American Wife: A Novel [Paperback]

Curtis Sittenfeld (Author)

Book Description

Release date: February 10, 2009

A kind, bookish only child born in the 1940s, Alice Lindgren has no idea that she will one day end up in the White House, married to the president. In her small Wisconsin hometown, she learns the virtues of politeness, but a tragic accident when she is seventeen shatters her identity and changes the trajectory of her life. More than a decade later, when the charismatic son of a powerful Republican family sweeps her off her feet, she is surprised to find herself admitted into a world of privilege. And when her husband unexpectedly becomes governor and then president, she discovers that she is married to a man she both loves and fundamentally disagrees with–and that her private beliefs increasingly run against her public persona. As her husband’s presidency enters its second term, Alice must confront contradictions years in the making and face questions nearly impossible to answer.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Sittenfeld tracks, in her uneven third novel, the life of bookish, naïve Alice Lindgren and the trajectory that lands her in the White House as first lady. Charlie Blackwell, her boyishly charming rake of a husband, whose background of Ivy League privilege, penchant for booze and partying, contempt for the news and habit of making flubs when speaking off the cuff, bears more than a passing resemblance to the current president (though the Blackwells hail from Wisconsin, not Texas). Sittenfeld shines early in her portrayal of Alice's coming-of-age in Riley, Wis., living with her parents and her mildly eccentric grandmother. A car accident in her teens results in the death of her first crush, which haunts Alice even as she later falls for Charlie and becomes overwhelmed by his family's private summer compound and exclusive country club membership. Once the author leaves the realm of pure fiction, however, and has the first couple deal with his being ostracized as a president who favors an increasingly unpopular war, the book quickly loses its panache and sputters to a weak conclusion that doesn't live up to the fine storytelling that precedes it. (Sept.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From The New Yorker

In her third novel, Sittenfeld offers a thinly veiled account (Wisconsin, not Texas) of the life of Laura Bush, in the story of Alice Lindgren, who marries Charlie Blackwell, the ne'er-do-well son of a political dynasty who becomes President. The early chapters, in which Sittenfeld depicts an innocent childhood and adolescence disrupted by tragedy, are the most compelling. As the book progresses to more recent and familiar events, she has difficulty enlivening the ins and outs of electioneering and policymaking. The object of Sittenfeld's fascination is the seeming incongruity between Alice's liberal sympathies and her bookish intellect and Charlie's conservative nature and general insouciance. Neither character is very likable—Alice weak-willed and martyrlike, Charlie unbearably self-centered—but the novel, Sittenfeld's most fully realized yet, artfully evokes the painful reverberations of the past.
Copyright ©2008 Click here to subscribe to The New Yorker --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 568 pages
• Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks; a edition (February 10, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0812975405
• ISBN-13: 978-0812975406
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 1.2 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (323 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #32,432 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Curtis Sittenfeld is the bestselling author of American Wife, The Man of My Dreams and Prep. Her nonfiction has appeared in The New York Times,The Atlantic Monthly, Salon, Allure, Glamour, and on public radio's This American Life. Her books have been translated into twenty-five languages. Visit her website at www.curtissittenfeld.com.

Amazon Author Rankbeta 

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#41 in Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Literary Fiction

#51 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Literary

#77 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Contemporary

#41 in Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Literary Fiction

#51 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Literary

#77 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Contemporary

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

109 of 125 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Mixed feelings: good story but knowing the background ruins it. October 2, 2008

By mahlers2nd TOP 500 REVIEWER

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

When I ordered this book, I didn't know that it was supposed to be based (loosely or otherwise) on Laura Bush. I ordered it because I am fascinated by what it would be like to be behind the doors of the real White House. (If you want a non-fiction view, I recommend:

America's First Families: An Inside View of 200 Years of Private Life in the White House (Lisa Drew Books)

I did find out that the book was loosely (?) based on Laura Bush's life prior to reading it. It is through that lens that I wound up forming my opinion on the book.

As a work of hypothetical fiction, the book was interesting and entertaining. You meet a lot of characters in the book -- particularly the early life of Alice -- that you wouldn't expect to meet in a midwest middle class traditional family and you catch a glimpse of that period that is outside the Kennedy "Camelot" rose-colored glasses. From that perspective, as a novel, it stretches your imagination and makes for a book that is "out of the ordinary".

