Memoir
Something Lost, Something Gained: Reflections on life, love, and liberty by Hillary Rodham Clinton
by Allan Behm
For Hillary Rodham Clinton’s admirers, Something Lost, Something Gained cements her place in America’s political pantheon. For her detractors, well, it probably confirms their view. When autobiography morphs into autohagiography, the result is always the same – self-promotion and self-justification become coterminous. Anodyne description masquerades as deep insight, and triviality promotes the Panglossian self-satisfaction that denies the reader any insight into how the author overcame more than her fair share of embarrassment and setbacks.