The Woman Who Wouldn't Talk

Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 0786711280, Hardcover)

How a small-town Arkansas girl became a nationally known felon is one of the more troubling legacies of the Clinton era. After all, Susan McDougal grew up making patriotic speeches at the local American Legion. But in the mid-1990s, she was faced with federal prosecutors who wanted her to lieand threatened to jail her if she would not. Though willing to answer any questions truthfully, she couldnt give investigators a hook on which to hang Bill Clintonso they ruined her life step by punishing step. Frightened and depressed, facing financial ruin, she had a choice: Lie and get your life back, or tell the truth and face jail on bogus perjury charges. In an extraordinary act of conscience she chose silence, which she has finally broken in this revealing book. Written in a frank and often humorous tone, McDougal offers fresh anecdotes about the Clintons early years in politics, an up-close account of the sinister workings of Starrs investigation, and a moving expose of what happens to women in American prisons. For millions who felt Starr was pushing his partisan investigation too far, Susan McDougal was not only an American heroine, but a symbolthe face of the ordinary citizen who stood up to bureaucratic power despite the toll. This tale of abused power also charts an extraordinary personal journey of redemption. A must-read for history buffs, political junkies, Democratic loyalists, womens rights advocates, and anyone who followed Susans travails in the news, The Woman Who Wouldnt Talk will change the way we remember the 90s.