Editorial Product Review:

Item Description:
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 newfound 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.


Praise for American Wife

“Curtis Sittenfeld is an amazing writer, and American Wife is a brave and moving novel about the intersection of private and public life in America. Ambitious and humble at the same time, Sittenfeld refuses to trivialize or simplify people, whether real or imagined.”
–Richard Russo

“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









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Customer Rating: - Thought I'd Hate It
Read it on the Kindle, only bought it because it was the first book on the Kindle bestseller list that I'd had any previous interest in. Bought it more to figure out how to use the Kindle than for any other reason. It is fantastic. The oddness of it - the fact that is is so clearly inspired by the life of a famous and famously private person, and yet is clearly fiction - never goes away, and indeed composes part of its strangely compelling quality. The book is often unseemly, not just in its many depictions of sex and other bodily intimacies, but in the sense of intrusion that comes with them. But what cannot be denied is the prose, the sense of place, the creation both of a fully realized fictional character and of a plausible psychological portrait of someone who is in front of us nearly ever day, yet who had never once revealed herself in any meaningful or personal way to her public. The book is creepy; it often seems that writer and reader are doing something they shouldn't: entering into an extended fantasy, often luridly physical, about a person who clearly wants not to be thought about overmuch in the first place, let alone to be fantasized about. But as a work of art, the book is a success, and as a pleasure it is undeniable. I have been recommending it to everyone I know, and while I'm certain it will raise hackles, I doubt anyone will leave it un-finsihed. Read it!

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Customer Rating: - could have been much shorter
I though the book was ok. After reading the cover, I couldn't wait to start reading it. By the end, I just couldn't wait to be finished. There was way too much extra stuff that didn't add to the story and could have been deleted. If it had been 200 pages shorter, I would have liked it much better. I probably would not recommend it to a friend.

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Customer Rating: - American Wife
Curtis is a gifted writer. The peek inside the life of a "first lady" was thought-provoking and a very entertaining read.

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Customer Rating: - Poignant Portrayal of a Fictional First Lady
I have never read a book by this author before, Curtis Sittenfeld, and did not know she is a woman...and I think it takes a woman to "get" all the emotions a female goes through, from adolescence to "old" age.

This book is a fictional account of a woman, Alice Blackwell, who grew up in the small town of Riley, Wisconsin. The description of her town made me yearn for the simpler times, when you could leave your door unlocked and know all your neighbor's names.

The story takes the reader on a journey to the four main addresses Alice Blackwell lived in throughout her life, culminating at the White House. I have always been fascinated with anything having to do with the road to the White House, and I couldn't wait to get to this part of the book. I had to really exercise patience to read the earlier parts of the story and I'm glad I did, as I enjoyed reading about the events that made this character the woman she turned out to be.

This is a well-written novel and I would recommend it highly.