Monday, April 22, 2019

Book Review: American Wife, by Curtis Sittenfeld

American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld book cover and review
American Wife is a fictionalized account of the life of an unlikely First Lady of the United States, Alice Blackwell. It is loosely based on Barbara Bush, but very loosely, in that she is First Lady during the time period that Bush was president, and Alice may have had some of the same beliefs that Barbara did but a different background. And her husband, Charlie, had a much different background also.

But, American Wife was entertaining for the most part. It is the story of a childhood, a romance, a marriage, and ultimately a political career. But the presidency doesn't happen until the last 120 pages. A lot of the story is about their marriage, at times struggling, and Alice fitting into Charlie's very affluent family after her middle-class childhood.

Alice's first-person narrative flips back and forth in time quite a bit, and this technique worked well for me. Especially during the presidency years, she is very introspective about fame and how it changes a person and how she fought these changes. Somewhat repetitive, I still found these insights helped the reader relate to this very unique situation.

American Wife would not fit into my "must read" category, but it certainly was not a waste of time. If you are interested in seeing the rise of a political career from the First Lady's perspective, this is a good one. Sittenfeld did a lot of research into first ladies of the time period, and I felt her observations were authentic.

Published by Random House, 2008
Copy obtained from my personal library
558 pages

Rating: 4/5





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2 comments:

  1. I haven't heard of this one, but it sounds interesting. I've always wondered what it must be like to have that position: wife of the president. It's an odd "job."

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  2. So I read a book by Curtis Sittenfeld this past year and was shocked to learn that the author was (is) female.

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