American Wife (Sittenfeld) - Book Reviews

Book Reviews 
Clearly, American Wife…will attract a lot of readers in much the same way as Joe Klein's 1996 novel Primary Colors got a lot of readers, who thought they were getting a roman a clef about Bill and Hillary Clinton. American Wife, however, isn't political satire; rather it attempts to give us an emotionally detailed portrait of a woman and her marriage to a politician, much the way Ms. Sittenfeld's first novel, Prep, tried to give us an emotionally detailed portrait of a teenager and her experience of boarding school. And while the final chapters dealing with the Blackwell presidency are badly undermined by Ms. Sittenfeld's obvious contempt for Charlie's politics (and her inability to understand how Alice could possibly share her husband's views), this latest novel succeeds in creating a memorable and sympathetic heroine.
Michiko Kakutani - New York Times


Detractors from both sides of the aisle might want to veer off message and actually read the book before lobbing grenades. This story isn't really about Laura Bush, although main character Alice Blackwell does share so many traits with the current first lady that the steamy sex scenes are bound to elicit a collective ewww. Never mind that. American Wife advances the notion that there is more to a president's wife than orchestrated public appearances. Still a radical notion in Washington, perhaps, but one that women around the country will welcome. Sittenfeld offers a smart and sophisticated portrait of a high-profile political wife who takes the reins of a life she never wanted and holds on tight to who she wants to be, regardless of how the rest of the world perceives her.
Connie Schultz - Washington Post

The scope and detail of American Wife are reminiscent of Richard Russo. Like Russo, she creates characters from the ground up, ancestry, neighborhood, culture and all.
Los Angeles Times

Sittenfeld boldly imagines the inner life of a first lady...an intimate and daring story.... American Wife is a vicarious experience, an up-close portrait of the interior life of a very complicated woman…cinematic.
USA Today

We love Sittenfeld. We love her wry, razor-sharp observations. We love her funny, straightforward honesty…[American Wife] is an empathetic, fascinating, and gorgeously written story about a 30-year marriage. We devoured it in one night.
Boston Magazine

Sittenfeld tracks...the life of bookish, naïve Alice Lindgren and the trajectory that lands her in the White House as first lady.... Once the author leaves the realm of pure fiction, however, and has the first couple deal with his being ostracized..., the book quickly loses its panache and sputters to a weak conclusion that doesn't live up to the fine storytelling that precedes it.
Publishers Weekly


Bold...conveys in convincing, thoroughly riveting detail a life far more complicated than it appears on the surface.... What she does here, in prose as winning as it is confident, is to craft out of the first-person narration a compelling, very human voice, one full of kindness and decency. And, as if making the Bush-like couple entirely sympathetic is not enough of a feat in itself, she also provides many rich insights into the emotional ebb and flow of a long-term marriage.
Booklist


An elementary-school librarian marries the least promising son of an old-moneyed, intensely competitive Republican family and sticks by him as he rises from hard-drinking fool to unpopular U.S. President in this roman a clef from Sittenfeld.... This fictional first lady is a wimp and her husband a lightweight. So what's new?
Kirkus Reviews