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Library | Call Number | Status |
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Searching... R.H. Stafford Library (Woodbury) | 921 SANFORD | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Summary
In this candid and compelling memoir, the first lady of South Carolina reveals the private ordeal behind her very public betrayal-and offers inspiration for anyone struggling to keep faith during life's most trying times. She's been a successful investment banker, a mother of four, and the campaign manager for one of American politics' rising stars-her husband, Mark Sanford of South Carolina, once widely hailed as a possible candidate for president in 2012. Yet to most Americans, Jenny Sanford is best known for the one role she refused to play-that of conventional political spouse standing silently by while her husband went before the media and confessed his infidelity. Instead, she stayed true-to herself, to her faith, and to her highest ideals of parenthood and public service. She chose to let Mark Sanford deal with the embarrassment and political fallout from his own actions while focusing her own efforts privately on raising their children to be men of character, even in the face of the lies their father has told. InStaying True, Jenny Sanford recalls her shock and anguish upon discovering that her husband was having an affair with a woman in Argentina, and the further pain when she learned-just a day ahead of most Americans-that he had not ended the affair when she believed he had. She reveals the source of her determination to be honest and forthright instead of the victim in the tabloid passion play that gripped the nation in June 2009. But her story neither begins nor ends with Mark Sanford's astounding fall from grace. Writing with uncommon candor from a deep well of spiritual strength, Sanford shares personal stories and life lessons from before and after she stepped into the public realm. She recounts the many stresses-as well as the myriad joys-that she experienced on a daily basis while living in the governmental spotlight. (Just try keeping four young boys out of mischief in the governor's mansion!) And she describes the many ways that the seductions of power can drive apart even the most committed couples. At every step along her journey, Jenny Sanford has made choices: She gave up her career, moved far from her home state of Illinois, even changed her religious practices. Every choice was a glad concession to harmonious married life and, in some cases, to the support of her husband's political aspirations. But the one thing she never gave up was her sense of self, her inner moral compass. Her remarkable poise and decency make her a role model for men and women alike. Her story will empower anyone who has fought to maintain independence and integrity-within a marriage or elsewhere in life. From the Hardcover edition.
Author Notes
Jenny Sullivan Sanford was born and raised in Winnetka, Illinois. A graduate of Georgetown University, she now lives on Sullivan's Island, South Carolina, with her four sons.
Reviews (2)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Sanford-the wronged wife of Mark Sanford, disgraced governor of South Carolina, who famously refused to stand by him when his affair came to light-delivers a crisp and affecting reading of her memoir of her family, career, faith, and the very public implosion of her marriage. She's surprisingly relatable and possessed of a very dry wit. When the news of her husband's affair broke, her husband asked her what to say in his first public appearance. She told him, "Don't talk about your heart." Watching him sob ("carry on" in Jenny Sanford's words) during a mea culpa almost completely devoted to matters of his heart, she was surrounded by her posse of friends, one of whom observed, "He wasn't hiking the Appalachian trail, he was getting some Argentinean tail." Even if Sanford's piety occasionally finds best expression in platitudes, she turns out a memorable listen; after a while her detachment and the edge to her voice seem less like drawbacks than signs of her admirable reserve and steeliness of character. A Ballantine hardcover. (Feb.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Booklist Review
It's hard to understand why Jenny Sanford, the wife of Mark Sanford, the governor of South Carolina and the butt of a thousand late-night jokes, chose to write this sad little book. The obvious answer is revenge, though it's cloaked here in motherhood and fidelity. Yet Sanford, who got props everywhere for not standing next to her philandering husband as he waxed lyrical about his soul mate, allows her own credibility take a hit in a book that is so passive-aggressive it makes readers wonder as much about her as it does about him. Over and over, Sanford offers praiseworthy remarks about one of her husband's traits (his frugality, his commitment to good government) and then throws a zinger that shows what a jerk he was. He gives her a diamond necklace, then decides it's too expensive and takes it back. The day after she has their second son, he announces he's restless and insists she run his congressional campaign. He leaves her alone constantly, even the day she has a hysterectomy. We get it, but clearly Sanford kept the blinders firmly in place. Ironically, the smarter, stronger parts of Jenny Sanford that emerge here make it clear that she, like Elizabeth Edwards, would have been a better public servant than her husband. If this book proves anything, it's that bright, capable women get nowhere by hitching themselves to an ambitious husband. Unless, of course, they're Hillary Clinton.--Cooper, Ilene Copyright 2010 Booklist
Excerpts
Excerpts
Prologue I see now that June 24, 2009, was a day that changed forever the trajectory of my life, but it did not change me. I woke up early that day, as I have always done during our summers at the beach. The boys and I were at our house on Sullivan's Island, where we had moved when the school year ended a few weeks earlier. My mornings there began with a sunrise cup of coffee in the hour before the boys woke. I savored that quiet time alone as the kitchen filled with light and I wrote in my journal. I jotted thoughts, rarely a narrative of events, and usually reflected on a passage of scripture. My devotions had become more urgent and searching in the six months since I discovered that my husband, Mark Sanford, the governor of South Carolina, was having an affair with a woman in Argentina. As I sat on a stool at the kitchen island writing, I knew Mark's flight from Buenos Aires was about to touch down. He had been out of the state (though the world didn't yet know how far he'd wandered) for several days. The media and his political opponents were asking pointed questions about where he was, but only a few reporters had called me. Being on Sullivan's-- two hours away from the state capital, Columbia-- was a blessing on that front. I'd found out only the day before that Mark was in South America. Within hours, the world would know, and the press would be hovering at the end of our driveway. The truth was that Mark and I had been quietly separated and had not spoken for two weeks, at my request, with clear restrictions on contact with the Argentinean woman he had started an affair with a year earlier. If he and I were to have a chance at reconciliation, he agreed not to contact her or the boys and me while he sorted things out. Cut off this way, I hoped, Mark might understand what it would be like to lose his family in the form he'd always known it. I wanted Mark to ache for what he'd always said mattered most to him. I thought he got it. Before he left to "get his head right," as he'd explained it to the boys, he looked me straight in the eye and said, "I will not see her." That morning I knew he had broken that promise. My prayers were brief but pointed: "Lord give me strength. Lord let Mark find you. Lord protect our boys." So many times, I had prayed for the patience to wait this out, or for understanding for him and for me. I felt the full weight of the day ahead on my shoulders. This time when I clasped my hands and shut my eyes, I prayed that the Lord would grant me the strength to protect our children in the ugly time ahead, and I prayed for Mark who was clearly lost. The only one of the four boys at home that morning was thirteen- year- old Bolton, who was about to leave for a day of fishing with his uncle and cousin. As he gobbled down his breakfast, I pictured our dear friend and Mark's long- time aide, Chris Allen, picking up Mark at the Atlanta airport. A loyal young man who had recently tied his business goals to Mark's political future, Chris had driven through the night to be there when Mark landed. By now, they were on the road to Columbia. I wondered if Mark understood that the whole country, it seemed, wanted a full description of his "hiking the Appalachian Trail." The phone rang. It was Mark calling from the car. "Hey, how are you?" he asked quietly. "How am I? How do you think I am?" I sighed. "Jenny, be gentle with me," he said in a tired voice. "Gentle?" I asked inc Excerpted from Staying True by Jenny Sanford All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
