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Summary
Summary
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * From the author of American Wife and Eligible . . . He proposed. She said no. And it changed her life forever.
"A deviously clever what if."-- O: The Oprah Magazine
"Immersive, escapist."-- Good Morning America
"Ingenious."-- The New York Times
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New Yorker * NPR * The Washington Post * Marie Claire * Cosmopolitan (UK) * Town & Country * New York Post
In 1971, Hillary Rodham is a young woman full of promise: Life magazine has covered her Wellesley commencement speech, she's attending Yale Law School, and she's on the forefront of student activism and the women's rights movement. And then she meets Bill Clinton. A handsome, charismatic southerner and fellow law student, Bill is already planning his political career. In each other, the two find a profound intellectual, emotional, and physical connection that neither has previously experienced.
In the real world, Hillary followed Bill back to Arkansas, and he proposed several times; although she said no more than once, as we all know, she eventually accepted and became Hillary Clinton.
But in Curtis Sittenfeld's powerfully imagined tour-de-force of fiction, Hillary takes a different road. Feeling doubt about the prospective marriage, she endures their devastating breakup and leaves Arkansas. Over the next four decades, she blazes her own trail--one that unfolds in public as well as in private, that involves crossing paths again (and again) with Bill Clinton, that raises questions about the tradeoffs all of us must make in building a life.
Brilliantly weaving a riveting fictional tale into actual historical events, Curtis Sittenfeld delivers an uncannily astute and witty story for our times. In exploring the loneliness, moral ambivalence, and iron determination that characterize the quest for political power, as well as both the exhilaration and painful compromises demanded of female ambition in a world still run mostly by men, Rodham is a singular and unforgettable novel.
Author Notes
Elizabeth Curtis Sittenfeld was born August 23, 1975 in Cincinnati, Ohio. She is an American writer. Her titles include: Prep, the tale of a Massachusetts prep school; The Man of My Dreams, a coming-of-age novel and an examination of romantic love; and American Wife, a fictional story loosely based on the life of First Lady Laura Bush.
Sittenfeld attended Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York, before transferring to Stanford University in Palo Alto, California. At Stanford, she studied Creative Writing. At the time, she was also chosen as one of Glamour magazine's College Women of the Year. She earned an MFA from the Iowa Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa. In 2018 she made the bestseller list with her title, You Think It, I'll Say It.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (3)
Guardian Review
Curtis Sittenfeld's new novel, Rodham, is a reimagining of the life of Hillary Rodham Clinton and it's a wilder ride than that pitch might suggest. I kept losing track, as I read, of what kind of novel it was and of whether or not I approved. The first third, cleaving roughly to reality and Bill and Hillary's early years at Yale Law School and in Arkansas, includes a lot of feverish, Black Lace-type sex scenes featuring much cupping of scrotums and - apologies for the image this will provoke - the phrase "his erection inside me". The second, a meditation on the experience of a single woman in politics, follows Hillary back home to Chicago after she walks out on Bill. Finally and most surprisingly, in the last third of the book, Rodham becomes a kind of revenge fantasy for women who sublimate their own ambitions for the sake of their husband's careers, at which point I had to tip my hat to Sittenfeld. I went into the novel thinking the entire premise was crass and came out of it thoroughly entertained. Haters of Hillary Clinton won't read this book, which is, of course, part of the point. Rodham is Sittenfeld's sixth novel and a faint echo of American Wife, her novel of 2008, in which she imagined the life of a first lady much like Laura Bush, an excavation that entailed slightly more effort than it was worth. Rodham is a different beast, focusing on someone so reviled and over-analysed that, by reputation, at least, she has ceased to be human. I don't hate Hillary, but I have had enough of her, or so I thought. The first surprise of the novel is how gripping it is; the second is how worthy its protagonist