American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld.

I just finished American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld (who is a female...who knew?) last night and an obsession has been born.  American Wife is an epic novel.  It's fat and engaging and completely impossible to put down.  Score one for my friends Maggie and Jill who recommended it to me in the first place.

I have often been mocked for my love of historical fiction, most often my husband.  But I love books that take an actual time and place in history and weave it in to a gripping fictional tale.  A good example of this is The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory (if you have not read this, run and do so immediately).  But my new favorite historical fiction is Sittenfeld's American Wife.

I don't know that American Wife actually qualifies as historical fiction because even though we all know it is written about former First Lady Laura Bush, Sittenfeld never refers to Bush in the book.  In the book we are following the life of Alice Lindgren from the time that she is young girl growing up in small-town Wisconsin to her unlikely title of First Lady.  American Wife had me from the very first sentence ("Have I made terrible mistakes?") and revealed a side of President and Laura Bush that I never gave much thought or consideration to.  I'm somewhat desperate to know how much of Sittenfeld's tale was fictionalized and how much was truly a shocking insight in to the life of Laura Bush.

American Wife is comprised of four sections, each cleverly referenced by Alice's address at the time, beginning with her childhood home and ending with 1600 Pennsylvania Drive.  In the first section, we discover Alice's happy, simply childhood, her devotion to her grandmother, and her rather goody-two-shoes-esque existence.  Then, of course, we come to a fateful day at the start of Alice's senior year where the worst happens and alters Alice's (Laura's) life forever.

Alice attempts to move up and on from tragedy and is happily settled in Madison as a school librarian when she attends a friend's backyard barbeque.  And whom should she meet but Charlie Blackwell (i.e. George W.).  

To be candid, I have never been President Bush's biggest supporter.  I did not vote for him and our politics are quite disparate.  But darn it if I didn't find myself liking him in the early parts of this novel.  He was charming and bumbling...Sittenfeld did a spot-on job of creating a character - Charlie - that was exactly what I would have imagined President Bush to be like back before we all knew him as President.  And the novel unfolded, I swung between liking Charlie/George, not liking Charlie/George, and, finally, just feeling sad for Charlie/George.  I was struck by the fact that Bush ended up being, in many circles, a leadership failure and, well, not a man highly respected for his intellect.  But American Wife showed a different man, at least initially.  What if Charlie/George had chosen a different path?  What if he had not pursued politics?    As the novel dove deeper, and as Alice/Laura was dragged down with it, I repeatedly pondered how much our choices shape us and how drastically they can alter our lives and, perhaps, our true selves.

But American Wife was truly Alice/Laura's story.  I found that Alice/Laura was (is?) a far stronger person that I ever imagined.  If Sittenfeld's Alice is truly representative of Laura Bush, then I unjustly judged Mrs. Bush and owe her far more credit than given.  I found myself imagining what it would be like to be married to a President who unfortunately left behind a tarnished legacy.  And I found myself feeling so darn sorry for President Bush.  We elected him.  We put him in that position of power.  And I see now that he gave it everything he could.  I really believe he did the best he could as President.  It was we the people who did not put him in a position to succeed.

American Wife was simply marvelous.  It was a fantastic insight in to the White House and the Bush administration.  And it served as a necessary reminder that our political leaders are Democrats and Republicans and pro-life and pro-choice and all that comes with that but they are also just regular people too.  Because of American Wife, I've now added some biographies about Laura Bush to my reading list which is surprising.  I am eager to learn more now about who President and Mrs. Bush are.  I think it was rather bold of Sittenfeld to write American Wife and I think the end result is simply masterful.  I know I say this a lot but this is one of the very best books I have ever read and I implore you to please read this book.