Rodham (5*)

Who knew?  A juicy fairy tale with a happy ending facilitated by an ironic Agent Orange tweet, in which he defends a female presidential candidate from accusations of sexual harrassment:

Razorgate lesbo scandal is much adieu about nothing!  Sorry it's not PC but all jr employees work there way up with tasks that are No Fun

Curtis Sittenfeld capably explores an alternate political universe in which Hilary ditches Bill to go her own way while acknowledging what may have been a powerful, lifelong physical attraction, at least for the most maligned and misunderstood woman in recent American history.  Some of the events seem more than a little preposterous as they unfold and the sex made me cringe in the same way as I would reading an explicit account of fingering while driving if my parents were in the front seat, but Sittenfeld transcends these liabilities with a thoroughly realized portrait of a single (and singular), pre-woke woman seeking power to do good. 

Even without reading the acknowledgments (every bio written by a female Senator!), it's clear that Sittenfeld has done her research.  And not for the first time, either, given her equally absorbing take on the life of Laura Bush.  If it seems slightly weird for an author to tackle the minds of two former First Ladies, Sittenfeld's insights carry her across the finish line both times.

Here she is on journalists:

It really wasn't that I loathed the press as was often reported by members of the press; it was that I profoundly distrusted them.  They were, for the most part, funny, observant, and intelligent--many had degrees from fancy universities--and I knew they were hardworking because, for much of the time, they literally kept the same schedule I did, attending the same rallies, driving between the same rallies, driving between the same small towns in Iowa or New Hampshire, flying in and out on the same early morning and late-night flights . . . But most political journalists were so childish, so distracted by shiny objects in the forms of gaffes or scoops or arbitrary details they imbued with meaning that simply wasn't there.  The journalists' desire not to be bored was palpable, but campaigning, like life, was often boring.  Thus, in their hunger for novelty, they read shifting alliances and enmities into minor personnel changes, described mindsets they guessed at based on posture or body language, competed with each other for meaningless scraps that they could present as breaking news.  They constructed elaborate narratives based on scant evidence.  They also were self-righteous and self-congratulatory; they assumed that, in other fields, they could make salaries many times what they currently earned, but they believed that journalism was a noble calling.  And yet, on a day-to-day basis, they were people who fought over electrical outlets, who were simultaneously obsessed with their--and my--campaign weight gains and with the availability of meals and snacks.  They shamelessly critiqued my appearance while, in some cases (this was true of both men and women) visibly going days at a time without washing their hair or changing their clothes.  Like children, the journalists wanted to say and write whatever they wanted about me and then for me to be glad to see the, for me to like them.  Unlike children, the journalists drank a lot and sometimes had romances with each other.

The book also explores the loneliness of female intelligence and the literal dry spells that older women endure in their love lives.  And a description of Hilary preparing for a date humanizes her so well that you wish Sittenfeld had served as her communications director instead of writing this novel.

I've run mostly hot and occasionally cold (her disastrous 2016 campaign) with Hilary ever since she broke on the political scene.  Rodham justifies my early faith that she always would have made a far better president than her husband.

2005

2016