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.
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