is as a subject for fiction. The author's sympathies are clear from the opening pages, in which she revisits Hillary's first encounter with public life, when, as a student graduating from Wellesley in 1969, she went rogue during her speech and, to the horror of the university authorities, told off the conservative senator who had spoken before her. The speech made national news and the novel sets it up as a kind of question: how did that 21-year-old firebrand, staring down convention, become known as a corporate shill and feminist sell-out, loathed by elements of the left as much as the right? For a real answer you should go to Hulu's recent excellent four-part documentary about Hillary, in which former staffers and friends talk about the warping effect of spending decades as the only woman in the room (and, later, on the debate stage). The joy of Sittenfeld's novel, of course, is that, with the monstrous presumptions of fiction, it imagines what being inside that reality might have been like. You can see why the author went overboard with the sex scenes. There is a shadow text behind Rodham, which is the charge sheet of slurs, many of them misogynist, that the real Hillary has put up with for her entire career and which the novel seeks to dismantle. The first is "frigid". No frigidity here! The same goes for "cold", "calculating", "mercenary" and "unlikable", all of which Sittenfeld tackles with a shrewd eye for the way women in public life are held to impossible standards. Every scene that humanises Hillary is compared, in the reader's mind, with the reality of her image, along with events as they really happened. In the novel, Hillary leaves Bill at the first whiff of infidelity, but it is one of the book's strengths that, by implication, it explains why the real Hillary might have stuck with him. The answer, in Sittenfeld's rendering, is that she straight-forwardly adored him - and he, her. The depiction of Bill Clinton is in some ways more satisfying than that of the novel's protagonist. He is drawn by Sittenfeld as capricious, self-indulgent, talented but not brilliant, and also attracted to Hillary as to nobody else. "I knew plenty of smart people, but I'd never before encountered a person whose intelligence sharpened mine the way his did," thinks our heroine after meeting Bill and the love story, if you can get over the slightly grim sense of prurience hanging over it all, is credible. What is more fascinating is the conclusion drawn by Sittenfeld that, without Hillary, Bill's political career would not have been viable. From the couple's earliest days in Arkansas, Hillary was painted as a political liability, a woman who insulted housewives by making fun of their cookie baking and who was stiff and alienating in public. In fact, as the novel contends, when the first of Bill's many female accusers came out of the woodwork with claims he had harassed them, Hillary's defence of her husband deflected the blame from him on to her. If, as in the novel, Bill had married a more demure and conventional political wife, he would have taken more heat for his infidelities. As it was, everyone decided to hate Hillary. There is a scarcity of action in the novel, at times, which is nonetheless strangely compelling. In the middle section, pages go by in which nothing much happens other than Hillary hanging out with her friends, feeling the chill of being a single, childless woman when most of her contemporaries are married with kids. The frisson of seeing her in these quotidian settings - a demonised woman at rest - is in some ways more captivating than the dramatic passages. A bigger problem is tone, which occasionally slides into the generic nerdy-girl-with-love-problems shtick that has been a weakness of Sittenfeld's since her first novel, Prep. As the years go by, Hillary becomes a thoughtful, hard-working, occasionally ruthless career politician, always vilified by the press, often longing for love, while Bill becomes an internet billionaire who is still basically an arsehole. Decades after they split, they meet again. The action is all highly enjoyable - including a killer cameo appearance by Donald Trump - and, whether or not you buy the political fantasy, as a novel it is a delight. It's an irony of the book that, while seeking to rescue Hillary from caricature, it ends up being a kind of love letter to a type: the American bluestocking and female intellectual, who is given none of the licence of her less talented male peers. At the end, which I won't spoil, I actually said out loud: "Oh, my God" - and, to my amazement, found myself moved.
