In Search of Bill Clinton

John Gartner is a psychologist on the staff of Johns Hopkins University who became obsessed with answering the question of what makes Bill Clinton the psychologically complex obsession of a generation.In Search of Bill Clinton unravels the familiar story we thought we knew by asking the questions a psychologist might pose, uncovering some long-held secrets about his boyhood and getting inside Bill Clinton’s head: How true is the legend of young Bill Clinton, a boy with an abusive stepfather and a loving mother? Did the seductive nightlife of Hot Springs show the virtuous young man how to become the philandering husband? What drives Clinton, the boy who never knew his biological father, to become one of our elder statesmen? On a quest to understand the mind of Bill Clinton as well as the man, Gartner travelled across the US and around the world to speak with hundreds of people who knew Clinton and his family intimately. What emerges is a portrait of William Jefferson Clinton, both biographical and psychological, that is as much about the man as it is about political mythmaking, family ties and, in Gartner’s own story, the search for heroes in modern day America. In Search of Bill Clinton is destined to become one of the most talked-about books about a former President who still fascinates, enrages and obsesses millions around the world.