My Life by Bill Clinton: book review

My Life (2004) is the memoir of Democrat William Jefferson Clinton (1946-), two-term American President from 1993 to 2001.

He begins at birth with the loss of his father William Jefferson Blythe three months before Clinton was born, his step-father Roger Clinton, and his mother Virginia Cassidy. In this mammoth book, he rushes through his childhood, and focuses on two historical years, 1963 and 1968, that shaped his early life: the assassination of President John F Kennedy in 1963; and the 1963 ‘I Have a Dream Speech’ by Martin Luther King Jr. and his assassination in 1968. Major events in Waco, Bosnia, and Somalia, for example, shaped his presidency.

Detailed in listing almost everyone he has ever met, Clinton again rushes through his courtship and marriage to Hillary Rodham in 1975 and the birth of daughter Chelsea in 1980.

He focuses on his work life, political hustings and campaigning, converations with colleagues on both sides of the fence, international historical events, and professional and personal scandals.

In writing his memoir closely following the end of his presidency in 2001, he leaves little time for reflection and strategic development. Nevertheless, the memoir is a comprehensive account of his milestones and headlines, with behind the scenes events and discussions.

MARTINA NICOLLS

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MARTINA NICOLLS is an international human rights-based consultant in education, healing and wellbeing, peace and stabilization, foreign aid audits and evaluations, and the author of: The Paris Residences of James Joyce (2020), Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

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