I have been looking forward to Curtis Sittenfeld's new novel, Rodham, which will be published in May 2020, ever since it was first announced as a possibility. The novel imagines the trajectory of Hillary Rodham's life if she had never married Bill Clinton.
Hillary Clinton's defeat in 2016 is still very raw for many, and the idea of imagining an alternative future for her is a fraught proposition because it taps into that rawness. Anyone who has read Sittenfeld's other works can also predict that she's not likely to hold back on discomfort, ethical ambiguity, and awkwardness in imagining this story. In both Prep and Sisterland, she draws on the potential for first-person narrators to gain their readers' trust in order to create complicated characters that are both easy to identify with and difficult to like.
Rodham exhibits all of Sittenfeld's strengths: depth of characterization, a compelling narrative, and complicated choices that have no easy answer. At times, it is a stressful read, especially as she threads the storyline through with details from real events, bringing up painful moments from the 2016 presidential campaign and offering a more detailed imagining of Bill and Hillary's relationship than I for one want to think of given what we know about him.
As is always the case for me with Sittenfeld's work, Rodham succeeds for exactly the reasons that it is at times uncomfortable to read. The story is complex, the characters are complicated, and the narrative is masterfully designed. It's a satisfying novel, and I am looking forward to hearing what everyone else thinks about it.
I received an ARC of this novel from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
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