Product Description

Ann Gerhart has worked at the Style section of The Washington Post since 1995 and wrote the paper's "Reliable Source" column for three and a half years. She lives with her husband and three children in Bethesda, Maryland.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #59152 in Books
• Published on: 2005-04-05
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 240 pages

Amazon.com Review
The title of this carefully measured biography of First Lady Laura Bush can have an ironic double-meaning depending on which side of the political/sexual liberation divide one finds themselves. Compared with the driven Nancy Reagan and Hillary Clinton (predecessors whose level of public acceptance often seemed to vary in inverse proportion to their ambitions for themselves and their husbands), the former Laura Welch of Midland, Texas can often seem like a cipher. But the causes (education and literacy) she has quietly espoused from her White House pulpit have indeed been the driving passions of her life since her days as an SMU coed. Given the hyper-polarizing presidency of George W. Bush, veteran Washington Post Style writer Ann Gerhard is careful to walk a fine line between fact and wildly divergent public opinion--a task made even more challenging by her subject's natural reticence and aversion to overweening self-analysis. But neither does Gerhard shy away from personal tragedies (the death of a high school classmate caused by Laura running a stop sign) or her husband's snowballing controversies (alcohol, Harken, Air National Guard duty gap, economic and social policies, 9/11, Iraq) and the public foibles of their twin daughters. Gerhard portrays Laura as a woman of typical West Texas manners and reserve, yet one steely enough not to sacrifice her longstanding social concerns or sense of self amidst a modern political dynasty. In that sense she may well be her husband's better half. --Jerry McCulley

From Publishers Weekly
Gerhart's portrait of the first lady is much like the public perception of her: a pleasant, opaque woman and a conundrum. A schoolteacher with a master's degree in library science, Laura Bush is clearly intelligent and articulate. Yet despite her credentials and her husband's evident respect for her opinions, she appears, from this account, to have no influence on his education policies nor does she seem to want any. Her determination to be what Gerhart terms "an old-fashioned first lady" alternately fascinates and frustrates Gerhart, a Washington Post reporter who has been covering her since the 2001 inauguration. Both reactions are understandable. For all her research, Gerhart never answers the central question she posits: how did an independent, liberal (she voted for Eugene McCarthy) career woman who purposely chose to teach in a poor elementary school in Austin morph so successfully into a devoted wife whose life's ambition is to make sure her husband's world runs smoothly, even if it means subverting her own beliefs and desires? Laura Bush's submission is apparent in such observations by Gerhart: "I noticed how much more animated and commanding she was when acting solo. When she traveled with the president, she faded to the background." Then again, given how carefully Laura Bush guards her privacy and her feelings, it's doubtful anyone could have cracked that mystery. But Gerhart succeeds in steering clear of the "sneering and sniping" often directed at Laura Bush in this not unsympathetic probing of the first lady's mysteries.
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From The Washington Post

Ann Gerhart says that she became fascinated with Laura Bush when she heard that the first lady wiped down her shelves with Clorox to relax.

This sounds, coming as it does in the very first line of her book, like a literary gimmick -- an anecdotal lead, swift and to the point, carrying a nicely compacted dollop of irony and psychological significance. Except that, in Gerhart's case, the explanation is probably the truth.

For Gerhart's The Perfect Wife is only partially a book about the life and "choices" of First Lady Laura Bush. What it is really, more profoundly, is an interface between our author, a high-powered working mom (spurred on by like-minded acquaintances -- the Washington "many," the in-the-know "people" whose never-specified voices often resonate in the background) and her subject, a woman whose traditionalist lifestyle stumps, angers and maddeningly provokes Gerhart and her companions, inspiring a kind of bilious wistfulness that creeps through on every page.

Because Laura Bush's life is (or seems to be) orderly, happy and harmonious. And Laura Bush herself is (or seems to be) calm, happy and grounded -- even though she has harmonized her life with her husband's to the point that her own professional identity and ambitions have disappeared. All of which, for Gerhart, is "compellingly mysterious." Gerhart, The Washington Post Style writer assigned to cover Mrs. Bush, makes herself a recurring character in The Perfect Wife as she delves into the first lady's past, tracks her early career as a teacher and librarian, explores her courtship and marriage with George W. Bush, and follows her on her campaign rounds, at official functions and in the relative privacy of the White House. Her first-person presence works nicely, giving the book a pleasing kind of casualness and immediacy and enabling us as readers to enjoy a fly-on-the-wall perspective.

