Hillary: The Leaked Interview [Jun 6, 2003]

Within days, I expect to be named the new editor of The New York Times, thereby fulfilling my historical destiny as the world's leading news-based decision-maker. But until then, I'm glad to continue my mission as the Ur-blogger of your hearts and minds. I ride herd, much like George W. Bush with the Mideast peace process, over the thoughts of millions. With utmost seriousness, I pursue my task like a hungry gutter mongrel.

That's why, when faced with a choice between betraying a publisher's weirdly-imposed embargo on a book's content and running an exclusive interview with the former First Lady and current Senator from New York, I go with the latter. I know Hillary intimately, but not that intimately, from my days as consigliere to the Clinton family, before terrorism, when the world was young. She sat down with me recently and talked about her foray into memoir and many other things. The Dave Eggers comments have been cut for space. This interview will remain posted until Tuesday. Enjoy.

Neal Pollack: This is your first foray into literature, because no one read It Takes A Village, and it's getting a lot of attention...

Hillary Clinton: Yeah, well, fuck that! I'm the greatest fucking writer of my generation! I don't give a shit about anybody else. Who the fuck is Dave Eggers to think he can publish a memoir at age 28 and call it a book? He only got published because, boo-hoo, you know, his parents, wah-wah, and it had nothing to do with his talent and hard work. Fuck him. Fuck them all. Fuck all that McSweeney's shit.

NP: Pretty harsh words. You sound like you should join the Underground Literary Alliance.

HC: Yeah? Well, fuck the ULA? Who do they think they are, a bunch of fucking coal miners? They haven't even written a book. Not one of them? I'm the former First Lady, a Senator, AND I've written a book! Not one of them is qualified to suck my tits! Fuck the ULA, fuck Rick Moody because he lives on an island, fuck them all. They're all just a bunch of privileged dick-bags who haven't had to work a day in their lives.

NP: So what is your book about?

HC: ABOUT? What is my book ABOUT? It's about America, jack, and how we live in it despite everything. It's about the big themes, which writers today are too pussy-whipped to address. I mean, fuck Jonathan Safran Foer, with his little magical-realist eponymous narrator shit. Fuck Jonathan Franzen. That's not a social novel. It's just a book about a professor who can't get his dick straight and then some other people. American literature today is just about belly-gazing. My book is about the grand things, like death, life, and fucking. Big topics for a big woman. Fuck everyone else. I really can't give a fuckety-fuck-fuck about them. I've got too much other shit on my plate. You know what I'm saying?

NP: I do. What do you think of James Frey?

HC: Oh. I love his stuff.

NP: What about Heidi Julavits' essay in the first issue of The Believer, where she calls for the end of snark?

HC: Fuck that. It's bullshit. I don't have time for that shit. I'm HILLARY CLINTON. Do you think I have time for literary party games? I swear, that whole McSweeneys thing is so forced. Do I want to go to church or read a fucking book? I want literature about real things, not some fucking sacrificial hipster rite. Who cares if it's well-designed? Mein Kampf is well-designed, and that fucking book caused a lot of trouble. Dave Eggers is really just a better-looking Hitler who doesn't hate Jews. I remember back in 1998, when it all got started, Bill and I were in the White House, and he was like, "have you heard about that McSweeneys thing," and I was like, "fuck that shit. It's all so twee and forced. America needs a REAL literature, about real things. I hate all those fucking writers except for Neal Pollack."

NP: Well, thank you.

HC: But now I hate your shit, too, Neal Pollack. Your writing is a stinking, narcissitic turd, just like that shit put out by your buddy Eggers, wah-wah, boo-hoo, I wrote a book Dave Eggers.

NP: I think you're being a little harsh.

HC: Oh, REALLY? Do you now? Well, fuck that, my book is about real things, like a country in crisis and a husband getting blowjobs. It's about a generation of people who got fucked and then fucked other people. What the fuck else do you want out of life? Nothing. That's why I'm Hillary Clinton, and that's why my book, Living History, is the only book that matters.

NP: Thank you for your time, Mrs. Clinton.

HC: Fuck. I got nothing but time. Come to my book-release party tonight. We're gonna have strippers!