A L S O+.T O D A Y

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

Starring Monica Lewinsky, as herself
By Liesl Schillinger
She was universally reviled -- until the public got a chance to hear her speak and, now, to read her version of events

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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

T A B L E+T A L K

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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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THE BIG BABY | PAGE 1, 2, 3
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For more than a year I've avoided Monica criticism. She found herself in the media floodlights by accident; no, worse, by a design not of her making: a genuine, if Three Stooges-like, right-wing conspiracy that sacrificed her in its war against the Clintons. Her looks, her weight, her past, her sexual appetite, her judgment about men, her morals: None of it seemed fair comment, given the way she was delivered into our rifle-sights. The fact that she was only 21 when she met the president, and only 24 when she was snagged by Starr, made it easier to keep silent. The way the media abused Monica felt like a form of statutory rape -- the girl was too young to have her life dissected by prurient grown-ups that way.

Then came Monica's chat with Barbara Walters, on the eve of the release of "Monica's Story," when you could hear the cash registers ca-ching with every commercial break; watch ABC, and Monica, get wealthier with every wet-lipped smile, every tear, every smutty detail. One thing that had bothered me about the Clinton scandal was the American public's disapproval of Lewinsky -- one poll showed that 78 percent of the nation had negative feelings about her in the wake of the September Starr Report -- even as the president's approval ratings kept climbing. I'd thought her Starr-enforced silence had something to do with the enmity; we hadn't heard her side of the story, and maybe when we did, we'd understand, and forgive.

But I was wrong, dead wrong. Wrong in a biblical sense, even. The Monica on parade in the Walters interview, in "Monica's Story" and in a series of interviews in the British press and in Time magazine, is even scarier than the ditsy Beverly Hills temptress or the zaftig woman-scorned the media skewered last year. Even after all she and the nation endured -- she had a role in nearly toppling the president, humiliating his wife, devastating his daughter -- she is solipsistic, selfish, strangely defiant. And this fact wasn't lost on the public: A Time poll taken after the Walters interview found that support for Monica plummeted. Most viewers thought she looked more foolish and less intelligent than they previously thought. Three-quarters thought she was enjoying the attention she is receiving, and almost as many labeled her an "opportunist." Her numbers are likely to worsen if people read this book.

Andrew Morton's book is very strange: a damning, warts-and-more-warts tell-all that claims to be a tribute. He assures us that the Monica he found was a "bright, lively and witty young woman," not the Beverly Hills bimbo of last year's media circus. The worst he can find to say about her is that she's sloppy -- "the family always having had a maid to do the tidying up" -- and "too loyal" to the married men she pursued. Yet the portrait that emerges is devastating. We meet her many therapists -- the post-divorce counselor, the eating-disorders counselor, the Christian Science counselor, Dr. Irene, Dr. Susan. I know I'm missing somebody. We listen to her complain that her father wouldn't pay for an expensive Bat Mitzvah like other Beverly Hills girls got -- "like a wedding for one," Monica explained to Morton -- and she had to settle for a big party in her backyard. We feel her pain when Tori Spelling doesn't invite her to her birthday party, and nod knowingly when Morton reveals she attended high school with Lyle and Eric Menendez, those other poster children for bad Beverly Hills parenting. Occasionally, Morton ventures a critical observation. Here's a zinger: "It is one of the many ironies of Monica's young life that while she was to go on to study psychology at college and to form a profound intellectual understanding of the human mind and condition, she was unable to apply that knowledge to her own life and decisions." And how.

The dysfunctional Lewinskys, too, get his respect, though the details of their story will make it hard for the reader to share it. They are "loving" parents with a sense of "decorum"; people of "good manners" and "proper form," which the Eurocentric Morton attributes to the "European influences" on both sides of the family. We hear the stories of how from her toddlerhood they struggled, and failed, to contain the exuberant Monica: her tantrums at having to leave the park before she wanted, at having to wear a long-sleeved dress to her aunt's wedding (the sleeves were cut off when she refused to walk down the aisle with them on). Like all mothers, the devoted Marcia tries to protect her daughter from hurt and harm. She intervenes to get Monica invited to Spelling's birthday party after all, calling the Spellings' social secretary and insisting there had been a mistake (Monica learned about the ploy and refused to go). But her tender tenacity in protecting her daughter from social harm in that instance would disappear later. She agonizes, for example, over whether she should have told high school officials that Monica's married drama teacher was preying on her and other students -- a no-brainer -- or spoken to a Clinton aide she vaguely knew about how to stop the presidential affair. Of course, she does neither.

The chapters on Monica's affair with the president strangely drag, given the sexual details. Maybe it's that we already know it all -- the thong, the cigar, the president's sexual withholding, the soiled dress. Re-experiencing the details from inside Monica's brain, though, is claustrophobic, even frightening. There's nothing in there but obsessive thoughts about Clinton, and about her weight. At points it's hard not to feel deeply sad for this girl, who's filling a voracious void with food and drama and shabby sex. But even now, she won't feel her own pain. She's unapologetic for blabbing to her friends about the affair (though she regrets telling Tripp, who, fat child or not, is along with Starr a true supporting villain). "This wasn't bragging to my friends about the relationship. It was more like treating him and talking about him like a normal boy. I'm from a generation where women are sexually supportive of each other. I know all about my girlfriends' boyfriends, and the president was no different."

N E X T+P A G E+| She's no Diana