It required nearly a military operation to keep Monica's Story out of the public's hands until its official release on Thursday morning. No review copies, no sneak previews, just a campaign to build interest in the first television interviews, with the idea that the public's thus-whetted appetite for all-things-Monica would send them to the bookstores.

Upon obtaining the precious early-morning copy of the book, I walked to a corner bistro to settle in and read. As I sat down, a group of six men dressed in tweeds and penny loafers were talking.

"Can you believe how many people watched that stupid interview last night?" said one.

"No, I can't," said another.

I sank lower into my chair, looking at the bright coloured photograph of smiling Monica staring out from the book jacket. I turned the book face down on the table. Oops. There is another large colour photograph of Monica on the back cover, this one dreamy and pensive. With my coat over my lap, I slipped the book from its jacket, stuffing the revealing cover into a bag.

So, what's it like, this 287-page document that the world has been, or has not been, waiting for? It is, it must be said, Monica's story.

Early reviews have discussed the fact that author Andrew Morton describes her traumatic childhood, her lack of self-esteem, her desperation for love that led her to obsess on even the slightest attentions from Bill Clinton. All true. But it is important to understand what constitutes trauma, and how Monica dealt with such events. Excerpts from the book tell the story best.

A deeply painful childhood experience: Monica vividly remembers the time when Tori Spelling, the daughter of the Hollywood film mogul Aaron Spelling, held a birthday party at her parents' palatial home - superstar Michael Jackson and the world's smallest pony were expected to be two of the competing attractions at this most glittering of occasions - and everyone in Tori's class was invited. Except Monica.

Having survived this, Monica somehow graduated high school and attended college in Oregon, where she continued an affair with a married man, Andy Bleiler. Although she went on dates during her time at college, she remained almost perversely faithful to Andy Bleiler - apart from the revenge fling with his brother.

We then follow Monica through her arrival in Washington, her thong-snapping flirtation with the President, the beginnings of their affair, and her terrible transfer from the White House to a boring job at the Pentagon, during which she made a trip to Bosnia in July 1996.

We can only presume that Andrew Morton is writing with a straight face when he says, describing why Monica stayed home one night hoping Mr Clinton would call: "Her instincts proved unerring, as they usually did, and they chatted away far into the night, the President enthralled, actually sexually aroused, by her excited description of the Bosnia visit. She told him how proud she was to be an American when she saw how the US troops had helped to restore sanity and give hope to this war-torn land."

As is obvious, the portrayal of almost everyone in this book is unwittingly sad, from Ms Lewinsky to Mr Clinton to Linda Tripp. There are no heroes, and the villain of the piece is meant to be Kenneth Starr, whose staff held Ms Lewinsky for 12 hours of questioning. He does indeed seem obsessed and evil, but next to characters who display little morality, whose ethics are situational, whose motives are, to use the most overused word in the book, unlovely, he just seems to be another individual to be avoided in decent company.

One leaves this tome with little sympathy for anyone. As for the writing . . . try this sentence, as Linda Tripp is talking about Vince Foster, the White House lawyer who committed suicide: "She told Monica that she had become a compulsive eater on the return flight from Foster's funeral in Arkansas on board Air Force One, the President's personal plane."

Now, wait. Did she tell Monica this story while they were on the plane? Or is Mr Morton telling us that Ms Tripp began compulsively eating everything in sight while on Mr Clinton's plane, thus perhaps depriving the President of needed nutrition?

We don't know. We'll never know. We don't care. We do hope, however, to slip this entire book subtly into the bin, unnoticed by the tweedy guys, and escape the bistro with a semblance of dignity intact.

Monica's Story by Andrew Morton is published by Michael O'Mara of London; pp287; price £19.35