Lady Bird: A Biography of Mrs. Johnson

The career of Hillary Rodham Clinton aside, it is only recently that the office of First Lady has been understood as engendering political power. The past decade has brought books detailing the complex relationship between presidents and their wives, in particular Blanche Wiesen Cook's landmark biography detailing the enormous role that Eleanor Roosevelt played in U.S. domestic and foreign affairs. Russell's engaging new biography of Claudia ""Lady Bird"" Johnson, written in part as a corrective to Robert Caro's multi-volume LBJ bio, Path to Power, is an attempt to move its subject out from under her husband's shadow. After extensive interviews with Mrs. Johnson, Russell presents a complex portrait of an intelligent woman trapped in the social conventions of a ""Southern matron,"" whose idealization of her father colored her relationship with her husband and whose commitment to social justice helped shape LBJ's war on poverty. Russell's analysis is often insightful, as when she discusses how LBJ's class prejudice affected Lady Bird's fashion choices, or her conscious decision to distance herself from Jackie Kennedy's image as a decorator by identifying publicly with Eleanor Roosevelt as a ""useful first lady."" Focusing on Lady Bird's influence on LBJ's career and politics, Russell ends the book with the Johnson administration's final months, in 1969. Though it offers new and important historical information, Russell's effort, unlike Cook's brilliant work on Roosevelt, falls short of completely revising or illuminating our vision of the Johnsons' lives, politics and times. Agent, Jim Hornfischer of Literary Group International; first serial to George and Texas Monthly; History Book Club selection. (Sept.)