American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld

As for those who hate me because they hate Charlie, hate me by extension, I am curious of this: At what point, in their opinion, should I have done something, and what should that something have been? Should I not have married him? Should I not have discouraged his drinking ("Jim Beam and me, have us both" - is that what I ought to have said?) When he told me he wanted to run for governor and I told him I'd prefer he didn't (though I foolishly thought at least it was better than congressman or senator, at least it would keep us in Wisconsin) - when he decided that in spite of my stated preference, he was indeed going to run, should I have left him? Should I have stayed with him but not campaigned for him? Should I have stated explicitly to the public when my views differed from his? Should I have left him when he decided, also against my wishes, to run for president? Anyone who has been married, and especially anyone married for several decades, knows the union is a series of compromises; to judge the compromises I have made is, I take it, easy to do from far away.

-American Wife

I'm going to try to keep this fairly brief, because NaNoWriMo has commenced, and I've already done a fair amount of writing today (haven't fallen behind yet, hurrah). This is perhaps unfair to Curtis Sittenfeld's American Wife, which is an excellent novel deserving of more attention than I have time to offer it.

American Wife is a fictionalization of the life of Laura Bush. I've never regarded Mrs. Bush as a kindred spirit, but reading American Wife has made me, perhaps, a bit more understanding of her situation. Her fictional stand-in, Alice Blackwell, is very much like her in many publicly verifiable ways: both studied education in college and became librarians, both were involved in tragic car accidents, both married privileged men who, against all odds, became president. It's very easy to move from those similarities to think that Alice's interior life, which Sittenfeld creates with seeming ease, is representative of Laura's. Maybe that's not true - Sittenfeld's no psychic, after all, just a writer who did a fair amount of research and is skilled at creating a sympathetic, believable narrator. I quite liked Alice, though, so I rather hope that Sittenfeld is right. It certainly makes the world more interesting when people aren't exactly what you would expect.

I'm not a political buff by any means, but I found American Wife quite absorbing. It's a fairly long read - a bit over 500 pages - but as I kept going I found that I only read faster, which is certainly one of the hallmarks of a good book. One element I particularly liked was Sittenfeld's talent for giving the reader little nuggets of information that pay off much later in the story - for example, mentioning that Alice won't see a character again until 30 years have passed. It's a great device, because, even as other parts of the plot progress, there's a certain part of the reader's brain that is left waiting for that now-anticipated reunion and wondering what its circumstances will be. Quite enjoyable for the reader, I think.

Up next: I picked up Admission by Jean Hanff Korelitz at the library earlier. I remember reading a good review awhile back; let's hope it holds true. I dig the ivy on the cover, if nothing else.