#BlogTour ‘Rodham’ by Curtis Sittenfeld

About the book…

From the New York Times bestselling author of American Wife and Eligible, a novel that imagines a deeply compelling what-might-have-been: What if Hillary Rodham hadn’t married Bill Clinton?

In 1971, Hillary Rodham is a young woman full of promise: Life magazine has covered her Wellesley commencement speech, she’s attending Yale Law School, and she’s on the forefront of student activism and the women’s rights movement. And then she meets Bill Clinton. A handsome, charismatic southerner and fellow law student, Bill is already planning his political career. In each other, the two find a profound intellectual, emotional, and physical connection that neither has previously experienced.

In the real world, Hillary followed Bill back to Arkansas, and he proposed several times; although she said no more than once, as we all know, she eventually accepted and became Hillary Clinton.

But in Curtis Sittenfeld’s powerfully imagined tour-de-force of fiction, Hillary takes a different road. Feeling doubt about the prospective marriage, she endures their devastating breakup and leaves Arkansas. Over the next four decades, she blazes her own trail—one that unfolds in public as well as in private, that involves crossing paths again (and again) with Bill Clinton, that raises questions about the tradeoffs all of us must make in building a life.

Brilliantly weaving a riveting fictional tale into actual historical events, Curtis Sittenfeld delivers an uncannily astute and witty story for our times. In exploring the loneliness, moral ambivalence, and iron determination that characterize the quest for political power, as well as both the exhilaration and painful compromises demanded of female ambition in a world still run mostly by men, ‘Rodham’ is a singular and unforgettable novel.

Huge thanks to Anne Cater of Random Things for the tour invite, and Penguin Random House for the gifted ecopy of ‘Rodham’ which is out on the 9th of July in ebook, hardcover and audiobook formats.

This was one of my most anticipated reads of 2020, Curtis is one of my favourite writers and Hillary Rodham Clinton one of the most fierce yet enigmatic feminists of our time. My limited knowledge of her public persona is principally based around her and her husband, Bill’s, tenure in the Oval Office which, as I was a teenager at the time, seemed immensely exotic. Her equality of purpose with her husband made them such a formidable couple, and this resurfaced as he supported her in her presidential candidacy race in 2016.

Beyond that, I knew next to nothing and do not claim any political expertise, however, the thought experiment of Curtis Sittenfeld re-imagining the life of such a powerhouse public figure if her road had turned left, instead of right had this reader completey intrigued.

By titling it ‘Rodham’, not only does Curtis in a sense, give Hillary’s agency back to her, she makes her the heart, the spine, the nervous system of this entire book. She is her own person rather than a conduit of Bill’s, and so even the title had me excited.

Rather than asking , ‘Where would Hillary be without Bill?’ this posits the question of how successful he would have been without her.

From the very start, Hillary’s voice is firm, straight and decisive. She knows who she is, she knows her limitations and she recognises and pushes agianst systems set in place to denegrate and keep women where they belong. She states unemotionally and unequivocably the fact that women are not allowed through many , many doors in 70’s American Academic circles. She makes no bones about it, instead she makes waves , slams those doors open and brings other women along with her.

This is illustrated in her refusing to accomodate her Corporation Tax tutor, who used Valentine’s Day to ask all the virgins in class to come to the front of the room (his way of getting back at the one day a year women were allowed to speak up, Ladies Day. Can you ever imagine that this was acceptable?)

Hillary was one of only 3 women in the class and as such they refused to engage, and she became, to misquote Tolkien, known as a ‘disturber of the peace’.

This is an unromantic romance story, in that whilst their early courtship is beautifully rendered, it is undermined with Hillary’s strength of character and lack of expectation when it comes to men. She finds it hard to believe that Bill is interested in her, in fact, it comes as something of a shock that he has been watching her for over a year and knows her reputation on campus . Whether he had her marked out as a perfect political partner, whether he strategically picked her is something which can only be guessed at, but I found it incredibly tender, and so easy to believe.

This is probably one of my favourite quotes from a book littered with moments that make you want to sing for joy at the quality of writing-

”You will encounter boys and men with whom you think you enjoy chemistry. A boy or a man will find you funny and interesting and smart,just as you find him funny and interesting and smart. The pleasure you take in each other’s company will be obvious, but, crucially,while this pleasure will make you feel as if you are in love with him,it will not make him feel as if he is in love with you.He might remark on how much he likes talking to you, but there will be girls he wants to kiss and you will not be one of them.”

The book leaps straight into Hillary’s time at Yale, she dips in and out of her childhood reminiscences, but she is absolutely there as a young woman poised and determined, on the edge of world domination. Her forward thinking and focus is supported but an unquenchable work ethic and drive.

The rest of the story is split in to two-the relationship she has with Bill and the fallout out of her refusal to marry him.

Cleverly intertwining events, and with research coming from Hillary and Bill’s own memoirs, Curtis manages to create something remarkable, timely and deeply moving. All the things for which Hillary should have been celebrated for were used as weapons against her. As a friend’s father commented when she ventured forth an opinion on baseball , ‘you’re awfully opiniated for a girl’.

Yes she was,she knew it and never wavered.

She still is, and for everything that some sectors of society feel that she did wrong, I still feel that she is someone to look up to, for her firm political and social stances, her sheer humanity and strength of character.

As a fictionalised biography of one of history’s most formidable women, I finished this novel with a tinge of regret for the first female president that we should have had. And it has made me want to read ‘What Happened?’ by Hillary Rodham-Clinton. To see how close her written voice is to this account. And to forever wonder if Hillary herself has read ‘Rodham’ and what she thinks about it.

About the author…

Curtis Sittenfeld is the author of the new novel Eligible, a modern retelling of  as well as the bestselling novels ‘Eligible’,‘Sisterland’ , ‘Prep’, and ‘The Man Of My Dreams’, which have been translated into twenty-five languages. Curtis’s writing has appeared in many publications, including The Atlantic, The New York Times, Vanity Fair,Time, Slate, Glamour, and on public radio’s This American Life. A graduate of Stanford University and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, she currently lives in St. Louis, MO.

Links-http://www.curtissittenfeld.com/

Twitter @csittenfeld @annecater @penguinrandom