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I've never particularly been a fan of Barbara Pierce Bush. She has always struck me as a woman with a waspish tongue and a rather prickly personality. I knew her adulthood had been shaped by the death of a daughter at the age of three from leukemia and from her long-term marriage to George Bush. But I was anxious to read Susan Page's new biography, "The Matriarch: Barbara Bush and the Making of an American Dynasty." The book is very good and I've learned a bit about Mrs Bush that I didn't know before. There were three or four parts of Mrs Bush's life I thought were interesting and well-explored in Susan Page's book. One is the illness and death of young Robin Bush in the early 1950's, six months after having been diagnosed with childhood leukemia. Much has been made of the fact that George and Barbara played a round of golf after Robin died. But the truth was that both Bushes had spent months at Robin's bedside, nursing her though her treatments, and helping her along. Barbara Bush made one rule and that was no one could cry around Robin. The round of golf was a release needed by both grieving parents. And, of course, there was very little support for young George W in his grief over losing his sister, which is a whole other book. I also didn't realise that Barbara Bush and Nancy Reagan hated each other. Both women were famous for protecting their husbands and Reagan was reacting to the somewhat vicious 1980 primary where George Bush ran against Ronald Reagan. Nancy was vile in her cold relations with the Bushes, leading to a final blow-up between the two women after Bush left office. Susan Page selected several other themes in Barbara Bush's life to explore in detail. She tells about George Bush's affair - or was it an affair? - with his aide Jennifer Fitzgerald, who was sort of around for a longish period in the 1980's. Whatever the relationship was, George Bush did little to clean up the situation, even knowing about his wife's distress. But Page writes movingly about Barbara Bush's period of depression in the 1980's. It was deep and it was dark and I can't figure out exactly how Bush came out of it. Those are just a few of the topics Susan Page covers in the biography. Page is a very "easy" and smooth writer. I have a better view of Barbara Pierce Bush after reading the book.