American
Wife: A Novel ,
by Curtis Sittenfeld (Read by Kimberly Farr)
From the moment her grandmother mistakenly
calls Alice Lindgren's 8 year old boyfriend a girl,
to the days of her bumbling husband's presidency, Alice
knows the pain and embarrassment of defending blundering
loved ones. Born in 1946, Alice grows up in the social,
political and economic cocoon of the fifties. It isn't
until her senior year, when she runs a stop sign and
causes a fatal accident, that Alice's world loses its
innocence. Not only is she devastated by her complicity
in causing the death of another, she finds herself in
need of an illegal abortion. Becoming first an elementary
teacher and then a librarian, Alice finds solace and
contentment in reading to herself and others. While
her friends marry and start families, Alice is 31 before
she meets Charlie Blackwell, the man who would become
her husband and who would later become President of
the United States.
Undoubtedly, Alice Lindgren Blackwell's
life bears a remarkable similarity to First Lady Laura
Bush's. Curtis Sittenfeld's fictionalized version of
Laura Bush's life to date includes enough factual information
to make the audio book tantalizing. Certain events,
such as the fatal traffic accident, are widely known
to have occurred in Mrs. Bush's history, but Sittenfeld
has generously supplemented the truth with supposition
and imagination. The character of Charlie Blackwell
is a fun-loving, handsome son of a wealthy elected official,
but his drinking and buffoonery make him an unlikely
choice for political office. Even his own brothers are
relieved when he quits the family business to pursue
other interests. The Republican Party sees his vote-getting
potential, though, and shepherds him into The White
House. Alice is once again forced to apologize (as least
in her own mind) for the embarrassment caused by someone
she loves. In an imagined conversation with the American
public, after one of Charlie's blunders, she muses,
"All I did was marry him. You are the ones who
gave him power."
Alice Lindgren Blackwell maintains the
same kind of serene calm that we witness in Laura Bush.
Even after spending years in the public eye, her youthful
dreams and demons continue to dominate her thoughts
and actions and in preserving them, she remains a private
person in the midst of celebrity. Only First Lady Laura
Bush and her closest friends and family know how accurately
Sittenfeld has portrayed her, but listeners with even
a tiny interest in gossip will have fun trying to figure
it out. Even without the voyeuristic appeal of the subject,
this is a captivating book with a strong, admirable
heroine who emerges from the innocence of the fifties
to survive the sixties and seventies and goes on to
thrive in the ensuing decades.
Ruth
Mormon
11/28/06
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