Gerhart draws a stark contrast between herself and the first lady. We learn that she has a job at a "competitive and stimulating" workplace, while Laura Bush gave up her career when she married. Gerhart has three children who, we must assume from her damning chapter on the Bush twins, are much nicer than Jenna and Barbara, and a "perfect husband," who, unlike George, is not given to bragging that his perfect wife "doesn't try to steal the limelight." Gerhart's feminist, therapeutically informed, professional woman's perspective dooms her, then, to endless frustration as she tries to fit Laura Bush into the framework of understandings that structure her own life, and to squeeze anger, indignation, frustration -- anything -- from a woman who, she believes, has "sacrificed" so very much.

This leads her, when the material that issues from the first lady's mouth doesn't rise to the occasion, to dramatize desperately. And to psychologize narrow-mindedly. She calls Laura Bush's decision to drop her career and devote herself to her family a "startling transformation." Her immersion in the Bush clan and its political ambitions is a "determined sublimation." Her public fealty to her husband's conservative politics causes an "excruciating tension," because she is said to have liberal tendencies (although we never see any direct evidence of this in her later adulthood).

The first lady expresses happiness, and Gerhart hears "an ache." She responds to the Sept. 11 attacks with pragmatism, and Gerhart worries about the damage her "stoicism" will do to her "enormous capacity to feel." Eager for signs of "personal growth" and "transformation," and finding none, she finally turns against her subject: "It was as if personal growth was suspect, as if seizing opportunity were opportunistic, as if transformation meant one was no longer faithful to one's roots, and one's self." Gerhart's efforts to impose emotional drama onto the first lady's life ring consistently false, even at dramatic moments, as when she relates the well-known story of then-Laura Welch's car accident at age 17, which took the life of a classmate: "Killing another person was a tragic, shattering error for a girl to make at seventeen," she comments, flat-footedly, in the absence of virtually any sign of retrospective emotion from Laura. Such asides lend an overlay of schlock to material that could very compellingly speak for itself. And, perversely, the more Gerhart points to Laura Bush's emotional and psychological limitations, the more sympathetic, authentic and compelling a person the first lady seems. (The president doesn't come off badly, either.)

Gerhart is a wonderful observer, with a keen eye for detail and an excellent ear for conversation. ("Bushie are you gonna git 'em?" she has Laura Bush remark to the president after he promises that Osama bin Laden will be brought in "dead or alive.") One of the book's most delicious passages comes when she wonders in conversation with an old Bush pal, Robert McCleskey, what could conceivably have attracted the thoughtful and demure Laura Welch to the wild and crazy "Bush Boy" back in the late 1970s:

He "leaned back in his chair, looked at me a good long moment and grinned," she writes. "Then McCleskey sat up and reached into a desk drawer. He rooted around for a minute and withdrew a yellowing snapshot. Without a word, he pushed it over to me. It was a photo of George, circa 1977, in a dusty oil field, squinting under the hot Texas sun. He was wearing a hideous orange and mustard-yellow pop-art-patterned shirt, and his bare arms were brown and muscled. He had longish hair, curly, and that dead-on-gaze, filled with mirth, and that sexy sly smile. 'Well then,' I said. 'I see.' And McCleskey chuckled." Gerhart had such good material and can be such a good writer. But her need to win the culture war that separates her from the likes of Laura Bush does her book, and its subject, a disservice. Instead of deconstructing the idea of the "perfect wife," Gerhart should simply have rested upon her reporting and let her story stand.

Reviewed by Judith Warner

Copyright 2004, The Washington Post Co. All Rights Reserved.

Customer Reviews

Nobody's perfect but everyone's got a story!
Gerhart's book is neither a puff piece nor a hatchet job. Readers seeking either will be disappointed. Gerhart instead presents a balanced, factual account of Laura Bush. And if you read between the lines, you will realize she's more complex than she appears.