However, knowing that it is based in part on the life of Laura Bush -- I think this really does a disservice to the book and to the woman. I don't have strong feelings about Laura Bush either way but by making this a work of fiction, you constantly find yourself wondering which parts were true and which ones were not. If everything was true, then you get a very unkind picture of the person who is Laura Bush. If much of it is untrue, then you feel sorry for Laura Bush for being "slandered" and the voyeurism into what should be very private events, feelings and thoughts for this very public person. You feel a little guilty even reading it....

I think the author would have been better off not trying to tie this novel to any particular person. That way, there would not be the "distraction" that you ultimately feel as you read trying to separate fact from fiction. Read more ›

91 of 115 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Loved it September 2, 2008

By B. Lee

Format:Hardcover

Great summaries in the other reviews - I won't repeat those.

I loved the beginning and middle of this book. Loved Alice, her childhood, her growing up experiences, her family, her life as a single woman, her courtships, her experiences with the Blackwell family (these were my favorite sections), and her relationship with her husband, the future president. All of these things are plot lines that Sittenfeld wrote BRILLIANTLY.

When I finished reading this book, however, I was lukewarm about the ending. 2 weeks later, when I was still thinking about the book, I realized how fervently it had stuck with me, and have since decided that it was one of my favorites of 2008 so far.

Great work, Curtis. I praise your boldness and your talent for writing about women in a sometimes awkward and uncomfortable but always honest fashion. Definitely worth the read.

51 of 67 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars True art. A nuanced portrait of how it feels to be the wife of a major political figure, or any celebrity September 11, 2008

By Bookreporter

Format:Hardcover

Let's get this out of the way up front: If AMERICAN WIFE were nothing more than a barely disguised attempt to imagine and illuminate the inner life of Laura Bush, it might be entertaining in a titillating sort of way, but hardly worth more attention than a quickly forgotten magazine profile. In truth, Curtis Sittenfeld's third novel is a rich and arresting portrait of an enduring marriage, of the inevitable compromises necessary to reach that longevity, and of the unremitting demands of public life and the price of fame.

Sittenfeld's protagonist, Alice Lindgren, is born in a small Wisconsin town in 1946, the only child of a bank manager and a housewife. Her early years are unremarkable until a September night in 1963 when the car she's driving on the way to a party collides with one driven by Andrew Imhof, a classmate with whom she's moving toward a relationship. Andrew is killed, and the specter of his loss shadows Alice's waking (and dreaming) life.

Alice falls into a relationship with Andrew's older brother, Pete, and when she becomes pregnant, her grandmother takes her to Chicago for an abortion --- a decision that plays a central role in the novel's denouement.

Sittenfeld fast forwards to Madison, Wisconsin in 1977, where Alice contentedly works as an elementary school librarian and dreams about buying a house. During a summer when she's spending most of her time creating papier-mâchécharacters to decorate the library, she meets Charlie Blackwell, "someone who found his own flaws endearing and thus concealed nothing," at a backyard barbecue. Charlie is the youngest of four sons of Harold and Priscilla (nicknamed "Maj," short for "Majesty") Blackwell.... Harold is a former governor of Wisconsin and unsuccessful candidate for president in 1968, and the family owns a prosperous meatpacking business. Two of Charlie's brothers work alongside him in the business, while one serves in Congress. But, as Charlie puts it, "Being a Blackwell is my full-time job."

At first, Alice --- a registered Democrat with liberal political sympathies --- is put off ("money and Republicans and sausage did not strike me as a particularly tempting combination."). But within six weeks, she and Charlie are engaged, and six weeks later they're married. On the surface it's an unlikely match: Alice is bright, self-aware and witty, an inveterate reader of serious novelists like Bellow and Nabokov, while Charlie prefers to spend his evenings with a beer and pretzels, stretched out on the couch watching a baseball game. The mystery of romantic love is on display here in all its oddity.

