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American Wife: A Novel | 
 enlarge | Author: Curtis Sittenfeld
Publisher: Random House
Category: Book
List Price: $26.00
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Rating:  126 reviews
Sales Rank: 402
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 576
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6 x 1.7
ISBN: 1400064759
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.6
EAN: 9781400064755
ASIN: 1400064759
Publication Date: September 2, 2008
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Product Description
On what might become one of the most significant days in her husband’s presidency, Alice Blackwell considers the strange and unlikely path that has led her to the White House–and the repercussions of a life lived, as she puts it, “almost in opposition to itself.”
A kind, bookish only child born in the 1940s, Alice learned the virtues of politeness early on from her stolid parents and small Wisconsin hometown. But a tragic accident when she was seventeen shattered her identity and made her understand the fragility of life and the tenuousness of luck. So more than a decade later, when she met boisterous, charismatic Charlie Blackwell, she hardly gave him a second look: She was serious and thoughtful, and he would rather crack a joke than offer a real insight; he was the wealthy son of a bastion family of the Republican party, and she was a school librarian and registered Democrat. Comfortable in her quiet and unassuming life, she felt inured to his charms. And then, much to her surprise, Alice fell for Charlie.
As Alice learns to make her way amid the clannish energy and smug confidence of the Blackwell family, navigating the strange rituals of their country club and summer estate, she remains uneasy with her newfound good fortune. And when Charlie eventually becomes President, Alice is thrust into a position she did not seek–one of power and influence, privilege and responsibility. As Charlie’s tumultuous and controversial second term in the White House wears on, Alice must face contradictions years in the making: How can she both love and fundamentally disagree with her husband? How complicit has she been in the trajectory of her own life? What should she do when her private beliefs run against her public persona?
In Alice Blackwell, New York Times bestselling author Curtis Sittenfeld has created her most dynamic and complex heroine yet. American Wife is a gorgeously written novel that weaves class, wealth, race, and the exigencies of fate into a brilliant tapestry–a novel in which the unexpected becomes inevitable, and the pleasures and pain of intimacy and love are laid bare.
Praise for American Wife
“Curtis Sittenfeld is an amazing writer, and American Wife is a brave and moving novel about the intersection of private and public life in America. Ambitious and humble at the same time, Sittenfeld refuses to trivialize or simplify people, whether real or imagined.”
–Richard Russo
“What a remarkable (and brave) thing: a compassionate, illuminating, and beautifully rendered portrait of a fictional Republican first lady with a life and husband very much like our actual Republican first lady’s. Curtis Sittenfeld has written a novel as impressive as it is improbable.”
–Kurt Andersen
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| Customer Reviews: Read 121 more reviews...
 Brilliant! January 6, 2009
Curtis Sittenfeld has such a gift for prose--I can imagine her doing her research, poring over articles and books written about Laura Bush, thinking, "but what does she feel on the inside?" This book is your answer. I know it's fiction, but one can't help but marvel at the parallels between Alice Blackwell and Laura Bush. I love the way Sittenfeld uses detail in her work as well-it never feels overdone or distracting, but serves its purpose (IE-LOVE that she includes what type of mattress they had in their White House bedroom! Not sure why, but I do).
This is a fantastic story not to be missed.
 Fascinating, but can't resolve Laura's moral failings. . . January 5, 2009
I found this book fascinating. Sittenfeld imagines a complex yet plausible scenario whereby Laura Bush might actually have fallen for, and married, George W. In his youth, Charlie Blackwell was funny, charming, sexy. Alice married him despite his despicable family (racist, elitist, boorish) and stays with him even after he becomes "born again" (she is agnostic).
Those of us who have wondered what Laura (clearly the more ethical and intelligent member of the couple) could have seen in George W. may be enlightened by this book--the courtship of Charlie and Alice is superbly imagined. But those of us who have also wondered how she could have stayed with and supported such a man will not be satisfied. Alice, like Laura made moral sacrifices in order to stand by her man. She is not racist, he is. She is pro-choice, he is not. He blindly supports the war, she opposes it. But she always keeps her beliefs private. The true heroine in the book is a doctor who nearly exposes Alice's terrible hypocrisy--but the exposure never happens. Alice, like Laura, thinks being a quiet "good" girl is enough but she is wrong. When the stakes are as high as they have been during the Bush administration, silence about evil is complicity with it.
fascinating character study January 4, 2009
In Sittenfeld's third book, she ambitiously creates a fictionalized portrait of Laura Bush. It is a tricky proposition, but Sittenfeld takes the bare facts of the First Lady's life and imbues it with her characteristic introspection and detail. In Sittenfeld's book, Alice Blackwell is much more liberal and complicated than the Stepford wife the White House press presents her to be. If in trying to show this 'life of contradictions' Sittenfeld's plotting occasionally veers towards the melodramatic her writing is never maudlin and always compelling. I agree with the other reviewers, the first 2 or 3 sections are much more stronger. In some ways, Alice is not much different from Sittenfeld's previous characters. All are bookish, quiet 'good' girls from the small Midwest towns who find themselves in unexpected circumstances. As in all of Sittenfeld's books, her writing is strongest when she's describing Alice's adolescence when her tragic relationship with Andrew Imhof irrevocably changes the course of her life. Sittenfeld captures the tenuousness, anticipation, and hopefulness of adolescence in a way few writers can. But she does it so well, that sometimes it's disappointing when her characters grows up (a problem in her second novel). Sittenfeld avoids this in American Wife, the characterization of Charlie Blackwell, doesn't shy away from the flaws of its source but it is sympathetic and very humanizing. The sections describing adult Alice and the relationship between Alice and Charlie are compelling. The last section is rather tepid, despite dealing with the Blackwell presidency and the Iraq War. Though, that may depend on the reader's political biases. Sittenfeld tries hard not to be political but is unable to provide a reasonable explanation of how the character of Alice could have supported her husband's presidential decisions. This was the only point though when the character seemed to manipulated to fit the 'real' Laura Bush. For the most part, while I was curious of which facts or people were taken from real life, I read it as a very compelling account of a small-town girl who moves beyond the life supposedly proscribed to her by birth.
 Better than Prep January 3, 2009
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
But still not as good as it could have been. It starts off with young Alice and the world through her eyes is a believable and appealing portrait of the times. But it's downhill after that. The car accident is presented as the most significant event of her life. The author brings it up constantly in Alice's thoughts years later. Of course, some introspection is to be expected, but the author overdoes it in some places and completely eliminates it in others. Thus, we have a character who still blames herself for an accident, but is completely at peace with an abortion.
Forget you ever heard about the Bushes... January 2, 2009
and you'll be able to enjoy this book.
The usual criticism of this book is that people cannot separate the fictional Alice Blackwell from Laura Bush. Being no fan of the Bushes and therefore with no knowledge of Mrs. Bush other than her previous life as a librarian, I didn't have this problem and thoroughly enjoyed the first 3/4 of the book (pre White House years).
The book skips in large part most of the political career of Charlie Blackwell and jumps from him buying a baseball team to being President. Most of Alice's thoughts during this section revolve around her fame and trouble reconciling with herself the trappings of her life and their apparent non-alignment with who she really is. It was definitely the slowest part of the book, and a section that greatly reduced my empathy for the character of Alice as she comes off in the end as a sniveling, whiny character. Perhaps if Sittenfeld had focused more on what led up to the White House, Alice's musings would have been more tolerable.
All in all, if you can forget that the novel is based heavily on the Bushes, it is an enjoyable read save for the last 150 pages or so.
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