First, as other reviewers noted, the most astounding piece of Laura's history is her car accident at age seventeen. There's no evidence that she had been drinking, yet she mysteriously ran a very visible stop sign. Even more mysteriously, the city declined to prosecute. She didn't even get a traffic tickert for running a stop sign and smashing into a truck, instantly killing the driver. Later she realized she had killed a good friend.

I can't help wondering where Laura Welch (her maiden name) would be today if she had been charged with involuntary manslaughter. Would she have gone on become an SMU sorority girl? A teacher and librarian?
Maybe the real lesson isn't that Laura got away with something but that we shouldn't be too quick to punish someone for a one-time mistake, however tragic.

And while Laura never talks about the "accident," there must have been long-lasting impact. Did this experience contribute to her shy, self-effacing qualities?

Relatedly, we get a sense of the Bush family dyamics. In his younger days, Bush did his share of drinking and partying. Laura had memories of her tragic accident. when Twins Jenna and Barbara grow up to be self-absorbed, uncontrollable brats. An analyst would have a field day with this family.

And there's the unspoken question. How does Laura Bush, a smart woman with mostly liberal friends, separate her husband's political persona from her own values? She does what she can and doesn't even try to impinge on her husband's territory.

We also learn about Laura Bush's book programs, where she invites authors to read and contribute. Most authors, being liberals, are reluctant to accept, but soon they are won over by Laura's intellect. She's a real reader.

And she's hardly a doormat. Barbara Bush would be a formidable mother-in-law but Laura avoids yielding. Nor does she take the easy way out. Barbara's issue was literacy, so Laura makes it clear her approach will be different.

I'm reminded of stories of another big Texan president, Lyndon Johnson Indeed, Laura refers to Johnson when she compares herself to other first ladies. Like Laura, Lady Bird knew when to push and when to back off, and she retained her own integrity.

After reading the book, it's hard to see how Laura and George came together so successfuly. They're opposite in many ways. Gerhart hints of disagreement on key political issues. Laura reads; George doesn't. Laura is devoted to her children; George flew to Florida for a planned vacation while Jenna underwent an emergency appendectomy. In the end, Perfect Wife isn't about politics. It's about a family that, with less wealth and public scrutiny, might be termed dysfunctional.

Buy this book!
This book was fascinating. The Perfect Wife is well written, well researched, insightful and informative. Ann Gerhart is able to place Laura Bush in context for us; through every chapter she delineates how the personal and the public coexist within a complex person. Laura Bush seems stereotypical of a certain sort of southern woman, but as we know, stereotypes are confining in their lack of dimension. The Perfect Wife ably shows us how Laura Bush is not one-dimensional, rather, she is an intellectual surrounded with stacks of books at her side, she has had friends who are Democrats (and hippies, back in the day), she has known tragedy first-hand, and, like many wives and mothers, is at times annoyed by her spouse and offspring (but is too well-mannered to ever say so in public.) I loved this book - I never thought I could relate to a "first lady" (or a perfect wife... ) but after reading this, I'm rethinking many expectations.

Nuanced and thoughtful
I don't really understand why so many of the earlier reviews of this book are so negative. Apparently many admirers of Mrs. Bush want a portrait that will admit of no shadings of character at all. This is a nuanced and thoughtful book, not at all unfavorable to Mrs. Bush, if you read it with an open mind. Clearly Mrs. Bush has not had an easy or uncomplicated life; and clearly, also, she is a woman who does not let much of her inner life show. The vehicular manslaughter episode when she was 17, for instance, would be enough to irretrievably affect many people for their whole life. Mrs. Bush, however, managed to "move on," as they say, and within weeks to return to her high school routine and from that on to college. To do that takes a person capable of erecting some very powerful defenses. That Mrs. Gerhart is able to penetrate those defenses at all, and show us Mrs. Bush as a real person, with both strengths and flaws (rather than as the waving, smiling china doll which so many of her fans apparently prefer to see her as) is a credit to her as a writer.