Many historians, opinion writers and regular people have speculated whether being married to Bill has helped or hurt Hillary Clinton. The opinions are mixed: some think that her years as First Lady brought her public prominence and jumpstarted her senatorial run, others feel that his infidelities left her in a lose-lose situation with a largely negative public perception.
Curtis Sittenfeld has gone one step further: suppose Hillary had never married Bill?
Sittenfeld is perhaps one of the few authors who could tackle such a subject, loaded as it is with questions of feminism, sexism, infidelity, marriage, political relationships, ambition, and historical accuracy. Her American Wife was a wonderful novel about a librarian called Laura …. an intimate portrait of Laura Bush, in real life a quiet, apparently introverted person who always seemed to keep some distance between her public persona and herself. For a (very good) novelist, her imagined interior monologue was fertile ground.
But Hillary? It feels like we know so much about her already. All of America got to know her (positively or negatively, depending on your political stance and your views on smart, intellectual women) during the Clinton presidency (1992 – 2000). Her casually-uttered sentences have solidified into political lore (“I could have stayed at home and baked cookies”). Her every move as First Lady was dissected, and her foray into public policy with the health care task force was analyzed to death. And this was all before she ran for Senator (2001), ran for President in 2008, served as Secretary of State (2009 – 2013), and ran again for the Presidency in 2016. Can there be much more to imagine about her? Anything that can be more complicated and interesting than her real-life history?
Well, Sittenfeld has taken a pretty good stab at it, and as with all of Sittenfeld’s writing, the outcome is very readable indeed.
Written throughout in Hillary’s voice, the novel starts with Hillary’s graduation from Wellesley in 1969, where she made history, as she would many times in the future. It was the first time a Wellesley graduation had a student speaker, and she challenged the status-quo speech of the Senator who spoke before her. Soon she was at Yale Law School, where she met You Know Who, a charismatic and ambitious fellow student, cheerfully unapologetic about his Arkansas roots. As per the book, Hillary had dated, had boyfriends, but they were typically looking for docile, pretty women, and put off by her intellect. Bill, however, seemed to love that she was articulate, passionate, determined, hardworking and intellectually curious (point in Bill’s favour). They dated, then spent a summer together in San Francisco where Hillary interned at a law firm and Bill slept around.
Sigh. At this point, a quarter way through the book, I was wondering if I could stand a fictional reiteration of Bill’s multitude of infidelities. Hadn’t we all heard more then enough already over the years?
And then, the novel has Hillary driving away from Arkansas, and you realize that she has made a different choice than in real life.
The margin between staying and leaving was so thin; really, it could have gone either way.
She becomes a professor at Northwestern, then runs for the US Senate in 1991. Meanwhile, fictional Bill marries (Sarah Grace,”light-red hair, attractive, petite”), has children, becomes governor of Arkansas, and then runs for the presidency in 1991. Suddenly, after 20 years, he is back in Hillary’s ambit.
Surely, if he was elected, some form of exposure therapy would occur in which I began to perceive him as the national leader rather than my ex-boyfriend. But I no longer felt what I had at Yale or in Arkansas, which had been not just a belief in his talents but an investment in that belief. It was far from clear to me that I hoped he’d succeed. […] Was he wonderful and brilliant? Was he now, had he ever been? Had he changed in the last decade and a half, and if so, how? I was confident, based on our conversation, that he’d still be good company to sit next to at a dinner party. [..] But as president, would he be ethically casual, irresponsibly magnanimous, vulnerable to his enemies due to weaknesses that he erroneously believed he could conceal or at least be forgiven for?
p164
It is already obvious that the novel is going to diverge further from reality. Indeed, the novel’s presidents from 1992 onwards are not all the ones enshrined on the walls of the White House.
Part II (‘The Women’) of the book jumps back and forth over several decades, and this, I thought, was the weakest section. It became confusing to keep track of the real-life past and present, the fictional past and present, and how far the novel had strayed from reality. I found myself flicking back and forth to remind myself who, in the novel, had been elected in 1996.
Luckily, Part III (‘The Front-Runner’) is more linear, with a driving tension. Set in 2015, it follows Hillary’s run for the presidency. I’m not going to provide spoilers, but here’s a hint: Trump appears in the novel and plays a part in the election, but not as her opponent.
Sittenfeld touches on most of the real-life complexities of Hillary’s political career. Her somewhat fraught relationship with the black community starts when she runs against Carol Mosely Braun (in real life, the first black US senator), against the advice of her black friends and supporters. The implication is that she feels her own breaking of barriers should take precedence — a criticism that has been levelled against the women’s movement in America as well.
The Vince Foster conspiracy theories are paralleled in the novel by the suicide of her friend and colleague James: years later, reporters still imply that there was something suspicious, and that it somehow involved Hillary.
