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The big baby
By Joan Walsh
Forget "The Death of Outrage." If the right really wants to win the Culture War, it should pass out copies of "Monica's Story."

Monica's nightmare
By Charles Taylor
There's nothing balanced or objective about Andrew Morton's book. That's why it rings so true

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"The Handyman"
Reviewed by Ruth Henrich
In this L.A. novel, an unassuming handyman muddles his way to artistic genius while repairing the lives of lonely wives and other lost souls

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Journey to the center of a race
By Fetzer Mills, Jr.
Randall Kenan talks about the seven-year odyssey that led him from Martha's Vineyard to Alaska in search of the truth about black life in America
(02/24/99)

Writing on Air
By Geoff Edgers
David Halberstam talks about his new book, "Playing for Keeps: Michael Jordan and the World He Made."
(02/18/99)

I know why the untuned Thunderbird pings
By Todd Lappin
Maya Angelou delivered the inspirational speech to the National Automobile Dealers Association. And guess what? It worked
(02/09/99)

Black but not like me
By Jill Nelson
A journalist slouches into a party celebrating the black elite -- whatever that is
(02/04/99)

"It's the Stupidity, Stupid"
By Harry Shearer
In this excerpt, Shearer wonders if we should hate the people who hate President Clinton
(01/29/99)

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Starring Monica Lewinsky, as herself
She was universally reviled -- until the public got a chance to hear her speak and, now, to read her version of events.
MONICA'S STORY | BY ANDREW MORTON | ST. MARTIN'S PRESS | 288 PAGES

BY LIESL SCHILLINGER | She was obsessively jealous of her man, and in her desperation to get the love she craved, she put her country's welfare at risk. "By any standards it was an unusual romance," her biographer, Andrew Morton, admits. To those who did not know her, her decision to put her romantic rights ahead of the nation's stability seemed shamelessly selfish, but in spite of the lurid headlines and the best efforts of powerful elites to discredit her, her friends defended her. "How can you not be self-obsessed when half the world is watching everything you do?" one protested, while others excused her on the ground that, although she came from a privileged background, "she had a childhood that was very hard," marred by her parents' divorce and a long-standing weight problem. Morton characterized her as "a volatile, impatient young woman whose moods regularly swing from optimism to despair."

The woman Morton and the others were describing was not Monica Lewinsky, the subject of his new book, "Monica's Story" -- even though every word in the preceding paragraph holds true for her -- but Diana, the former Princess of Wales, the famous subject of his last book. Diana was already an internationally adored icon when "Diana: Her True Story" helped stir up support for her divorce. But Morton's new martyr is a much less popular figure, with a much less popular figure. Monica is not the blond, svelte scion of a noble British line -- she is the buxom, brown-haired daughter of first-generation Americans, Jews of Eastern European descent whose families came to this country to escape persecution. Diana's problems led her to flee her marriage; Monica's have led her to invade other people's. But both of them nearly toppled a world leader, all in the name of love and personal fulfillment.

Their stories are similar, but there is one big difference: The public that loved Diana hated Monica. Why? There are two chief reasons. First, unlike Diana, Monica was introduced to us amid a typhoon of negative publicity and indictments. The White House called her a stalker, the Office of the Independent Counsel portrayed her as the ditsy pawn of a priapic monster, and she couldn't speak out in her own behalf for fear of giving the OIC material to use against her. But there was a second, more telling reason for the widespread revulsion: Diana had sex appeal, whereas Monica seemed to have sex but no appeal -- and desire seems grotesque in people one doesn't desire. Subjected to a freak show of unflattering Monica photographs and overwrought samples of her stolen conversations and letters, the public could not see her as desirable or believe that President Clinton could have wanted her for any but the crudest purposes. Her friend Lenore Reese commented that Beverly Hills, where Monica grew up, "is a relentless place. It is very unkind to heavy people." The rest of America is no different. Forty pounds lighter, Monica might have been a media darling. Instead, she was derided as a "portly pepperpot." During her affair with the president, Monica gave him a book she had studied in college, "Disease and Misrepresentation," that discussed the ways people dehumanize those whom they want to harm -- the Jews in World War II, the "gooks" in Vietnam -- in order to justify mistreating them. After 1998, Monica could have written the book herself. To the public, she was only bad. But if there's one thing Andrew Morton shows, it's that for a time, the president thought she was very good indeed.

N E X T+P A G E+| Is it good for Monica or bad for Monica?