THE PERFECT WIFE: The Life and Choices of Laura Bush

Gerhart's portrait of the first lady is much like the public perception of her: a pleasant, opaque woman and a conundrum. A schoolteacher with a master's degree in library science, Laura Bush is clearly intelligent and articulate. Yet despite her credentials and her husband's evident respect for her opinions, she appears, from this account, to have no influence on his education policies nor does she seem to want any. Her determination to be what Gerhart terms "an old-fashioned first lady" alternately fascinates and frustrates Gerhart, a Washington Post reporter who has been covering her since the 2001 inauguration. Both reactions are understandable. For all her research, Gerhart never answers the central question she posits: how did an independent, liberal (she voted for Eugene McCarthy) career woman who purposely chose to teach in a poor elementary school in Austin morph so successfully into a devoted wife whose life's ambition is to make sure her husband's world runs smoothly, even if it means subverting her own beliefs and desires? Laura Bush's submission is apparent in such observations by Gerhart: "I noticed how much more animated and commanding she was when acting solo. When she traveled with the president, she faded to the background." Then again, given how carefully Laura Bush guards her privacy and her feelings, it's doubtful anyone could have cracked that mystery. But Gerhart succeeds in steering clear of the "sneering and sniping" often directed at Laura Bush in this not unsympathetic probing of the first lady's mysteries. Agent, Rafe Sagalyn. (Jan.)