Charlie's first foray into electoral politics as a candidate for Congress in 1978 results in a crushing defeat, and he retreats philosophically into the family business and life of a prosperous Milwaukee suburbanite. Ten years later, he's a disgruntled 42-year-old, obsessed (to Alice's annoyance) by his "legacy." An offer to become a part owner of the Milwaukee Brewers and the public face of the team as its managing partner appears it may be enough to relieve his lethargy. But before long, he's spending more of his time in increasingly frequent drinking bouts and behavioral lapses that move Alice to threaten divorce, especially after they attend a disastrous 20th reunion of Charlie's Princeton class. Alice's ultimatum abruptly ends Charlie's drinking, and he undergoes a religious conversion at the hands of an evangelical preacher, Reverend Randy. Soon, he is elected governor of Wisconsin and is on the fast track to the White House. Still, Alice is ambivalent: "I wanted Charlie to win the election," she comments wryly, "but I didn't want him to be president."

The final quarter of the book is set in June 2007. Blackwell, nearing the end of his second term, presides over an unpopular Middle East war, while trying to gain Supreme Court confirmation of a staunchly anti-abortion female judge. Alice, pro-choice and skeptical about the war, must face the contradictions in her public and interior lives --- and she does so in a moving and completely authentic fashion.

The well-known elements of the Bush story all are here, subtly altered to present them in a fresh and original way. But no writer, even one as adept as Curtis Sittenfeld, will ever unearth anything approaching the objective truth of George and Laura Bush's relationship. What she has done, and what elevates this book to the realm of true art, is to create a nuanced portrait of how it feels to be the wife of a major political figure, or indeed any celebrity. Fulfilling Hemingway's definition of a good story, AMERICAN WIFE feels "more true than what really happened." That's the highest compliment one can pay to this thoroughly absorbing novel.

--- Reviewed by Harvey Freedenberg Read more ›

45 of 60 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars "What was she thinking?" October 6, 2008

By Ashley Megan VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

It's nearly impossible to separate your feelings about "American Wife" and the character of Alice Blackwell from your feelings about the book's inspiration, Laura Bush. Although the book is probably at least 80% fiction, the parallels are impossible to ignore, and they naturally color every aspect of the reading experience. Every reader is going to bring in preconceptions - admiration, frustration, anger, pity, or just plain confusion - and expect this book to either confirm or explain what they think they know about our current first lady.

But while recognizing my own bias, I tried - I really tried - to be as objective as possible. In some places - particularly the first two parts of the book - it was easier than others. At other times, keeping an open mind became an almost exhaustive task. Nevertheless, it's one I'm glad to have undertaken. "American Wife" succeeds on both levels: as a standalone book about one woman's rather interesting life, and as a speculative character study about a women most of us will probably never truly understand.

Alice Blackwell is a study in contradictions. She's an intelligent women who goes out of her way to make sure she never has to think for herself. She's almost aggressively passive, a woman who seems to want to make as little impression on the world as possible, and yet one of her first acts as an independent adult is to take another human being's life in a car accident. She's a Democrat who marries into a staunchly political Republican family. You like her, but at the same time you veer between pitying her and wanting to smack her back to her senses. As such, she makes for a fascinating, but ultimately frustrating, main character....

The other main stand-in in "American Wife," of course, is Charlie Blackwell, the incompetent younger son who stumbles his way into Alice's heart and eventually the White House. Personally, I don't think Sittenfeld went far enough in drawing the parallels between Charlie and W., but maybe that's just me. We gain little insight into their relationship, and we never really know what they see in each other (except perhaps desperation on Alice's part - unmarried into her 30s, you can't escape the idea that she honestly feels she can't do any better). Their daughter Ella is likewise obtuse - after a jump from Ella at age 8 to age 28, we might as well be looking at a complete stranger in the final quarter of the book.

The characters who do stand out are the bit players in Alice's life, those who never became public figures and are thus wholly new to us. Chief among these is her grandmother Emilie. I would have happily read an entire book about this woman's life - calling a feisty older woman a "firecracker" may be a cliché, but here it's entirely appropriate. She's a scream, and the book brightened immensely whenever she made an appearance. Alice's childhood friend Dena undergoes several metamorphoses over the course of the book, finally redeeming herself in the final chapters in a quietly satisfying way.

I truly enjoyed "American Wife" as a novel. As a character study, it probably raised more questions than it answered; moreover, I worry that readers will become too obsessed with drawing parallels and wondering where the line between fact and fiction has been drawn. Sittenfeld has done a marvelous job creating a complex, complicated protagonist and inviting us to attempt an answer to that question, "What was she thinking?" Read more ›