Kirkus Review
How would Hillary Rodham's life--and our world--be different if she had never married Bill Clinton? In American Wife (2008), Sittenfeld imagined her way into Laura Bush's head in the guise of a character named Alice Blackwell. In her new novel, she doesn't bother to change the protagonists' names, and we're introduced to Hillary Rodham as she's about to give her famous Wellesley College graduation speech and has an intimation of her "own singular future." She goes to Yale, meets a charismatic former Rhodes Scholar, falls in love, catches him cheating on her, and follows him to Arkansas anyway. They try to come up with ways to tame Bill's libido: "Maybe--what if--if I wanted it and you didn't," he asks her, "would you think it was disgusting if I laid next to you and touched myself?" That works for her. "Mapping out the future, coming up with strategies and plans--these were things we were good at," she thinks. But then she decides not to marry him, and the history of the United States goes off in a different direction. The captivating thing about American Wife was imagining an inner life for Laura Bush, a First Lady who was something of a cipher, and in particular imagining that her politics were different from her husband's. Sittenfeld sets herself an opposite task in this book, creating an interior world for a woman everyone thinks they know. This Hillary tracks with the real person who's been living in public all these years, and it's enjoyable to hear her think about her own desires, her strengths and weaknesses, her vulnerabilities and self-justifications; it's also fun to see how familiar events would still occur under different circumstances. (Watch what happens when Bill Clinton appears on 60 Minutes with a less-astute wife at his side.) But there isn't much here that will surprise you. Pleasurable wish fulfillment for Hillary fans. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Though camouflaged, Sittenfeld's American Wife (2008) is a bold and empathic reimagining of the life of First Lady Laura Bush. Sittenfeld's avidly anticipated new novel, Rodham, mines a similar vein, though it is more daring, seductive, and provocative. Commandingly narrated by one Hillary Rodham, and laced with true-to-life figures and facts, this exhilaratingly trenchant, funny, and affecting tale nonetheless pivots smartly away from reality. Yes, Hillary and Bill Clinton, two brainy and ambitious Yale law students, fall passionately in love, and, yes, she accompanies him to Arkansas, where everyone finds her intellect, professional commitments, and no-frills style alarming and offensive. Hillary revels in Bill's charisma and drive, the sex is ecstatic, and she finally agrees to marry him, until his chronic infidelity convinces this disciplined social-justice warrior to walk away. With this split, Sittenfeld creates a vibrant and consequential alternative life for Hillary, rendered with shrewd and magnetizing specificity as the author dramatizes the sexism petty and threatening that Hillary confronts at every turn, while also offering unusual insights into the difficult-to-balance quests for racial and gender equality. As she envisions her Hillary's demanding and ascendant career, crucial relationships, and political quests that reel Bill back into her sphere, Sittenfeld orchestrates a gloriously cathartic antidote to the actual struggles women presidential candidates face in a caustically divided America.
Excerpts
Excerpts
Chapter 1 1970 The first time I saw him, I thought he looked like a lion. He was six foot two, though I knew then only that he was tall. And in fact, his height seemed even greater because he was big-tall, not skinny-tall. He had broad shoulders and a large head and his hair was several inches longer than it would be later, which drew attention to its coppery color; his beard was the same shade. I suppose I thought he looked like a handsome lion, but even from a distance, he seemed full of himself in a way that canceled out his handsomeness. He seemed like a person who took up more than his share of oxygen. This sighting took place in Yale Law School's student lounge, in the fall of 1970--my second year of law school and his first. I was with my friend Nick, and Bill was speaking in his loud, husky, Southern-accented voice to a group of five or six other students. With great enthusiasm, he declared, "And not only that, we grow the biggest watermelons in the world!" Nick and I looked at each other and began laughing. "Who is that?" I whispered. "Bill Clinton," Nick whispered back. "He's from Arkansas, and that's all he ever talks about." The next thing Nick told me was actually, at Yale Law School, less notable than Bill's being from Arkansas. "He was a Rhodes scholar." After I'd been accepted at both Harvard and Yale, I'd decided where to go using a rule I'd established for myself at such an early age--probably in third or fourth grade--that I had trouble remembering a time when I hadn't abided by it. Though I'd never discussed it with anyone, I thought of it as the Rule of Two: If I was unsure of a course of action but could think of two reasons for it, I'd do it. If I could think of two reasons against it, I wouldn't. Situations arose, of course, where there were two or more reasons both for and against something, but they