One for the books

It’s no wonder his book is a thousand pages long. He still has a lot on his mind. Former President Bill Clinton delivered a 45-minute keynote speech to kick off BookExpo America 2004 in Chicago recently. Covering an extraordinary range of subjects in that time, he discussed his optimism about America despite the challenges of the age of terror, the perils of political polarization and his mammoth memoir, “My Life,” which Alfred A. Knopf will publish June 22. He began his speech with a one-word sentence (“Wow!”) after a crowd of 3,000 booksellers and publishing industry officials greeted him with a 68-second standing ovation. “You have to be careful treating me that way; you’ll have me thinking I’m president again.”

He may not be president anymore, but the book industry is expecting Clinton to move a lot of paper when “My Life” launches the summer book season. So is his publisher: The nation’s 42nd president reportedly received a $10 million advance for the memoir, $2 million more than his wife, Democratic New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, received for her memoir, last year’s “Living History.”

“Our first printing will be 1.5 million copies,” said Sonny Mehta, president and editor-in-chief of Alfred A. Knopf, as he introduced Clinton. “And I suspect that won’t be nearly enough.”

It won’t if it has the sort of success Hillary Clinton’s book did. First printing for her memoir was 1 million copies, all of which Simon & Schuster sold in just a few weeks, prompting subsequent printings.

Bill Clinton revealed several things he has written about that will be in the book:

A memory of his stepfather’s violence when Bill was 5 years old.

His thoughts on growing up in the last “pre-TV age,” growing up as part of the “rock ‘n’ roll generation” and growing up in a community where many people faced poverty.

And, yes, apparently there will be material about Kenneth Starr’s investigation of his involvement with White House intern Monica Lewinsky, although Clinton emphasized “My Life” won’t be an effort to “settle a lot of scores.”

Clinton said the memoir also will ponder the legacy of the 1960s and the different views modern Americans hold about civil rights, the Vietnam War and the sexual and social revolutions that changed American life.

“If you look back on the ‘60s and, on balance, you think there was more good than harm, then you’re probably a Democrat. If you think there was more harm than good, then you’re probably a Republican,” Clinton joked, then turned serious:

“There were excesses and self-indulgences in the ‘60s, and all that stuff people say that’s critical of me or my generation, there’s some truth in all of it. But it was also a profoundly idealistic generation of people who loved their country.”

Clinton said the book falls into two main parts.

The first covers his birth up to the 1992 election, with an emphasis on trying to tell his own story, while pondering how his life fits into the American story. The book’s second half zooms in on his eight-year presidency, “almost like a diary,” to give the reader a vivid look at what it was like to be the nation’s leader.

In his speech, Clinton echoed, somewhat, his recent statements in an affable joint appearance he made in Lawrence, Kan., with his 1996 election opponent, Bob Dole, with whom in subsequent years he has struck up a friendship. At that event, Clinton had warned that partisan rancor can be detrimental to the national purpose.

In Chicago, though, the former president repeatedly emphasized that even such polarization cannot destroy a strong nation.

“The day I left the White House … I was more optimistic than the day I got there,” he said.

He said he fully supports the war on terror but added that care must be taken not to let that purpose run roughshod over civil liberties. Predictably, perhaps, the roomful of book people applauded raucously when Clinton singled out the Patriot Act’s provision for monitoring individuals’ reading habits.

Discussing his “lifelong love affair with reading,” Clinton recalled perusing, when he was 2 or 3, the Dick and Jane books familiar to millions of young readers. When he left the White House, he said, he moved thousands of tomes to various places, including Arkansas and his home in New York state.

“And we took a thousand or so to Washington, where my senator lives during the week,” a reference to Hillary Clinton that drew a roar of laughter and applause.

“I’d never done anything like this before,” Clinton said of writing his life story. “… I really think anybody who’s fortunate enough to live to be 50 years old should take some time, maybe just a couple of weekends, and sit down and write the story of your life, even if it’s only 20 pages, and even if it’s only for your children and your grandchildren and your closest friends.

“Young people today have access to more information than any group of people in human history. They learn how to use the Internet… . they see 60, 70 or more channels on television if they have satellite.

“But they still hunger to know about their roots… . . One of the most amazing experiences for me in writing this book was seeing it through my daughter’s eyes.”

Clinton’s book is a key release for an industry that is treading water. Revenues are holding fairly steady, but that is partly because book prices have risen.

Overall, sales have been down somewhat in the last year.