“American Wife”

Rating: 8/10

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, fiction is “something invented by the imagination or feigned.” In Curtis Sittenfeld’s book, “American Wife,” this is sort of true.

“American Wife” follows the life of an American first lady, who shares many similarities with First Lady Laura Bush. The journey starts in Alice Lindgren’s youth in Wisconsin as she revisits the time her grandmother mistook a boy in her class for a girl at the supermarket.

The year is 1954, and Emilie Lindgren is a woman who knows no limits to womanhood. In a time when decency and proper manners are a must for young women, Alice matures through adolescence struggling to stay true to herself. If she likes a boy, is it acceptable to give in to her affections and talk to him?

Alice’s best friend, Dena, is a bit faster than she in most social settings, and shows her that staying in the shadows can easily equal regret. Regret rears its head again in Alice’s life when a car accident shatters her view of life and how to treat the relationships with those around her.

In her 30s, she meets Charlie Blackwell. Charlie, who would rather crack a joke and make sport than discuss policy, courts her and eventually wins her over. He’s a Republican running for Congress, born and bred from a long line of politicians. It’s his legacy, he says, to serve public office. Alice, a registered Democrat and elementary school librarian, has a difficult time legitimizing her life and future with Charlie. Like everyone else, she has ghosts, and as she ages, she begins to understand the events of her life.

As she writes her story, Sittenfeld paints a poignantly believable heroine. The reader, at some point in her life, has met an Alice Lindgren. She’s a composite of all the things women expect of themselves, yet is haunted by the secrets everyone keeps in their diaries.

While at times long and tedious with exposition and description of scenery, “American Wife” is for those who don’t deign to be too nosy, but who are curious of what goes on behind the guarded doors of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

The Blackwells are, at parts, painted with stereotypical, Republican characteristics, yet speculation still looms as to how true this story is. Sittenfeld evidently felt she needed to address the similarities between Alice and Laura Bush with a disclaimer: “American Wife is a work of fiction loosely inspired by the life of an American first lady. Her husband, his parents, and certain prominent members of his administration are recognizable. All other characters in the novel are products of the author’s imagination, as are the incidents concerning them.”

It’s not a biography, she insists, but the pages hint at the truth of the first couple whose image is plagued by nationwide disapproval. Regardless of whether its true, “American Wife” is a racy and heartbreakingly honest story of the silent sacrifices some make for their country.