Rodham
May 21, 2020 7:44 PM - by Sittenfeld, Curtis - Subscribe
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 Rodham, Sittenfeld sets herself an impossibly contorted task: imagining a Hillary who doesn’t inspire imagination. The resulting revisionism just ends up insulting everybody’s intelligence. -- The Nation
But as good as the final third of the novel is ... it never recovers from those early pages, where Sittenfeld is still tethered to her character’s real biography. -- New York Times
Fortunately, fiction on the level of Rodham offers some temporary relief. Who needs reality when Curtis Sittenfeld has invited us into the wilds of her imagination? -- LA Review of Books
In Rodham, Sittenfeld sets herself an impossibly contorted task: imagining a Hillary who doesn’t inspire imagination. The resulting revisionism just ends up insulting everybody’s intelligence. -- The Nation
But as good as the final third of the novel is ... it never recovers from those early pages, where Sittenfeld is still tethered to her character’s real biography. -- New York Times
Fortunately, fiction on the level of Rodham offers some temporary relief. Who needs reality when Curtis Sittenfeld has invited us into the wilds of her imagination? -- LA Review of Books
I read a bunch of Rodham sex scenes so you wouldn't have to -- Jezebel
posted by box at 6:37 AM on May 22, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by box at 6:37 AM on May 22, 2020 [1 favorite]
The first thing I would do with a time machine is buy HR a drink, build up her confidence to retake the NY bar exam, and convince her not to go back to Arkansas. That plus previous experience with Curtis Sittenfeld means the idea of reading this book makes my heart hurt but I am curious where she took the story, which is a long-winded way of saying I'm lurking here for spoilers.
posted by Flannery Culp at 10:02 AM on May 22, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by Flannery Culp at 10:02 AM on May 22, 2020 [1 favorite]
I just love that AU fanfic of reality is acceptable literature ...
... but also, this is RPF of living people. To me and to a lot of fans, this is a hard limit for emotional [typo: meant ethical] reasons as well as legal ones, although you could argue that one could not hurt Hillary Clinton's feelings too much more at this point.
posted by Countess Elena at 10:33 AM on May 22, 2020 [8 favorites]
... but also, this is RPF of living people. To me and to a lot of fans, this is a hard limit for emotional [typo: meant ethical] reasons as well as legal ones, although you could argue that one could not hurt Hillary Clinton's feelings too much more at this point.
posted by Countess Elena at 10:33 AM on May 22, 2020 [8 favorites]
I read a bunch of Rodham sex scenes so you wouldn't have to -- Jezebel
Thanks to this, I ended up doing some image search to see if Bill Clinton really does have Yaoi Hands. He doesn't.
posted by betweenthebars at 1:52 PM on May 22, 2020
Thanks to this, I ended up doing some image search to see if Bill Clinton really does have Yaoi Hands. He doesn't.
posted by betweenthebars at 1:52 PM on May 22, 2020
I read a bunch of Rodham sex scenes so you wouldn't have to -- Jezebel
So, that's a perfect example of sex scenes that would be cringey enough-yet-totally-reasonable if they were about entirely fictional characters, but...no, I just can't with this.
Curtis Sittenfeld is one of my favourite authors if and only if I can pretend that she never wrote Eligible. I have a bad feeling that I'm going to have to add this one to that list of her works I have to conveniently disavow.
posted by blerghamot at 2:56 PM on May 22, 2020 [1 favorite]
So, that's a perfect example of sex scenes that would be cringey enough-yet-totally-reasonable if they were about entirely fictional characters, but...no, I just can't with this.
Curtis Sittenfeld is one of my favourite authors if and only if I can pretend that she never wrote Eligible. I have a bad feeling that I'm going to have to add this one to that list of her works I have to conveniently disavow.
posted by blerghamot at 2:56 PM on May 22, 2020 [1 favorite]
I’ve read and enjoyed all of Sittenfeld’s books and this one was grueling to get through. The first third with all the Clinton sex was extremely rough and after that it became boring. There’s some weird off-putting alternate reality stuff with Trump I really disliked as well. Nothing about the book was redeeming, honestly, except maybe the 2 pages imagining a 2017 Inauguration Day that had gone the other way.
posted by something something at 3:25 PM on May 27, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by something something at 3:25 PM on May 27, 2020 [1 favorite]
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posted by rikschell at 6:10 AM on May 22, 2020