William Collins scoops New York Times journalist's political memoir

William Collins will publish a debut memoir from an award-winning New York Times journalist who spent a decade covering Hillary Clinton’s pursuit of the US presidency.

Chasing Hillary: Ten Years, Two Presidential Campaigns and One Intact Glass Ceiling is based on Amy Chozick’s “front-row seat” covering Clinton’s presidential bids in 2008 and 2016. It was during this time “journalist’s formative years became both personally and professionally intrinsically intertwined with Clinton’s presidential ambitions”. It will be published in hardback on April 24th with an r.r.p. of £20.

William Collins' publishing director and editor, Arabella Pike, bought UK and Commonwealth rights excluding Canada as part of a co-publication with Harper Collins US, negotiated by David McCormick of McCormick & Williams Literary Agency in New York.

A William Collins spokesman described how it features “Chozick’s candour and clear-eyed perspective, from her seat on the Hillary bus and reporting from inside the campaign’s Brooklyn headquarters, to her run-ins with Donald Trump, provide fresh intrigue and insights into the story we thought we all knew”.

The book from the New York Times’ writer-at-large promises to expose the “real story of what happened, with the kind of dishy, inside details that repeatedly surprise and enlighten” and is billed as reading “like a fast-moving political novel”. It explores the highs and lows of the “most noxious and wildly dramatic presidential election in American history” as the author “develops a unique understanding of what drove Clinton, how she accomplished what no woman had before, and why she ultimately failed”.

“In the upside-down world of US politics today, here is Hillary as you’ve never seen her before,” Pike said. “The book offers an unforgettable portrait of the Clinton campaign trail but it is also a frank, funny ‘coming of age’ story by a young woman given a ring-side seat in one of the most contentious campaigns of all time.”

Chozick said: "Like millions of American women, Hillary's career and her ultimate defeat brought to light tensions in my own life."

The author is originally from San Antonio, Texas, and now lives in New York with her husband.