Salon Books | Starring Monica Lewinsky, as herself


	A L S O+.T O D A Y The big baby By Joan Walsh Forget "The Death of Outrage." If the right really wants to win the Culture War, it should pass out copies of "Monica's Story." Monica's nightmare By Charles Taylor There's nothing balanced or objective about Andrew Morton's book. That's why it rings so true - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - "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 It's almost spring, and books about baseball are a hot topic in the Books section of Table Talk B O O K C A S E A new service for book lovers R E C E N T L Y 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) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Browse the Books feature archive - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -		STARRING MONICA LEWINSKY, AS HERSELF \| PAGE 1, 2, 3, 4 - - - - - - - - - - Whatever you think of Monica Lewinsky and her family's peculiar notion of fidelity (which includes friendship and love but often excludes marriage), you cannot read the third section of "Monica's Story" without pity. Mother, father and daughter collapse time and again in hotel rooms, kitchens, balconies and courtroom bathrooms, howling with despair, crumpled, shamed and broken, weeping, saying the kaddish, contemplating suicide, hiding behind closed blinds, fearing that any confidence they offer one another may result in jail time. Particularly poignant is Marcia's account of how a housebound Monica, unable to keep herself from watching the parade of her own ignominy scrolling across CNN week after week, would sob out loud each time she saw another of her close friends brought in to answer Starr's subpoenas. "Monica would cry, 'Oh my God, it's Ashley,' or whoever, and break down in tears. It was enough that they were coming after her, but to watch these friends being marched in was unbearable for my daughter." Not only did Monica's friends stick by her, one of them, Catherine Allday Davis, is now considering renouncing her U.S. citizenship to show her contempt for the legal system that permitted this witch hunt. Last month the wider public got the chance to hear and see Monica speak when her Senate testimony was televised. For the first time, a murmur went around that she might not be completely bad after all. She was sharp, poised, witty and articulate; and a voice that people had thought would be Gidget-giddy turned out to be sandy and wry. During her grand jury testimony last August, Monica had won over the 23 jurors, and when the ordeal was through the forewoman announced in front of everyone, "We wanted to offer you a bouquet of good wishes that includes luck, success, happiness and blessings." ("I've never seen a lovefest like it," the Starr prosecutor, Karin Immergut, commented acidly.) With her iconic appearance on "20/20" with Barbara Walters, Monica was clearly hoping that she could spread the lovefest to a wider audience. Like a lot of people, I watched the Monica and Barbara show with a group of people who professed themselves sick of the whole tawdry spectacle. And yet, once the Nefertiti coif came up on the screen, we all sat rapt for two solid hours, munching cheese and bread, drinking red wine and watching Monica spill the beans. Her long-lashed eyes widened to Marilyn Monroe O's, she laughed, she cried, she gasped -- and her lips remained smoothly crinkle-glossed throughout (the next day, CNN Moneyline ran a clip on her amazingly lick-proof lip gloss -- it may achieve a popularity Monica never will). Every now and then someone would squeal squeamishly at some Monica moment that was as hard to watch as a "Brady Bunch" crush scene. Often, people would object to some pridelessly pandering comment -- of Barbara's. But the women ruefully admitted that they identified with the Monica they saw onscreen more than they wanted to, and more than they had thought they would. The men decided she was more of a looker than they had realized, and thus a less reprehensible choice for presidential lust. She was young, everyone agreed, but she was not a sport of nature, she was not un-American -- and she was not stupid. For more than a year, this ordinary California girl has been the most reviled woman in the world. After reading Morton's book and watching Monica's performance with Walters, I jotted down some of the redeeming qualities that ought to count in her favor: 1) She has a pretty face. 2) She is not skinny. 3) She is not sexually repressed. 4) She likes poetry. 5) She doesn't like politics. 6) She trusts people even when she shouldn't. 7) She loves her mother. 8) She is not a neat freak. 9) She was unpopular in high school. 10) Tori Spelling didn't invite her to her birthday party. 11) She can sing. 12) She has a sense of humor. 13) She can knit. 14) She is generous. 15) She has a fucked-up family life. 16) She is loyal to her friends. 17) They are loyal to her. 18) She refused to wear a mike to help Kenneth Starr entrap the president. 19) She refused to let her ditsy lawyer, William Ginsburg, accuse the president of sexual harassment . 20) She believes in love. 21) She eats pastry when she's down. 22) She hangs out in the East Village. 23) She cares about the homeless. 24) She is not Linda Tripp. 25) For an entire year she was subjected to a relentless smear campaign calculated to destroy her, her family and her friends. Reason No. 25 obviously outweighs all the rest. Monica Lewinsky's disgrace did not come from doing something that many women don't do, as pleasant as that might be to think; it came from being caught at it. If every woman in this country were subpoenaed to testify in full, in the presence of her mother, her father and a thousand cameras, about sex acts she has regretted, chastity would become the next trend, full purdah the next fashion statement. And yet, even people who feel a new sympathy toward Monica probably wouldn't want to leave her unattended in a room with their boyfriend, husband or father, at least until she gets a man of her own. (If death row inmates can find pen-pal wives, surely there is hope for a voluptuous beauty not yet out of her 20s.) Common sense aside, though, there is still one reason that a lot of people, particularly women, will choose to continue disliking Monica, however many extenuating circumstances pile up in her favor. She has revealed in public, on camera, for an entire year, the private meltdown that other women in the middle of love affairs gone sour allow themselves to succumb to only at 3 in the morning, when nobody's watching. Other women have, like Monica, been despondent, obsessed, crazily hopeful, blind, unreasonable, entirely exposed, wondering who they can call to vent and, more likely than not, inhaling a tubful of New York Fudge Chunk ice cream. That is something no woman wants to be and that no woman wants a man to see. SALON \| March 12, 1999 Liesl Schillinger writes on culture and sexual politics for the New York Times, the Washington Post and many other publications. She is on the staff of the New Yorker. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Clinton in Crisis Salon's complete coverage of the investigation, impeachment and trial of the president.