'The New York Times' Posts Second Review of Clinton Book

By: E&P Staff The New York Times late Wednesday posted on its Web site a review of a book not scheduled to run until July 4 in its Sunday Book Review. This, of course, is no ordinary book, but Bill Clinton's new memoir, "My Life."

The review, by famed novelist Larry McMurtry, calls the book "the richest American presidential autobiography."
The Times occasionally publishes early, on its site, reviews of news-generating books.

Some criticism has been leveled at the paper since last Sunday, when it published an extremely unflattering review of the same book on its front page (a very rare event), two days before the book was published. That review, by regular critic Michiko Kakutani, called the book "sloppy, self-indulgent and often eye-crossingly dull."

The Clinton book includes harsh criticism of The New York Times' coverage of the Whitewater and the Ken Starr investigations, so some have alleged "payback" by the newspaper in its Kakutani review.

McMurtry in the new review says that "snobbery" is the reason some reviewers have compared Clinton's book unfavorably to the classic by Ulysses S. Grant. "Some people don't want slick Bill Clinton to have written a book that might be as good as dear, dying General Grant's," he charges.

He adds, slyly, "There are plenty of stout sticks to beat Clinton with, but Grant's memoir is not one of them."

McMurtry also calls the book a "big puffy plum cake" and "a long, dense book by the world's premier policy wonk." It's "a galloping, reckless, political picaresque."

Later, after noting the huge advance and media coverage, the book has received, McMurtry writes: "The very press that wanted to discredit him and perhaps even run him out of town instead made him a celebrity, a far more expensive thing than a mere president. Clinton's now up there with Madonna, in the highlands that are even above talent."

The reviewer adds that the book doesn't really come to an end, since the Clintons "plan to be around for another two or three decades, at least."