She hasn’t written it yet, but Scribner is paying her millions of dollars anyway, according to the Associated Press:

“As a rare witness to the private moments of one of our country’s most consequential presidencies, and as a first lady who has maintained a notable level of discretion, her memoir will provide a candid and personal perspective, and an enduring record, of the years that have already determined the court of the 21st century,” said Susan Maldow, executive vice president and publisher of Scribner.

Well, it could provide a candid and personal perspective on the last eight years, but whether it will is another question entirely. The New Yorker quotes representatives from a few other big New York publishing houses who were less than impressed with what Bush wanted to sell them:

The reception to Mrs. Bush’s pitch has been mixed so far. “She was not forthcoming about anything that I would consider controversial,” the publisher who met with her said. “We questioned her rigorously, but it was one-word answers. I considered it the worst, or the most frustrating, meeting of its sort that I’ve ever had.”…

“I chose not to meet with her,” a publisher at another company said. “I got the impression that everyone was totally underwhelmed by her. That’s why there’s so little buzz.”

Ouch.

Sort of in a roundabout way, mirror-image way, the prospect of Bush’s memoirs make me think of the 1883 classic Daughters of America or Women of the Century, a collection of mini bios of the lives and work of hundreds of extraordinary women. Some of the featured women are presidential wives, but others are philanthropists, educators, and activists. In fact, author Phebe A. Hanaford, a Quaker and abolitionist, broke new ground for women in American public life.

In her Dedication, Hanaford writes:

To the women of future centuries of the United States of America, this record of many women of the first and second centuries, whose lives were full of usefulness, and therefore worthy of renown and imitation.

It makes me wonder how truly intriguing Bush’s tale of her life in the White House can possibly be. Either she had no influence over her husband in any way that could have tempered some of the “consequences” of his presidency that we’ll be contending with for a long time, or else she didn’t want to temper them. Alas, I’m not sure that this First Lady is worthy of either renown or imitation.