didn't arise that frequently. Should I, as a high school freshman, take Latin? Because I'd heard the teacher was outstanding and because it would help me with the SATs--yes. Should I attend my church youth group's retreat at Gebhard Woods State Park if it meant missing my friend Betty's sweet sixteen party? Because the date of the retreat had been announced first and because a church event was inherently more moral than a party--yes. Should I style my hair in a beehive? (Yes.) Should I major in history? (No.) Should I major in political science? (Yes.) Should I start taking the pill? (Yes.) After Dr. King's assassination, should I wear a black armband? (Yes.) That my "reasons" were often simply articulations of my own preferences wasn't lost on me. But in the privacy of my own head, who cared? The reasons I'd ultimately chosen Yale were: (1) its commitment to public service, and (2) when I'd attended a party at Harvard Law after my acceptance there, a professor had declared that Harvard didn't need more women. As with Yale, the number of female law students at Harvard was then at about 10 percent, and I was slightly tempted to enroll just to spite this professor. But only slightly. One evening in March 1971, shortly after spring break, I was studying in the law library, which was in a striking Gothic building. The library occupied a long room filled with carrels. Above the bookshelves were large, arched stained-glass windows, and bronze chandeliers hung from the wood ceiling. I'd been sitting at a carrel for ninety minutes, and every time I looked up, I made eye contact with Bill Clinton--the lion. He was about twenty feet away, perched on a desk and talking to a man I didn't know. I wondered if Bill was confusing me with someone else. Then again, since only twenty-seven students my year were women, it shouldn't have been that difficult to keep us straight. I stood, approached him, and said, "I noticed you looking at me. Is there something you need?" I extended my hand. "I'm Hillary Rodham." He smiled slowly and broadly, and in his warm, husky, Southern voice, he said, "I know who you are." (Oh, Bill Clinton's smile! More than forty-five years have passed since that night in the library, and at times it's crossed my mind that his smile may have ruined my life.) He added, "You're the one who told off Professor Geaney on Ladies' Day." This--Ladies' Day--was a ritual observed by some professors who called on female students to speak just once a semester, on a designated day. But Professor Geaney, who taught Corporate Taxation, which was an upper level class Bill wasn't in, took the tradition further than most: Every Valentine's Day, the professor started class by announcing that it was Ladies' Day and asking all the virgins to assemble in the front of the room. When he'd done it a few weeks before, I along with the other two women in the section stood but remained at our seats, as we'd planned to do in advance, and I spoke on our behalf. I said, "This is an offensive custom that has no place in an academic setting. The female students present should be treated as full members of the law school community, with the same rights to participation in this class as the male students." When I'd finished, I'd felt some of the defiant satisfaction I had at my Wellesley graduation, and the feeling hadn't been diminished when Professor Geaney said, "Fine then, Miss Rodham. You ladies may stay where you are, but since you seem particularly keen to share your viewpoints today, I'll let you begin our discussion by summarizing Gregory v. Helvering." "I'd be happy to," I said. In the law library, to Bill Clinton, I said, "Yes, that was me." Bill rose then from the desk, all six feet two of him, with his coppery hair and beard, and took my still-extended hand (I was five-five). He said, "It's a pleasure to officially meet you. I'm Bill." "Are you interested in working at the legal aid clinic?" I asked. For the last eighteen months, I'd volunteered at the New Haven Legal Services office. He seemed amused, though I didn't see why. Our hands were no longer moving but still clasped--his hand was enormous--as he said, "I might be. Would you like to get a cup of coffee sometime and we could discuss it?" As I extracted my hand, I said, "If you're considering the clinic for this summer, you should apply as soon as possible. The slots will definitely fill up." "No, I'll be organizing for McGovern down in Florida. But what about coffee?" Was he asking me out? In a matter of seconds, I considered then dismissed the possibility. There were, as it happened, two reasons why. The first was that Bill Clinton had a palpably impatient and acquisitive energy, and while, at Yale Law School, this energy wasn't unique, his was more extreme than most. He did, obviously, want something from me, but it seemed unfathomable that the something was romantic. And the reason it seemed unfathomable wasn't that men weren't interested in me; they sometimes were, but the men who were interested in me were never outrageously charismatic and handsome. Therefore I wasn't playing hard to get, I wasn't being coy, as I said, "I'm busy until the weekend, but I have time to meet you on Saturday afternoon." Excerpted from Rodham: A Novel by Curtis Sittenfeld All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.