American Wife

Summary (from the publisher): 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 new found 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.

Review: American Wife is loosely based on the life of an American first lady. It quickly becomes obvious from the dates and details of Alice Blackwell's narrative that her story is based on the life of Laura Bush. Many of the details of Alice's life - her middle class upbringing, the tragic car accident as a teenager, her work as a librarian, her husband's drinking, his prominent family and family vacation home, his rise to become the president who would be forced to face the events of 9/11 - all echo Laura Bush's life. However, in American Wife, Sittenfeld has given a voice to Alice and a behind the scenes look at the life and marriage of Alice and Charlie that can only be fictional. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this novel and Sittenfeld's depiction of the life of a First Lady of the United States. 

I liked Alice as a character immensely. Alice tells her story retrospectively, beginning with a scene where she reminisces from the White House in 2007 and then going back to tell her story beginning in third grade in 1954. I was charmed by her description of her middle class home with two parents and an eccentric and well-read grandmother. From the first chapter, Andrew Imhof, a fellow classmate, prominently features in Alice's life and thoughts.

One of the more disheartening aspects of this book is the tone of regret and constant sense of "what if" that Alice inserts into her narration. In fact, the very first line of the novel is "Have I made terrible mistakes?" It's clear that Alice is looking back on her life to try to determine what she would do differently or how she went wrong. It's also clear that Alice never wanted to be involved in politics, and did not want her husband Charlie to run for governor, let alone president. When, early in their marriage, Charlie jokingly suggests they run off together, Alice muses "What if I'd said yes? Not to the cartoon version but to a real one, a move to another state. Lives that we carved out for ourselves rather than inheriting, distance and space. What would we - would Charlie - have had to prove, away from his family? Could what has happened in the years since have been prevented, could I have prevented it by merely capitulating?" 

The summer Alice meets Charlie, she spends countless hours making paper mache book characters to decorate her school library. She sadly reflects back on the recognition she received for her work saying, "What I couldn't have imagined at the time was that the applause after the lice film was the moment of my greatest professional achievement. It was the most public recognition I ever received for being myself rather than an extension of someone else or, even worse, for being a symbol. Thirty-five teachers clapping in an elementary school library is, I realize, a humble triumph, but it touched me. In the years since, I have received great and vulgar quantities of attention, more attention than even the most vain or insecure individual could possibly wish for, and I have never enjoyed a fraction as much." 

I was surprised by how poorly Charlie, Alice's husband the president of the United States, is presented (and I would suspect based on this that Sittenfeld is not a fan of President Bush). I think Suttenfeld wants the reader to sympathize with and like Alice a great deal. The same cannot be said for Charlie who after ten years of marriage becomes a mean drunk, is cruel to Alice when her beloved grandmother dies, embarrasses her publicly, and constantly fails to show up when he has promised to. Additionally, when Alice briefly leaves her husband and considers divorce, she has a revelation when she realizes that everyone was astonished that she married Charlie in the first place - even his own mother, telling her "everyone knew you'd married down." Charlie's mother (and other friends in their own words) tells Alice "Nobody will dispute for a second that you're smarter and more refined than Chas, but you were smarter and more refined than him the day you met." This striking revelation makes Alice question her choice of spouse, and constantly wonder what might have happened, had her childhood crush, Andrew Imhof, not died young.

My only criticism of this richly detailed and well imagined novel is the jumps in time between each of the four parts. The novel skips over Charlie's stint as governor, his presidency campaign, and his first term in office. Most of that probably would have been dull and repetitive to read, but I did feel like there was a huge unexplained gulf between Charlie as just the wastrel, wealthy son of a former governor, and suddenly becoming president. Additionally, Alice as first lady surprised me - especially her choice to have plastic surgery. I also was not a fan of the frilly, wedding gown cover that makes the book look like inconsequential chic lit. Overall, Alice's sadness at the course of her life greatly saddened me as a reader, especially because at heart, the draw of this story is Alice herself, who never realizes how lovely, smart, and compelling she truly is. 

Stars: 4