~ You Think It, I’ll Say It, by Curtis Sittenfeld ~
The most striking story in Curtis Sittenfeld’s short story collection is, unfortunately, not included in the American edition. It’s called The Nominee, and it can be read online. The narrator is the first woman presidential candidate, a lightly fictionalized Hillary Clinton, and the story describes a long-term interaction with a woman journalist. Over the years, the journalist interviews her periodically and publishes critical descriptions and analyses of her personality, until, finally, the candidate gets to ask her a question in return.
This is familiar territory for Sittenfeld. Her brilliant earlier novel, American Wife, had a protagonist who was a fictionalized version of Laura Bush. For a reader who stumbled upon the book unaware, the resemblances crept up until they became inescapable and obvious about halfway through the book. How the reader felt about the characters at the end probably depended on their opinion of George and Laura Bush, but the book is remarkable regardless.
The Nominee is more pointed than American Wife: it underscores Clinton’s own intelligence and personality, but also points out the hypocrisy and sexism in the coverage of Clinton. It sparkles with Sittenfeld’s trademark clarity and perceptiveness.
The truth is that when she interviews me, I feel an alertness, a welcome kind of challenge, that’s deeply satisfying. I’ve sometimes thought that the reason people who aren’t particularly bright don’t care for people who are is the hunch among the former that the latter speak to one another in code. Which we do: brain to brain, with an explanation-dispensing briskness, a shared understanding of subtext. I would never publicly admit this, least of all to her, but I believe the journalist is worthy of interviewing me in a way many kinder reporters are not.
What I care for least about the journalist is the sense of entitlement she demonstrates in small and large ways. Small: I never witness it but according to my staff, she’s a notorious pain about the logistics we’ve arranged for the press corps in a manner no print journalist from anywhere other than The Times would dare to be; […]. Large: I believe she’s quite sexist and either is blind to it, or more likely, sees herself as impervious, what with her fancy education, her cynicism, and her job at the cultural nexus of our post-everything society. Over and over, year in and year out, she asks me questions she’d never ask a man running for public office[…]: Who designed the pantsuit I wore to the State of the Union? How has my husband influenced my foreign policy views, stance on minimum wage, and opinion of vegans? Do I consider my marriage to be a good one? Is the country ready for a president who is also a grandmother? And always — always — some variation on this: Why do so many voters, even ones who admire my record, have difficulty connecting with me? Why do the American people find me fundamentally unlikable?
[From The Nominee]
As you see, you are likely to find that some of the nominee’s thoughts match your own impression of Clinton, whether positive or negative. But Sittenfeld also makes you see it from Clinton’s perspective, which is a astonishing feat to pull off with such a public, polarizing figure.
The other stories in You Think It, I’ll Say It are about white middle class people in their thirties and up, a fairly limited group but whose insecurities are beautifully detailed. In Gender Studies, the liberal Nell has been recently abandoned by he husband, and ends up in a one night stand with a Trump-supporting taxi driver. The World has Many Butterflies follows Julie, who convinces herself that her verbal banter — the eponymous game of the book title — with Graham means more than, it turns out, it does to him. Vox Clamantis in Deserto reminded me of Prep, Sittenfeld’s first novel set in an upscale East Coast prep school. Bad Latch and Off the Record are about the travails of new motherhood, and both are charmingly realistic, but perhaps only to mothers.
She had a high brown ponytail and wore a mint-green tank top that stretched over her belly and cost sixty-two dollars, which I knew because I’d seen it at a maternity boutique full of clothes I couldn’t afford. “We’re delivering at home with a midwife,” Gretchen continued. “Drug-free and all that. And then I’ll be a stay-at-home mom because it’s like, if you’re going to outsource your childcare, why even bother to become a parent in the first place?”
[from Bad Latch]
The two stories with a male narrator were rather bland. Plausible Deniability is about a man who has an online relationship with his brother’s wife, but online relationships are hardly new, and the story did not seem to me unusual. Do-Over was my least favourite: the narrator’s evening with an old schoolmate hashing over their differing memories of the past was largely uninteresting.
The Prairie Wife is clever: the narrator has had a long fascination with a lifestyle blogger who is very much like The Pioneer Woman. The two women have a history dating from their teens, and the narrator is considering leaking a shared secret from that period to the press. Both women are sympathetic characters, and there is an interesting revelation near the end.
A Regular Couple has a 30-year-old protagonist who finds herself regressing to her insecure adolescent self when meets her teenage nemesis at a honeymoon resort, but cannot resist some competitive gloating and vengefulness about the changes in their fortunes. Yet she, like many of the other protagonists (I exclude The Nominee), is always uncertain about her motivations and actions.
I felt a sort of hierarchical confusion about how to act towards Ashley, how nice or standoffish to be. If she hadn’t started gushing so quickly, I’m sure I’d have been willing to take the deferential role — old habits die hard — but clearly now I had the opportunity to present an aloof version of myself she’d never met.
[from A Regular Couple]
Although most of the stories are very good, the eye-catching one is The Nominee, and its absence in the U.S edition detracts significantly from the collection. Why was it not included? Sittenfeld is working on a novel about Clinton: perhaps this story would be too much of a peephole into that novel?
And for those who are wondering, Sittenfeld has no plans to write about Melania Trump.
‘You Think It, I’ll Say It’, by Curtis Sittenfeld. Random House, 2018
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