Scorpion Tongues: Gossip, Celebrity, And American Politics

Did Hillary Clinton throw a lamp at Bill on Inauguration Eve 1993? 'What ex-professional football player, known for a squeaky clean image, got caught in bed with a sexy woman and claimed it was all a set up? Who started the rumor about Mamie Eisenhower's drinking problems? About Richard Gere's interesting sexual partners? Did you know George Bush and Bob Dole had mistresses?

Some of these things are true -- others are just rumors -- but all of them were gossiped about, and they are just a delicious sampling of the unforgettable tidbits offered up in the bewitching Scorpion Tongues.

Gail Collins has pulled together an immensely appealing, bag-o'- popcorn book, with one intriguing piece of rumor and innuendo following another in a veritable parade of peccadillos and misdeeds. But Collins also explores the more serious effects of gossip, noting that it can be as unpredictable as a summer tornado, flattening one person's reputation while passing over another's with hardly a rustle. Compare, for example, Gary Hart's career-ending "Monkey Business" trip with JFK's conquest of a stewardess, which he confessed to by flippantly saying, "I got into the blonde." 'With anecdotes and illustrations from politics, movies, television, culture, and sports, Scorpion Tongues offers sinful scandals and mild hearsay for every taste.