Rodham: A Novel

by Curtis Sittenfeld

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the author of American Wife and Eligible . . . He proposed. She said no. And it changed her life forever.
 
“A deviously clever what if.”—O: The Oprah Magazine
“Immersive, escapist.”—Good Morning America
“Ingenious.”—The New York Times

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New Yorker • NPR • The Washington Post • Marie Claire • Cosmopolitan (UK) • Town & Country • New York Post

In 1971, Hillary Rodham is a young woman full of promise: Life magazine has covered her Wellesley commencement speech, she’s attending Yale Law School, and she’s on the forefront of student activism and the women’s rights movement. And then she meets Bill Clinton. A handsome, charismatic southerner and fellow law student, Bill is already planning his political career. In each other, the two find a profound intellectual, emotional, and physical connection that neither has previously experienced.
 
In the real world, Hillary followed Bill back to Arkansas, and he proposed several times; although she said no more than once, as we all know, she eventually accepted and became Hillary Clinton.
 
But in Curtis Sittenfeld’s powerfully imagined tour-de-force of fiction, Hillary takes a different road. Feeling doubt about the prospective marriage, she endures their devastating breakup and leaves Arkansas. Over the next four decades, she blazes her own trail—one that unfolds in public as well as in private, that involves crossing paths again (and again) with Bill Clinton, that raises questions about the tradeoffs all of us must make in building a life.
 
Brilliantly weaving a riveting fictional tale into actual historical events, Curtis Sittenfeld delivers an uncannily astute and witty story for our times. In exploring the loneliness, moral ambivalence, and iron determination that characterize the quest for political power, as well as both the exhilaration and painful compromises demanded of female ambition in a world still run mostly by men, Rodham is a singular and unforgettable novel.

• ISBN10: 0399590919
• ISBN13: 9780399590917
• Publish Date: 19 May 2020
• Publish Status: Remaindered
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Random House USA Inc
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 432
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9780399590917

Reviews

[empressbrooke]

What a weird and excessively dull book. The mind numbingly boring details would have made more sense if it was actually an autobiography, but since it's not, what was the point? Additionally, for a book called "Rodham" and about an alternate history where Hillary did not marry Bill, it sure fixated on him to an obnoxious degree. A more appropriate title would probably have been, "Here Comes This Asshole Again." I also probably could have happily gone my whole life without having read a fan fiction account of Hillary getting fingerbanged in a moving car. I felt like I was experiencing second-hand embarrassment witnessing the author detail a real life living person's diarrhea and need for lubricant for sex past a certain age (seriously, this detail is mentioned multiple times like the young author can't even possibly imagine women of a certain age having sex and wants to make sure everyone else also understands the logistics behind it). And if we were going to write a 100% fantasy fan fiction account of history, we really couldn't leave Donald Trump out of it? The whole thing was just misguided, insulting, and plain weird.

[merryfaith]

4.5 stars. Maybe I'm weird and not above what is essentially fanfiction about real people, but even I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this. Great narration and character depth, definitely worth checking out from the library if you'd think you'd like this.