‘Awfully opinionated for a girl’ is what they call Hillary as she grows up in her Chicago suburb. Smart, diligent, and a bit plain, that’s the general consensus. Then Hillary goes to college, and her star rises. At Yale Law School, she continues to be a leader— and catches the eye of driven, handsome and charismatic Bill. But when he asks her to marry him, Hillary gives him a firm ‘No’.
The rest, as they say, isn’t history. How might things have turned out for them, for America, for the world itself, if Hillary Rodham had really turned down Bill Clinton?
Rodham is Curtis Sittenfeld’s sixth novel, echoing her 2008 novel American Wife in which she imagined the life of a first lady like Laura Bush. Full of lively conversation, deep politics, and a lot of sex, it’s a pacy novel that follows the life of a firey woman who could hold her own against anyone in political office.
Sittenfield is clearly a Clinton fan, and whilst you don’t have to be to read the novel, it certainly helps if you have some interest in their life. It begins with the famous speech at her 1969 Wellesley graduation ceremony where Hillary told off the conservative senator who spoke before her, which sets the tone for the energy of the main protagonist. Women in the pubic eye are often held to ludicrously high standards, and the author challenges this at the same time as creating warmth and empathy to a woman who is not at all cold and calculating.
Even though she doesn’t stay with him, and leaves at the first sign of infidelity, Hillary does truly love Bill – and it wasn’t just sexual. ‘I knew plenty of smart people, but I’d never before encountered a person whose intelligence sharpened mine the way his did,’ she says. There’s a certain thrill that comes with seeing her in emotional and domestic settings, so far removed from the reputation that has been built up over the last few years. But she’s also a political powerhouse, and Sittenfeld draws the conclusion that without Hillary Bill’s political career would never have happened.
Most women in the public eye are full of contradictions. Is there any value in imagining an alternate life for them and seeing where those layers take us? Maybe not, but Sittenfield is a good writer and tells a story with emotion and empathy.
How different the world could have been.
1 Comment
Anne Cater
Huge thanks for the blog tour support xx