American Wife

What an interesting story. This book has been sitting on my to-read shelf for quite some time. I bought it before Border's closed and was happy that I finally got around to reading it. What makes it so interesting to me, is what I discovered about it as I was reading it. A quote on the back cover says, "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. I did not know which first lady they were referring to, and I assumed it would be obvious as I read it so I didn't do any research beforehand. The book is divided into four parts: by her home addresses. The first being her childhood home, the second an apartment she lived in during her twenties, the third where she lived with her husband and daughter, and the last 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. It wasn't until I was well into the third part that I finally caved and looked up which first lady it was referring to and I almost wish I hadn't as it would have become obvious by the time I reached the fourth part. Was I surprised? Hell yes! And from that point on in the book, the main characters suddenly had an identity crisis in my mind. Warring between the images my mind had already assigned to them, and what I know to be true about their real-life counterparts. I struggled with the rest of the book for that very reason, but I wouldn't say that is a bad thing. I definitely did do some research before I finished it, wanting to know if certain parts were true and I was surprised by how much was confirmed in Wikipedia.

I enjoyed the first half of the book more than the last half. Overall I found interesting the idea of taking a biography and making it into a novel. In a biography I don't think you are as free to fill in the gaps with the characters internal motivations and desires as freely as a novel. On a scale of 1 to 10 I think I would give it an 8. I don't think I would have read a book about this particular first lady if I had known who it was about from the beginning, but I'm glad I did.