American Wife

I know you've seen some of the sightseeing, and shopping, that I did while I was on vacation in Duluth. I also had the chance to do some reading and relaxing! The book I read during my trip, which was the very first book I read on my Nook, was American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld.

Look at it there on the screen. Hooray! Taking an e-book on vacation worked out just great. I had some other purchased books, library books, and freebies from the public domain that were also loaded on the device. While I did a little bit less reading than I might have hoped, it was great to be able to take along several choices and plenty of backups.

As for American Wife, this is a novel that I had heard quite a bit about. The author, Cutis Sittenfeld, wrote another book, Prep, about a girl who doesn't quite fit in at a boarding school. I read Prep while I was in college and really enjoyed it. American Wife is a work of fiction that seems to be loosely based on the life of First Lady Laura Bush. I probably know less about Mrs. Bush than I do about any of the other women in that position in the last few administrations. While I guess I still don't know much about it, I thought this was an interesting look at how a woman from a very ordinary upbringing might find herself in the middle of the political universe.

My favorite aspect of this book was the description of how the main character, Alice, came to be part of her husband's family once they began dating and later married. Alice comes from a modest background without any siblings. As a 31 year old woman, she begins dating Charlie Blackwell, the man who later became president. They had decided to get married after only several weeks dating when he takes her home to meet his family: a wealthy clan, vacationing at a lake home in an exclusive community, complete with lots of trappings of WASP lifestyle that are unfamiliar to Alice. I found the descriptions of Alice's time with Charlie's family truly fascinating. For me, they alone are reason enough to recommend this book! And for anyone who wonders how it might work for a liberal to be married to a conservative president, this book certainly proposes one vision. Enjoy!