The Girls in the Van: Covering Hillary

For what it's worth, I found this to be a terrific read, and probably a good one to pick for a book group. Very funny and hard to put down, but with a lot of thought-provoking points, both about politics in the post-Clinton era and about the real life of a working mother (i.e. Beth Harpaz, an AP reporter.) Although Hillary fans will find the portrait of their heroine mostly positive, Harpaz raises many sharp points about manufactured news in our celebrity-mad age.

Beth Harpaz has written a wonderfully clever, beautifully written, and thoroughly entertaining behind-the-scenes look at one of the most high-profile New York campaigns in a long time. She maintains a true reporter's neutrality, offering, for example, an intriguing perspective on how the press coverage shaped the public's view of Hillary. At the same time, she offers so much more than "just the facts, ma'am." Harpaz is willing to reveal how she struggled with the choices she made in covering the campaign and offers an often hilarious glimpse into the life of an AP reporter. What makes the book even more enjoyable are the poignant glimpses into Harpaz's own life as she struggles to balance the career demands of covering the campaign with raising a family. What a delight to read a political book that is breezy, funny, and all-together human!

Beth Harpaz provides an inciteful view of the campaign trail. While reading the book we are provided with a view of how Hilary's campaign responded to the various crisises and questions raised by the Giuliani/Lazio campaigns. We are also delighted by Beth's struggles to balance our homelife with the 24/7 life of the campaign. We are enlightened about Hillary but the real winner is Beth and her two sons.

I had a great time reading this book! Enjoyable from beginning to end! In fact, I read the whole thing pretty much straight through once I started. AP reporter Beth Harpaz conveys her experience of covering Hillary Clinton's campaign through a series of sometimes funny, sometimes touching and always interesting anecdotes about suriving life on the campaign trail with Hillary. She creates a uniformly interesting story without dipping into the typical "kiss and tell", dirty-laundry type fare we see too much of these days. At the same time, however, there are enough revealing bits about the various players in this campaign to satisfy the voyeur in all of us. Somehow, in reading this tale I became fascinated by the job of a political reporter and was intrigued with Harpaz's descriptions as to what constitutes news in a campaign and how that news is created and controlled. And of course, there were the many related stories about how the campaign itself desperately strove to create an image, appeal to constituencies and control the news themselves. Harpaz also strikingly relays her personal struggles in balancing the demands of the all consuming campaign trail with her even more consuming job as mother of two young boys. And she openly discusses her conflicts about her choices as a professional and as a mother. We all know what that's about! Harpaz also has some interesting thoughts on the role that sexism may or may not have played in press coverage of the campaign and in Hillary's role as a candidate and First Lady.But "Girls in the Van" is not really a heavy, ponderous book. It's actually alot of fun. I laughed out loud a number of times while reading this book, for instance when reading the lyrics of the naughty songs the reporters on the press van made up about Hillary or while reading Harpaz's account of how the press lost it at a campaign rally where the singing group "10,000 Maniacs" opened the program and Hillary followed by stating how great it was to be there with 10,000 maniacs. In the end, I really didn't know how Harpaz felt about Hillary, but I also didn't care. I was simply taken with the story. Check this book out. It's a really good read. - (***)

As a New Yorker and a political junkie, I've been waiting for the inside scoop on what really went on during Hillary's campaign. Beth Harpaz has finally shed some light on one of America's most celebrated and enigmatic public figures -- and she's done so from a woman's distinct perspective.Why do we love Hillary? Why do we hate her? Would we like her more if we knew her personally? less? Why does Hillary inspire such a range of emotions in New Yorkers and Americans? And how, after all she endured, was Hillary able to get such a plurality of New Yorkers to vote for her? Harpaz asks all the right questions, and has some inspiring and entertaining answers.Not to mention the fact that the book is a highly enjoyable read - I couldn't put it down, and I breezed through it in one weekend.