Hillary Clinton is one of my political heroes. In the times when I shouldered the responsibilities of leadership, I often looked to her for inspiration. Running for and holding public office is tough for anyone – rightly so – but it is harder for women. We are held to different standards. Less likely to be given credit for our successes, more likely to be crucified for our failures.
There is no female politician in the democratic world who has suffered more vilification – or shown more resilience in the face of it – than Hillary Clinton. So on any occasion when I might have felt beaten down, it was Hillary I looked to. I still do sometimes. If she can withstand everything that has been thrown at her over the years and keep going, so can I.
I have also had a couple of opportunities to spend time with her. In person, her fierce intelligence and encyclopaedic knowledge is supplemented by warmth and wit. I have witnessed first-hand how kind she is in her support of other women.
However, despite my deep admiration for her – and my love of books – the aspect of her work that has always slightly disappointed me is her writing. What Happened, the book she wrote in the wake of the 2016 election, is a partial exception. It has moments of raw authenticity, the hurt of her defeat tangible across its pages. By contrast, her previous volumes are a little turgid, the work of a politician still seeking to win favour, terrified of saying anything that might cost votes. Every word seems painstakingly weighed – focus-grouped even – and, as a consequence, stripped of meaning.
So, it was with great anticipation that I opened Something Lost, Something Gained. Would this, finally, be Hillary unleashed? The title of the book is a nod to the wonderful Joni Mitchell song, “Both Sides Now”, one of my own favourites, about the wisdom and perspective that comes with the passage of time and the accumulation of experience. In the first chapter of the book, Clinton talks about watching Mitchell perform the song at the Grammys earlier this year. “The old words took on new meaning,” she reflects. “We had our share of ‘dreams and schemes and circus crowds’. Then one day I looked up and I was 76.” This, then, is Hillary in reflective mode:
Personally and professionally, I’ve come through so many highs and lows, times when I felt on top of the world and others when I was in a deep, dark hole. After all these years, I really have looked at life and love “from both sides now”.
She claims to care less now about the opinions of others: “Once, I wasted energy worrying what critics might say or how the media would respond; now I have an easier time brushing all that aside and just doing what feels right and important.”
On this she is convincing – up to a point. The shutters still come down. I found myself briefly irritated by this early in the book. She tells a story about a day out organised by her friends after the 2016 election – a visit to Val-Kill, Eleanor Roosevelt’s cottage in New York’s Hyde Park. “Let’s go get sloshed in Eleanor’s living room,” she quotes one of her friends saying to her. As I had just begun to delight in how utterly brilliant an idea this was, Hillary quashed the notion that she would behave so irresponsibly: “No, we didn’t get sloshed.” I wondered why she felt the need to say this. I can’t be the only person who would love to think she got blind drunk after that horrible defeat (though not necessarily in Eleanor Roosevelt’s living room) and would be thrilled to hear her talk about it.
I’m not being reasonable though. First of all, it’s not fair to expect female politicians to bare their souls in ways we don’t demand of men. I, of all people, should appreciate that. Second, this book is deeply personal. She talks at length – and movingly – about friendship, family, faith. She reveals more about Bill than I have heard before: “Like all marriages, ours took work. Lots of work… You know the public stories, but not the private ones, not the everyday joys and setbacks”.
It is hard to avoid the conclusion that she profoundly loves him. When she expresses self-reproach, though, it is difficult not to seethe: “Even today, I… carry a lot of guilt about what my run for president cost Bill.” Maybe it has just passed me by, but I don’t recall Bill Clinton ever reflecting on the impact his decisions have had on her.
However, the real reason my irritation over the Val-Kill story is unfair is that it risks trivialising what is one of the most impactful books I have read in a long time. Clinton writes with piercing clarity – and no punches pulled – about the state of our world. The book is, in part, a howl of anguish. Much more importantly, it is a call to action.
She writes about the urgency of climate change, not in abstract terms, but through the eyes of women working in the salt marshes of India. If there is a Hillary hallmark, it is her searing feminism. She understands that women bear a disproportionate burden of the ills of the world today – climate change, conflict, the drift from democracy to autocracy – but is firm in her belief that the solutions lie with us too: “It’s not that women are born with superpowers. But around the world, in the face of oppression, inequality and misogyny, women have become resourceful.”
The account of the operation she helped spearhead to evacuate women from Afghanistan after the Taliban re-seized control in 2021 is inspiring. It is also a reminder that she still weighs her words. The rage she feels at the abandonment of Afghans – women especially – by the Biden administration is palpable, but never quite explicit.
She joins the dots between the various assaults on the rights of women and minorities that we are witnessing across the world today. The repeal of Roe vs Wade in her own country – and its chilling effects on the reproductive freedoms of women – demands her particular attention. While many politicians would gloss over the underlying reality, she calls it out: “There is a vast right-wing conspiracy that seeks to advance an extreme agenda at the expense of everyone else… democracy itself is in their crosshairs.”
In reading Something Lost, I was struck by the contrast with Tony Blair’s recent book on leadership. Where he is misty-eyed about the Elon Musks of this world, Clinton is excoriating about unregulated tech and its wilful harming of young people through algorithms designed to make them addicts. She rightly compares the conduct of the tech companies to that of big tobacco, pushing cigarettes long after the health risks were known. And whereas Blair seems strangely agnostic about the outcome of the great battle between democracy and autocracy, she is blunt about the dangers facing democracy, in the US and globally, and the absolute imperative that it prevails.
Perhaps the overriding theme of the book is the need to be vigilant, to fight back: “History tells us that a well-funded, highly motivated minority… can prove more politically potent than a complacent majority”.
The most powerful, and chilling, chapter is “Remaining Awake Through a Coup”, a title that channels the words of Martin Luther King. She recognises – as he did – that exhaustion and apathy can lead citizens to close their eyes to the huge social changes taking place around them. Clinton paints a horrifying picture of what a second Trump presidency might look like, and exhorts Americans not to sleepwalk into it.
In the final section of the book, she reflects on the suffragette movement (and shares with us her recent experience as a producer on the Broadway musical Suffs, another peek behind the curtain of her life). She urges us all to keep marching:
Progress is hard. You have to work at it day in and day out, for a long time. We may not live to see the full impact of our work. No generation ever does. But if you believe in the promise of the future and feel a responsibility for building it, you have to try.
We should all be grateful that Hillary Rodham Clinton is still marching. She is one of the most important voices of our generation. With its clarity and urgency, this is a book for everyone fearful of the path the world is on and thirsting for hope amid the despair.
Something Lost, Something Gained: Reflections on Life, Love and Liberty
Hillary Clinton
Simon & Schuster, 352pp, £25
Purchasing a book may earn the NS a commission from Bookshop.org, who support independent bookshops
[See also: Inside Diane Abbott’s war with Labour]
Content from our partners
Related
This article appears in the 18 Sep 2024 issue of the New Statesman, What’s the story?