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A review by shhchar
Rodham by Curtis Sittenfeld
5.0
Wow! Wow. Wowowowowowoowowow! I think this is the better timeline and I'd like to be living in it!
But seriously, I don't know how Curtis Sittenfeld does it. She has an incredible handle on narrative. Not to mention the ability to write a completely genuine seemingly authentic world to the point where it seems like the seduction of it being the truth is consciously playing a trick on you.
Rodham follows the question: what if Hillary had said no to her engagement with Bill? What if she, post Yale Law, had gone to struck out on her own and found herself in the Senate and maybe then the White House?
Sittenfeld crafts an immersive, sympathetic protagonist in these 400-something pages. I felt like I was drowning in the first part of the novel which took place during their early romance. I was swept up in these overwhelming emotions and constant hard decisions that when the book kept steadily evolving with age and changing years it was like the reader had the ability to witness a legend being born. The portion of the book set in 2016 felt just like 2020 and I chuckled at veiled references to "I'm just chillin' in Cedar Rapids!"
When I ended the book I realized the things that bugged me weren't anything to do with the construction of the novel itself but Hillary's more annoying Boomer tendencies. That's the trickery Sittenfeld has mastered. This isn't the Hillary Clinton we know in the real world - but how much of her borrows from the truth or represents what she could have been? These are inevitably rhetorical questions but it is a wonderful tangent to take.
But seriously, I don't know how Curtis Sittenfeld does it. She has an incredible handle on narrative. Not to mention the ability to write a completely genuine seemingly authentic world to the point where it seems like the seduction of it being the truth is consciously playing a trick on you.
Rodham follows the question: what if Hillary had said no to her engagement with Bill? What if she, post Yale Law, had gone to struck out on her own and found herself in the Senate and maybe then the White House?
Sittenfeld crafts an immersive, sympathetic protagonist in these 400-something pages. I felt like I was drowning in the first part of the novel which took place during their early romance. I was swept up in these overwhelming emotions and constant hard decisions that when the book kept steadily evolving with age and changing years it was like the reader had the ability to witness a legend being born. The portion of the book set in 2016 felt just like 2020 and I chuckled at veiled references to "I'm just chillin' in Cedar Rapids!"
When I ended the book I realized the things that bugged me weren't anything to do with the construction of the novel itself but Hillary's more annoying Boomer tendencies. That's the trickery Sittenfeld has mastered. This isn't the Hillary Clinton we know in the real world - but how much of her borrows from the truth or represents what she could have been? These are inevitably rhetorical questions but it is a wonderful tangent to take.