On a chilly fall morning in New York City, eight months after President Donald Trump’s inauguration, hundreds of New Yorkers lined up outside a Barnes & Noble bookstore to rehash his election.

The occasion? The debut of Hillary Clinton’s long-awaited campaign memoir, What Happened.

The 495-page tome, which promises to be Ms Clinton’s “most personal memoir yet,” may also be her most controversial: It shot to the top of Amazon's bestseller list, but was widely criticised for its re-opening of old election wounds.

“I love Hillary,” Al Franken, a Democratic Senator from Minnesota, said before the book was published. “I think she has a right to analyse what happened. But we do have to move on.”

Judging by the line outside Ms Clinton’s first book signing, however, her followers won't be doing that anytime soon. Several of them had posted up the night before, sleeping on the street to secure their signed copy of the book.

Pura Molina wears her barong tagalog to meet Ms Clinton (Emily Shugerman)

Pura Molina, a 64-year-old resident of Virginia, had come in on the midnight bus to make the event. In a bag, she brought her barong tagalong – a kind of Filipino formal dress that she hoped to wear when she met Ms Clinton.

“I have dreamt of her becoming the president since Bill Clinton was running the first time,” Ms Molina said. “I haven’t given up.”

Juan Cuba, a teacher's assistant from New Jersey, was one of the first people in line. He had arrived at 4pm the day before and slept on the street, without a sleeping bag or pillow. During the campaign, he had donated to Ms Clinton every month.

"During the campaign everything she stood for really touched me personally," he said. I'm a first generation American, and my family are immigrants from a different country ... It was like, 'Oh my god, you're talking about me'."

Juan Cuba smiles at the front of the line for Hillary Clinton's book signing (Emily Shugerman)

In what seemed like more of a therapy session than a line, Ms Clinton’s supporters traded theories about why their candidate had lost: Bernie Sanders, Vladimir Putin, sexism, media bias, the FBI.

Rob Copeland, a life-long Republican who had voted for Ms Clinton in 2016, said she had been "trapped" in the 2016 election.

"She really couldn't campaign against [former FBI Director] James Comey in the way she wanted to," he said of Ms Clinton's now-infamous email scandal. "In the end I think he was trying to do the right thing, but I think it had a devastating effect on her campaign."

In her memoir, Ms Clinton blames many of these factors, too. In a recent, pre-book-tour interview with USA Today, Ms Clinton said she is "convinced" that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia during the election. In another interview with Pod Save America, she said she wanted to show how sexism is "endemic" in elections.

“I wrote this book to raise issues that I think we have to deal with, so they won’t have the same impact in the next election and the one after," Ms Clinton said.

Clinton: Trump's inauguration speech was 'a cry from the white nationalist gut'

Still, a few of Ms Clinton's supporters were willing to cast blame inside her campaign, too. Nicole Rubin, a young woman near the front of the line, said she couldn’t fathom why people would vote for Mr Trump, but understood why some wouldn’t vote for Ms Clinton, either.

“Obviously she didn’t connect to certain people,” Ms Rubin said. “She connected to me, but I’m a young, white woman in New York trying to go to law school. That doesn’t represent a low of the country.”

She added: “And while I don’t understand it, [Ms Clinton] didn’t either, and I think that’s where she made a mistake.”

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But for many of the women in line – for the line was, predominately, made up of women – Ms Clinton was a flawless, feminist folk hero come to life.

“I’m here because I love her, and I look up to her, and I wish I were more like her,” said Melissa Noris, a 23-year-old from Queens who had volunteered on the Clinton campaign. “I was hoping I’d get to see her, and maybe shake her hand when she signs my book.”

"I want to do nothing but support her," Allie Rohletter, a 20-year-old student at Parsons School of Design, added breathlessly. "It just makes me so happy to see so many people so full of love for her, because she really deserves that."

John Eubanks waits in line with his dog, Harley Quinn (Emily Shugerman)

For many, the even promised an answer to the question that plagued them since last November: What, exactly, happened in 2016?

“I think there’s been a lot of commentary on what happened, and I haven’t heard a really cohesive narrative as to why we ended up in the state we’re in,” said Julie Simeone, a 36-year-old from Ohio. “If anyone has a perspective I’d be interested in hearing, it’s hers.”

John Eubanks, a military veteran who was wounded fighting in Afghanistan, had a different perspective.

‘In the military, when you mess up, you better learn how to get it right,” he said, stroking his dog, Harley Quinn, who he keeps by his side in case of flashbacks.

He added: “I think that’s kind of where our country’s at. You move forward and you correct things, and you do that by getting the best information you can.”

But as Ms Clinton started signing books, and the line outside began to dwindle slowly, it became clear that this event was not about looking forward. For Ms Clinton's most die-hard supporters, this was a chance to commiserate on the past – and, for some, a chance to say: “I’m sorry.”