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
miriage or infant death. She vividly evokes Midland's b,
rugged culture, her close relationship with her her, 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 her, 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
es 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 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.