American Wife

It's safe to say that, at some point, many Americans have mulled over the central question posed by Curtis Sittenfeld's American Wife:

"What was Laura Bush thinking?"

That's not entirely fair, I suppose; the protagonist in American Wife is not named Laura Bush, but Linda Blackwell, and she grows up in Wisconsin rather than Texas.  But many of the central plot points in Linda's life -- the tragic car accident, the early career as a librarian, the marriage into a prominent family, the husband's alcoholism and subsequent conversion to born-again Christianity before becoming president -- are Laura Bush, through and through.  Curtis Sittenfeld puts Linda through the paces of Laura Bush's life and scrutinizes Linda's interior life as she goes, hoping, I think, to determine what would lead an intelligent woman, who is, by all accounts, rather liberal and reticent, to marry someone like George Bush.  (Of course, Sittenfeld also adds interesting embellishments to Linda, such as a youthful abortion.)

Sittenfeld makes an interesting case for the proposition that someone like Linda could be attracted to -- and even marry -- a George W. Bush-like character (in American Wife, the George W. Bush character is named Charlie Blackwell) because of his gregariousness and overwhelming enjoyment of life, even though they have profound political differences.  (Charlie is also portrayed as being excellent in the sack.)  However, the idea that Linda would stay with Charlie through his alcoholism and re-birth is a little harder to swallow.  Laura is an agnostic, yet, according to Sittenfeld, she would have no problem accepting Charlie as a born-again -- even though Charlie's spouting of born-again rhetoric certainly reduces the joie de vivre that is the foundation of Laura's attraction to him. 

In fact, it's at the point of Charlie's conversion that the novel began to falter for me.  Until then, the plot moves along briskly, with commentary on class and politics woven into the narrative.  Once Charlie converts and his political career escalates, however, the action involving Laura tapers off, and the novel, which is written in the first person, goes deeper and deeper into her musings on marriage, politics, and life.  As I've said before, I'm not a huge fan of the first person, and the last third of American Wife shows why: it often gives authors an excuse to stop thinking about character and plot and just natter on, with the central character serving as a frontpiece for the author's own opinions.  (If I recall correctly, I had the same problem with Sittenfeld's Prep.  I liked the first two thirds a lot, but it then fell off for me.)

As Joyce Carol Oates wrote in her review, American Wife is definitely "amiable" and "entertaining" -- particularly in the beginning.  Yet while Sittenfeld convincingly portrays Linda as passive, Linda also holds onto certain principles so strongly that when the action tapers off in the last third of the novel, the reader feels let down.  Since Linda's last actions reveal her to be much more than an "American Wife," I wish Sittenfeld let her be more than that more frequently.  

American Wife: A Novel (New York Times Notable Books)

Curtis Sittenfeld

Comments

[math]

So instead of writing an original novel, the author here steals the persona of a real person for its publicity value. Right? And instead of using the logic of the life of the public person, the author makes up a novel logic. And all this is used to sell books at the expense of the public person, who is never actually named.

Isn't that a kind of rape?

[nofrigate]

I don't know if I'd go that far.  In my copy of the novel, there's a Q&A with the author at the end that addresses how she came to write the book and what she was hoping to explore in the process.  Sittenfeld comes across as honestly interested in the inner life of a woman who, given the protagonist's background, etc., would make these kinds of choices.  I mean, did Sittenfeld know that the general shtick would sell copies?  Sure.  But authors make those kinds of choices all the time.  (Primary Colors, anyone?)  I think the real test of the novel is whether it would be interesting/relevant/readable if Laura Bush had never existed -- i.e., whether it can stand on its own, and I think that it does.

[math]

[this is good] If that were true, then the gossipy piggybacking was completely unnecessary, right? At least from the point of view of writing and editing. The commercial point of view requires the tittilating aspects to come to the fore.