Marjorie Williams (2)

An excellent collection of the works of the late Marjorie Williams, lovingly curated by her husband, Tim Noah. Williams was a favorite commentator of mine in the late 90's and I was deeply saddened by news of her death in 2005 at the age of 46. I bought this not long after it came out after hearing an NPR interview with Noah. It has been sitting on my shelf since, and I had all but given up on reading it since I thought the majority of the book would be so dated. I was wrong.

Noah has split show more the book into three parts, profiles of DC power-brokers, columns on politics, parenting, and other matters, and Williams short and utterly perfect memoir of dying in what should have been the middle of her life and leaving behind a family that desperately needed her. I read this book over the course of 9 months, dipping in and out, and leaving it on the shelf for weeks at a time. I think it is the right way to read it. The political profiles and columns are mostly excellent, but simply not intended to be read one after the next. For me at least, the shortest part of the book by far, the cancer memoir, was a single evening's read. I could not pull myself away and it affected me deeply. It is important reading not only for those facing illness, but those who have or will walk that road with someone else. I learned a lot from Williams' frankness. This is subject matter that will never go out of date. The other parts though, also proved timely.

Just as the sexual assault allegations arose against the latest addition to the Supreme Court I was coincidentally reading the columns in this book that focused on the Clarence Thomas hearings. I am old enough to clearly remember those hearings, I was a young lawyer by that time and I was obsessed, but time changes the way we think about these things. These columns were like the Trump ice bucket challenge (except not funny and no one benefits.) It was shocking to see Chuck Grassley and Orrin Hatch once again celebrate sexual misconduct with no movement forward. In fact this iteration was possibly more blatantly misogynist, than 1991. Amazing. As Stormy Daniels elbowed her way into the awareness of Americans I was reading a piece where Williams railed about American feminists giving Bill Clinton a pass as evidence of his serial sexual misconduct piled up. Some of those same feminists have shouted about DJT's grab em by the pussy mentality, but gave a pass to a President (hell any supervisor) who got blow jobs from his 22 year old intern with his wife and daughter essentially down the hall. (I include myself in this group of feminists, and I feel chastened.) A few weeks later when Hillary said Bill's blowjobs were not an abuse of power (they were) these columns written in the 90's still hit hard. There are other examples of the how timely these pieces proved to be, but these spring to mind.

This was close to a 5-star for me, but the second section -- the columns -- included a little chunk of stuff (mostly from Slate) not up to the caliber of the rest of the book and it pulled it down a little. Let's say 4.25 and leave it at that. Recommended for those interested in seeing how modern history repeats itself, and how a smart and able commentator can help us understand the world better and to those who just appreciate freaking great writing. show less

Williams was a very good writer, incisive and aware. I was less enamored of her personality analyses of staffers from defunct administrations but entirely riveted by her brutally honest account of her struggle with lethal liver cancer. The agony of contemplating one's own death when one's children are still very young is recorded here in searing words of fire tempered by the grace and wit she ultimately brought to bear on her life.

Marjorie Williams wrote these pieces for the Washington Post and Vanity Fair in the 1980's and 1990's and it is a testament to her own reputation that she had insider access without really seeming like a typical inside-the-beltway writer. She captures the humanity and personalities of people who are more like figureheads to most people, and she has compassion for them while also finding humor in their lives and circumstances. Her portrayals were very interesting even to me, a former show more Washingtonian who at some point lost interest in many of these movers and shakers because many have big egos and an unnatural need for attention. I have to admit her portraits changed this view a bit. I would have loved to have her take on current politics. Her other book of essays, A Woman at the Washington Zoo is excellent as well. show less

The essays in this terrific collection cover the political scene of the 1990s, women’s issues, family life, and Marjorie Williams’s battle with the liver cancer that took her life in January 2005.

In many ways, reading these essays was like stepping into a time warp. Williams wrote most of the political essays here before 9/11, so terrorism and the War in Iraq don’t come up. Williams carefully observes her subjects and interviews people who have known them for years to get the fullest show more story possible. The portraits are often fascinating—and surprising. I never would have suspected that people were afraid of Barbara Bush, but, according to Williams, they were.

Williams expresses a clear point of view in her essays, although she’s not predictably partisan. She makes it clear that she’s a Democrat, but she’s ready to praise and criticize people on both sides of the political spectrum. Her essay on the feminist reaction to Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky is particularly interesting. Many of the essays are written as reactions to specific books or news stories that are long forgotten, but the issues they explore still resonate. Of course, illness and death are always with us, and Williams’s account of her diagnosis with cancer and her final essays on her final days are both frank and frightening.

I’m a big fan of essays, and I enjoyed reading this book very much. I’m not sure it would be the best introduction to this kind of writing for those who aren’t at least a little familiar with politics of the 1990s, since the profiles comprise close to half of the book, and many of the names come up again in the other sections. But if that doesn’t put you off, and if you enjoy literary journalism, this is a great collection.

See my complete review at my blog. show less