Random House provided the ARC of American Wife I read for this review through the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program. In return, I agreed to write a review of at least 25 words to be posted on LibraryThing.

Curtis Sittenfeld’s new book American Wife has certainly received a lot of buzz, and it’s not even officially out until 2 September. It doesn’t take a genius to see why. It’s a thinly disguised ripped from the headlines take on the life of Laura Bush. Some things have been changed: the Bushes are the Blackwells, the family is from Wisconsin, the elder Blackwell never made it to the White House as President, and more. But all the major events in Laura Bush’s life have parallels: an auto accident where Alice Blackwell kills a classmate, a quick marriage to rich ne’er-do-well Charlie Blackwell, Blackwell’s purchase of a baseball team, runs for governor and the presidency, and even a carefully scripted disagreement with her husband over abortion rights. I’m probably a little too cynical in thinking the differences are meant to either ward off legal action or the book was done with Laura Bush’s acquiescence and input and the differences were meant as cover. I don’t want to speculate as to motives too much though, because that’s my biggest criticism of the book.

The story is pretty pedestrian. Middle class uptight midwestern woman marries charming loose rich man, then subsequently sublimates her life to his. Really really pedestrian. And about a character type I hate. I hate female characters that have no lives of their own, where everything is domesticity. I recently found a link to the Bechdel test through Charles Stross’ blog. That test has three prongs: there exists more than one woman in the story, they talk to each other, about something other than men. Nominally this book passes that test (there’s a discussion about abortion rights and political responsibility between two women near the end of the book), but it sure feels like it doesn’t. This is all about Alice Blackwell’s kowtowing to Charlie Blackwell.

If the book were about her changing Charlie Blackwell, or being an equal partner or something redeeming, I might be more sympathetic. But it’s not. Time after time, incident after incident, Alice Blackwell metaphorically and literally says yes dear and goes back to cupcake baking and banquet hosting. Fine. Some people are like that. But I don’t need to read about it for 551 pages.

A couple of reviews I’ve seen have called this a sympathetic or compassionate portrait. Hogwash. Creating an image of someone who never participates in her own life is not sympathetic. Alice Blackwell doesn’t stand up to anyone. She doesn’t pursue the boy she has a crush on, she waits for him to make a move (which he takes over half a decade to do). She’s not responsible for hooking up with Charlie Blackwell, he’s just too handsome and charming and persistent. On and on. If these reviewers think that anyone wants to be portrayed like that, they run with a different crowd than I do.

The only way this comes out ahead for me is if it shows some sort of insight into the real Bush’s marriage. But there’s a problem with that. Curtis Sittenfeld is an author, not a psychiatrist with intimate knowledge of the First Lady’s psyche. Ability to divine the inner thoughts of someone else is not something I would credit to authors. Fictional people, sure. Real people, no. It’s simply another form of punditry and if you read folks like Beat the Press or the Daily Howler, you’ll have an idea of how futile it is to figure out motives.

So unless there’s some sort of deep research involved here, I pretty much have to say this doesn’t pass the smell test. It sure could be a portrait of Laura Bush. But more likely it is just conjecture.

Title: American wife
Author: Curtis Sittenfeld
Imprint / publisher: Random House
Format: Advance Readers Copy
Length: 551 p.
Publication date: September 2008
ISBN-13: 978-1-4000-6475-5
Subject: Presidents’ spouses — United States — Fiction
Subject: Women librarians — Fiction
LC classification: PS3619.I94 A8 2008

The story begins with young Lee Fiora beginning her freshman year at Ault, an exclusive boarding school somewhere near Boston. While popular and outgoing at her middle school in Indiana, her provincial lower middle class upbringing causes her to shy away from engaging with her new upper middle class schoolmates. Will she ever fit in? Will she become popular?

There are some mild spoilers in this review, so don’t bother reading further if not knowing what happens is important to you.

It’s a coming-og-age novel, obviously, and it’s rather well-written. I have to say though, that I took an extreme dislike to our young heroine. I know what it’s like to be shy. I know what it’s like to feel awkward at all times, and hence to never fit in with one’s peers. Perhaps my own history has rendered me less tolerant of others in similar situations. But I think there’s a qualitative difference.

Lee’s shyness wasn’t what made me dislike her I think. Because the reader sees her thought processes, I saw her not only refrain from interaction with her schoolmates, but from actively participating in her own life. The last decision she makes in the novel (and it actually occurs prior to the novel’s start) is to attend Ault. Her parents express reluctance, but her insistence and pursuit of a scholarship convinces them. The next time she makes any sort of decision is near the end when she opens up to a reporter who is doing a human interest story on life in prep boarding schools. Between these two events, she makes no choices whatsoever. She’s not only ruled by her fears, she’s added in some assumptions as well. Not only does she avoid taking risks with fellow people, she avoids participating in classes. She participates in sports only because they are mandatory. She makes no effort whatsoever. She’s just there.

When I was shy, I found many things enjoyable, despite my shyness. I loved computers and programming. I loved reading. I loved billiards. I wasn’t doing great things, even within the limited spheres in which I participated. But I actively pursued my happiness, even if it wasn’t complete. Some people don’t mind being shy. I did. I didn’t do anything about it until my early 30s. I avoided it for a long time. But I participated in something.

There’s some very telling passages in the middle of the book where Lee’s lack of participation or even of any opinions is pointed out to her. It sticks in her mind enough that she writes about it in retrospect, but even with that hindsight, she it’s like a mere acknowledgment that the exchange occurred. There’s no light bulb going off that her issues go beyond her shyness. Not that I could tell.

Instead, Sittenfeld’s character Lee blames everything primarily on her differences with her upper class brethren. And yet, until late in the book, the other teen characters exhibit little that marks them to me as anything but typical adolescents. Lee simply assumes she can’t participate without risking derision, so she does nothing.

I saw the book less as an indictment of boarding school classism, than as an indictment of the mindset of people who don’t participate. Lee has some realization at the end that she may have had a part to play in her own misery, I just wish it was emphasized more than it was.

Liked the book. Didn’t like the character.

Title: Prep
Author: Curtis Sittenfeld (Elizabeth Curtis Sittenfeld)
Imprint / publisher: Random House
Format: Hardcover
Publication date: 2005
Length: 403 p.
ISBN-10: 1-4000-6231-4
Subject: Teenage girls — Fiction
Subject: Preparatory school students — Fiction
Subject: Self-destructive behavior — Fiction
Subject: Massachusetts — Fiction
Subject: Indiana — Fiction
LC classificaiton: PS3619.I94P74 2005