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Random House
September 2008
On Sale: September 2, 2008
Featuring: Alice Blackwell
576 pages
ISBN: 1400064759
EAN: 9781400064755
Hardcover
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Fiction
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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