Rodham
The SUNDAY TIMES bestseller asking: What if Hillary hadn’t married Bill?
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4.2 • 119 Ratings
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
BY THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF ROMANTIC COMEDY, AMERICAN WIFE and PREP
'This addictive novel is the SLIDING DOORS of American politics. Gripping' Stylist
'Startlingly good. One of my favourite writers' KATE ATKINSON
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'Awfully opinionated for a girl' is what they call Hillary as she grows up in her Chicago suburb.
Smart, diligent, and a bit plain, that's the general consensus. Then Hillary goes to college, and her star rises. At Yale Law School, she continues to be a leader - and catches the eye of driven, handsome and charismatic Bill. But when he asks her to marry him, Hillary gives him a firm No.
How might things have turned out for them, for America, for the world itself, if Hillary Rodham had really turned down Bill Clinton?
With her sharp but always compassionate eye, Sittenfeld explores the loneliness, moral ambivalence and iron determination that characterise the quest for high office, as well as the painful compromises demanded of female ambition in a world ruled by men.
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'A lot of fun. A wonderful sad dream of what might have happened' Guardian
'It ends up being a love letter to a type: the female intellectual, who is given none of the licence of her less talented male peers. At the end, I found myself saying Oh My God' Observer
'An explosive new book' Grazia
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Curtis Sittenfeld’s third, breakthrough novel, American Wife, was a fictional tale of a First Lady who bore plenty of resemblance to Laura Bush. Here, Sittenfeld returns to US politics, this time without changing any names, to imagine the paths Hillary Rodham would have taken had she not married Bill Clinton. Rebuffing Bill’s marriage proposal during the early chapters of the book, she goes on to forge her own compelling tale in the political world. The story works so well because the Hillary portrayed here is convincing and familiar, and as the absorbing plot unfolds, Sittenfeld’s attempts to unveil the private person behind the public persona chime with the real-life history we know. It may be fiction but Rodham has plenty of authentic things to say about politics, prejudice, ambition and the world we live in.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this entertaining political fantasy, Sittenfeld (Eligible) imagines Hillary Clinton's personal and professional life if she and Bill had gone their separate ways instead of marrying. The novel begins with an intimate perspective on historical events: At Wellesley's 1969 graduation, Hillary feels the exhilaration of speaking her mind in public. Two years later, she meets Bill at Yale Law School. He is handsome, larger than life, proud of his Arkansas roots. She is ambitious, smart, hardworking, and opinionated. They fall in love and discuss marriage, but break up because of Bill's philandering. Bill runs for president in 1992 but drops out of the race. Hillary, meanwhile, is a year into her first term as senator from Illinois. When she runs for president, in 2016, Bill is one of three primary challengers. Scenes with cameos from Donald Trump prove livelier than familiar elements like Hillary's chocolate chip cookies, which she brings to a Yale potluck. Still, Sittenfeld movingly captures Hillary's awareness of her transformation into a complicated public figure ("The feeling was in the collapse, the simultaneity, of how I seemed to others and who I really was") Readers won't have to be feminists (though it would help) to relish Sittenfeld's often funny, mostly sympathetic, and always sharp what-if.
Customer Reviews
Hillarious
3.5 stars
Author
American. Full name Elizabeth Curtis Sittenfeld (She's probably a Curtis Stone fan. Who isn't?). Mid-forties. Born Cincinnati, Ohio. Alumnus of Stanford and the Iowa Writers Workshop. Favourite of the critics. Her first published novel, Prep (2005), was about teenagers at a New England prep school. There followed Man of My Dreams (2006), a coming of age story; American Wife (2008) about an "ordinary" woman who sounds an awful lot like Laura Bush and ends up as First Lady; Sisterland (2013) about twin sisters one of whom has psychic powers; Eligible (2016), a modern retelling of Pride and Prejudice set in Cincinnati; and You Think It, I'll Say It (2018), a short story collection. While I liked Sisterland best, they're all polished efforts, if not overly memorable.
Precis
Alternative history of the life of Hillary from the 1960s through to the present day, the big difference being she doesn't marry Bill because, to use her own words from the late 1990s, "he's a hard dog to keep on the porch." After Bill's 1992 campaign crashes and burns (implied reason: no Hillary to prop him up), he goes to California and becomes a tech billionaire, as you would. Meanwhile, Hillary never marries, pursues an academic life then runs for the US Senate and eventually for the Presidency herself (3 times). Donald Trump makes his presence felt, although not in the way you might think. For the record, Ms Sittenfeld's alt prez list includes George H W Bush re-elected 1992, followed by Jerry Brown 1996, John McCain in 2000 and 2004, Obama 2008 and 2012. You'll have to read the book to find out what happens in alt 2016.
Writing
There has never been any doubt that Ms Sittenfeld can write. My problem with her work is that I find it easy to lose interest in what she's writing about. The early part of this, until the split with you know who, was excellent. The latter part, which kept flipping backwards and forwards in time to fill in background details, not so much.
Bottom line
I would have stuck to a linear narrative that relied on the reader to remember a few things, but what would I know? Ms Sittenfeld makes the big bucks, not me.