Plenty Ladylike: A Memoir

Plenty Ladylike: A Memoir

The senator from Missouri shares her “straightforward, plainspoken, and at once deeply personal and thoroughly political” (<i>Publishers Weekly</i>) story of embracing her ambition, surviving sexism, making a family, losing a husband, outsmarting her enemies—and finding joy along the way.<BR><BR>Claire McCaskill grew up in a political family, but not at a time that welcomed women with big plans. She earned a law degree and paid her way through school by working as a waitress. By 1982 Claire had set her sights on the Missouri House of Representatives. That door was slammed in her face, but Claire always kept pushing—first as a prosecutor of arsonists and rapists and then all the way to the door of a cabal of Missouri politicians, who had secret meetings to block her legislation.<BR> <BR>In this candid, lively, and forthright memoir, Senator McCaskill describes her uphill battle to become who she is today, from her failed first marriage to a Kansas City car dealer—the father of her three children—to her current marriage to a Missouri businessman whom she describes as “a life partner.” She depicts her ups and downs with the Clintons, her long-shot reelection as senator after secretly helping to nominate a right-wing extremist as her opponent, and the fun of joining the growing bipartisan sisterhood in the Senate.<BR> <BR>Unconventional, unsparing in its honesty, full of sharp humor and practical wisdom, and rousing in its defense of female ambition, “<i>Plenty Ladylike</i> is a powerful, unapologetic primer on the successful exercise of real power and what it takes to get it, keep it, and use it. This is a brilliant memoir that nearly explodes with encouragement for women on how to achieve their dreams” (Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook COO and author of <i>Lean In</i>).