Hell to Pay: The Unfolding Story of Hillary Rodham

There are some interesting new titbits scattered throughout the book, like the fact that after law school Hillary Rodham tried to become a Marine Corp officer but was turned down; or that she told her high school paper her ambition after high school was “to marry a senator and settle down in Georgetown”. Olson, attempting to dissect the mystery of the Clinton partnership, writes, “Most self-respecting women would have left” after Clinton’s repeated infidelities. “Hillary chose to stay. She behaves as both a desperate lover, and like a frantic campaign manager protecting a flawed candidate…Hillary, it seems, long ago accepted Bill Clinton as someone who could advance her goals, as a necessary complement to her intellectual cold-blooded pursuit of power”. As the Clinton presidency draws to a close, that pursuit has taken her beyond the White House toward a bid for her own US Senate seat. Olson predicts the Senate won’t be enough, just the next step towards becoming the first woman president: “Hillary Clinton seeks nothing less than an office that will give her a platform from which to exercise real power and real world leadership”. While Olson admits that “Bill Clinton has always excited the greatest passion not among his supporters, but among his detractors”, the same could certainly be said of his wife–whose supporters will probably consider Hell to Pay a rehash of a too-familiar story, but whose detractors will no doubt savour every page. —Linda Killian