In this brave, beautiful, and deeply personal memoir, Laura Bush, one
of our most beloved and private first ladies, tells her own
extraordinary story.
Born in the boom-and-bust oil town of Midland, Texas, Laura Welch grew
up as an only child in a family that lost three babies to miscarriage or
infant death. She vividly evokes Midland's brash, rugged culture, her
close relationship with her father, and the bonds of early friendships
that sustain her to this day. For the first time, in heart-wrenching
detail, she writes about the devastating high school car accident that
left her friend Mike Douglas dead and about her decades of unspoken
grief.
When Laura Welch first left West Texas in 1964, she never imagined that
her journey would lead her to the world stage and the White House. After
graduating from Southern Methodist University in 1968, in the thick of
student rebellions across the country and at the dawn of the women's
movement, she became an elementary school teacher, working in inner-city
schools, then trained to be a librarian. At age thirty, she met George
W. Bush, whom she had last passed in the hallway in seventh grade. Three
months later, the old maid of Midland married Midland's most eligible
bachelor. With rare intimacy and candor, Laura Bush writes about her
early married life as she was thrust into one of America's most
prominent political families, as well as her deep longing for children
and her husband's decision to give up drinking. By 1993, she found
herself in the full glare of the political spotlight. But just as her
husband won the Texas governorship in a stunning upset victory, her
father, Harold Welch, was dying in Midland.
In 2001, after one of the closest elections in American history, Laura
Bush moved into the White House. Here she captures presidential life in
the harrowing days and weeks after 9/11, when fighter-jet cover echoed
through the walls and security scares sent the family to an underground
shelter. She writes openly about the White House during wartime, the
withering and relentless media spotlight, and the transformation of her
role as she began to understand the power of the first lady. One of the
first U.S. officials to visit war-torn Afghanistan, she also reached out
to disease-stricken African nations and tirelessly advocated for women
in the Middle East and dissidents in Burma. She championed programs to
get kids out of gangs and to stop urban violence. And she was a major
force in rebuilding Gulf Coast schools and libraries post-Katrina.
Movingly, she writes of her visits with U.S. troops and their loved
ones, and of her empathy for and immense gratitude to military families.
With deft humor and a sharp eye, Laura Bush lifts the curtain on what
really happens inside the White House, from presidential finances to the
175-year-old tradition of separate bedrooms for presidents and their
wives to the antics of some White House guests and even a few members of
Congress. She writes with honesty and eloquence about her family, her
public triumphs, and her personal tribulations. Laura Bush's compassion,
her sense of humor, her grace, and her uncommon willingness to bare her
heart make this story revelatory, beautifully rendered, and unlike any
other first lady's memoir ever written.
