Jerry Schwartz, Associated Press:
None of them comes alive, not even the main characters of this badly conceived, flatly written, poorly edited book. Not Hillary Rodham Clinton, who comes off as a cardboard saint who is said to be smart and tough and good. Not special prosecutor Kenneth Starr, the book’s villain, who comes off as pure evil — not really a human being at all, more of an incubus….
Part of the problem is that “My Life” is relentlessly chronological, especially the second half of the book, which is devoted to his presidency. Almost every paragraph describes another meeting with a foreign leader or the signing of another bill or delivery of another speech.
The effect is mind-numbing. It’s like being locked in a small room with a very gregarious man who insists on reading his entire appointment book, day by day, beginning in 1946.
Michiko Kakutani,
New York Times:
Unfortunately for the reader, Clinton’s much-awaited autobiography My Life, is long-winded and tedious.
The book, which weighs in at more than 950 pages, is sloppy, self-indulgent and often eye-crossingly dull.
In many ways, the book is a mirror of Clinton’s presidency: lack of discipline leading to squandered opportunities; high expectations, undermined by self-indulgence and scattered concentration.
And last but definitely not least, the Washington Post says: Memoir Contradicts Testimony on Lewinsky:
In his August 1998 grand jury testimony, Clinton said he began an inappropriate sexual relationship with Monica S. Lewinsky in “early 1996.” His testimony, as was widely noted at the time, was in conflict with Lewinsky’s story: She testified the relationship began on Nov. 15, 1995, in the midst of a government shutdown.Without explanation, in his memoir Clinton departs from his grand jury testimony and corroborates her version: “During the government shutdown in late 1995, when very few people were allowed to come to work in the White House, and those who were there were working late, I’d had an inappropriate encounter with Monica Lewinsky and would do so again on other occasions between November and April, when she left the White House for the Pentagon.”
So there we have it. According to Clinton’s own words, he lied to a federal grand jury. Random House might want to hire some new fact-checkers.
