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Alice Keeps You In Wonder

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By STEPHANIE BONNETT

The Tampa Tribune

Published: November 23, 2008

"American Wife," by Curtis Sittenfeld (Random House, $26)

Alice Blackwell, the main character in Curtis Sittenfeld's most recent novel, "American Wife," is a fascinating character study that readers will concurrently enjoy and find amazingly frustrating.

Alice is a quiet and polite child, and adult, whose journey from a small town in Wisconsin to the White House is unexpectedly dramatic for such a reserved person.

Growing up in Riley, Wis., Alice meets Andrew Imhof, whom she will later believe to be the love of her life. On her way to a high school party, Alice has an automobile accident in which Andrew is killed because she runs a stop sign.

The beauty of Sittenfeld's writing is the introspection that she shares with the reader as Alice processes the events of her life: "For any question, the answer is 'of course.' How would you feel if you killed another person? And if, further, you were a seventeen- year-old girl and the person you killed was the boy you thought you were in love with? Of course I wished it had been me instead. Of course I thought of taking my own life. Of course I thought I would never know peace or happiness again, I would never be forgiven, I should never be forgiven. Of course."

Alice becomes a librarian and later meets a charismatic underachiever, Charlie Blackwell, at a party.

Charlie woos, then marries, Alice.

Charlie launches a successful political career that takes the couple all the way to the White House.

It's not always clear what Alice sees in Charlie, and as Alice thinks through their courtship and marriage, it can be frustrating at how smart, yet passive, she is. But again, the beauty is in her inner dialog: "During that initial congressional run and in later elections, when pundits or journalists underestimated Charlie, I could not be surprised; after all, when we'd first met, I had underestimated him, too."

The family dynamics in "American Wife" are very telling, as well. Alice comes from a very quiet, proper, understated family. The Blackwell family is larger than life: rowdy, raucous, over-the-top crude and all-consuming. Alice's transition from one family to the other is painful at times. She has a mother-in-law whom readers will love to hate and a batch of siblings-in-law that would make even the bravest newcomer run.

Alice's first impression upon visiting the family vacation home is classic: "No, I did not hate it here, I did not blame Charlie's family for my upset stomach or for anything else. Hate was such a melodramatic emotion, so blustery and silly. If the Blackwells incited in me a certain skepticism, I was scarcely the first person to have reservations about her prospective in-laws, or about the wealthy."

The parallels between Alice Blackwell and Laura Bush are unmistakable and create an additional layer of complexity for the reader to think about.

"American Wife" is a compelling story that is hard to put down, and harder still to forget.

Stephanie Bonnett of Kansas City, Mo., is a freelance writer.

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