After a microscopic look at several famous marriages, author Christopher Andersen takes his pen -- or, some argue, a hatchet -- to the Obamas in his latest book, "Barack and Michelle: Portrait of an American Marriage."

He describes a reluctant groom-to-be, sometimes-stormy union, and a woman sick of emptying his ashtrays -- and being shut out by his ambition. He says that, through the crucibles of battling infertility and coping with early political defeat, the Obamas survived and thrived. By the inauguration, they were "indisputably the First Couple not only of America but of the world."

The book, relying in part on unnamed sources, serves up plenty of dish. Andersen says Michelle Obama helped shoot down the prospect of Hillary Clinton being tapped as her husband's running mate. "Do you really want Bill and Hillary just down the hall from you in the White House?" it quotes her as saying.

The White House had no comment on the book, which went on sale Tuesday.

CHICAGO TRIBUNE