also writes that she takes no pleasure in hearing or feeling she was right – “in fact, I hate it” – even when she learned one afternoon in May that Trump had become the first former U.S. president to be convicted of felony crimes, a moment she says brought “a jolt of disbelief” and “a pang of vindication” plus some tears.
Asked what she is most afraid of “being right” about now, she replies: “I’m most afraid that people will not take Donald Trump seriously. And literally.”
Old pursuits, and new ones
Not surprisingly for the woman who coined the phrase “Women’s rights are human rights” three decades ago, Clinton writes about many female activists and dissidents she’s worked with around the globe. She also tells the story of how she joined with colleagues in a secret operation to get hundreds of women out of Afghanistan – professors, lawyers, activists and their families – who were likely to be targeted by the Taliban once U.S. troops left.
But Clinton also discusses new pursuits. Like teaching, for the first time in 50 years, at Columbia University. And Broadway producing. Clinton was among the producers of “Suffs,” the Tony-winning musical about women who fought for the right to vote in the early 20th century. She ends her book with a song from the show, “Keep Marching.”
Is there more producing in the future? “I don’t know,” she says. “I can tell you it’s been one of the greatest experiences in my life.”
Family and marriage
Being a grandmother “truly is the one experience of life that is not overrated,” says the grandmother of three, who dedicates her book to them.
But Clinton gets most personal when addressing her marriage, which she says brings her “new joys every day.” She does not feel the need to elaborate on her reference to past challenges. “It’s no secret that Bill and I had dark days in our marriage in the past,” she writes. “But the past softens with time, and what’s left is the truth: I’m married to my best friend.”
Asked now if she feels some people still don’t believe that, and wonder why she stayed, she replies: “I’m sure there are people who don’t get it. (But) this was for me an opportunity to basically say what I believe, which is that every life has challenges, opportunities, setbacks, disappointments, successes, achievements. And you have to make a decision almost every day about how you’re going to live that day.” Hers, she says, were right for her.
Walks in the woods
Clinton’s schedule is organized by an aide, to the minute. A phone call might be planned for 10:14 a.m. But what does that mean about her much-documented walks in the woods near home in Chappaqua, New York.
Clinton schedules time for those, too. Sometimes Bill comes, but his walks are more like “an ambling conversation” where he needs to chat with everyone they see. As for her, she needs to “just get out and walk as fast as I can.”
Sometimes she plans speeches while walking. Other times, she says, she thinks about absolutely nothing. “The Japanese have this great phrase that translates to forest bathing, where you just literally walk in the woods and just take it all in.”
She advises readers to do the same when the political climate starts to overwhelm: “Put down your phone and go outside. Take a walk.”
