The Perfect Wife: The Life and Choices of Laura Bush

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