The incredible sexism of the media coverage :
Critiques of my voice, clothes, and demeanor were daily occurrences. Newpaper editors often chose photos where my mouth was open, as if I were yelling. I was asked about the brand of the pantsuits that had become my uniform, about whether never having married or having had children made me unable to understand the concerns of the average American.
Another rumour was that I was a lesbian […]
and the relentless focus on her appearance:
The extra time female politicans were expected to spend on our appearance, known as the pink tax, amounted to an hour a day for me, but I’d learned the hard way that it was necessary. In the past, whenever I didn’t have my hair and makeup professionally done, the media would speculate about whether I was ill or exhausted.
p262
At one point, Hillary summarizes the negative reactions, and some of these statements are bound to sound wincingly familiar to the reader from their own reactions, from media coverage or from friends:
She’s so ambitious and power-hungry. What kind of woman would rather have a career in politics than a family? Couldn’t she find a husband? And the vibe she gives off — she’s cold and not funny at all. She’s uptight, like my high school principal. […] I don’t trust Hillary. How did she really make that money she claims was from futures trading in the eighties? […] I respect it when men are rich, but when a woman has money, it just feels wrong.
p387
Sittenfeld’s Hillary is a warm, personable, thoughtful person, but not in a touchy-feely, stereotypically feminine way. She has male and female friends, but few romantic interests, spending most of her time buried in political and social issues. But she is, mostly happy.
I loved learning about topics that were less familiar, about foreign relations and energy and appropriations. […] I loved analyzing policy, talking to my staff and colleagues and experts in the field — it turned out experts were not only willing but in most cases seemed pleased to be sought out by a senator — and I loved reading briefing books in preparation for committee meetings and hearings.
p237
In the Me Too era, the author could hardly avoid the parallels between Trump and Bill Clinton, and she tackles them head-on.
Because, really, weren’t they two sides of the same coin, wasn’t Donald simply a far less palatable version of Bill? Rich and narcisstic and verbose, charismatic and transfixing? Bill was far smarter, but was he really less sleazy?
p322
And Bill? Sittenfeld makes her views on that question — did he, all things considered, help or hurt Hillary’s own career? — quite clear. You’ll have to read the book to find out.
Top row, L to R: George HW Bush, Dan Quayle, Barack Obama, Jerry Brown
Bottom row, L to R: Bob Kerrey, Joe Biden, John McCain, Sam Brownback
lovely review, thank you so much, Susan!
Finally read this book, and enjoyed it hugely. Agree with you the media take of Hillary was so gender-coloured it was sickening. I actually found the first part’s explanation of the fictitious Bill Clinton’s extreme promiscuity very interesting because it attempted to explain that this was something there from the very start, and something Hillary had to make a decision to live with, or refuse to live with, but he would not change. Or could not. I thought Sittenfeld did a great job as usual, but this is not her most tightly written novel, some editing would take this from good to very good.
The persona of Hillary in this novel came across as rather dull actually, as a person! Much as she knew she appeared to the public! Yes, undeniably capable, experienced, dedicated to service, excellent at her job, A-star student all the way. But not original, not charismatic, not an endearing personality. I didn’t find her warm. She was not cold either. But not particularly warm. She had good friends, but struggled with some of those friendships. She was just pragmatic. Did what needed to be done, minus fuss. She doesn’t seem to have realised that allowing herself some petulance and fuss, would make her more human, and easier to relate to. Instead, she presents herself as robotic, almost unfeeling, in the way she puts aside her own preferences and finer feelings, to always do the necessary. Not that she is ruthless. But she is so driven and so ambitious, that she does compromise the development/expression of other aspects of her self, which she feels she cannot indulge in, because of the bigger picture. It is an admirable woman that emerges from this portrait, but not a likeable one, and not a particularly lovable one either. One to respect though. She doesn’t apparently bother with appearing feminine – pantsuits, etc – which is great, but I don’t think it is actually because she is squashing her feminine side, I think this genuinely her, on the spectrum of masculine to feminine, she probably is right in the middle.
The important issue of course is not really how masculine or feminine Hillary is, but can she lead? I do not know the answer, because I am still uncertain of what qualities are actually the most necessary for a great leader. That Hillary would do well in the pragmatic aspects of the role, fulfil duties well, she understands the politics and system, she would do her best to set up good policies, is not in doubt. But I suppose it depends on the times. Does the US need a visionary leader? One with great courage? One whose creativity and originality is critical? If yes, then Hillary would not be the president it needs. But if the US needed a period of building, careful deliberation, shoring up and improving and so on, then Hillary might well be the best candidate.
Anyway, I really liked this read and will be looking for other Sittenfelds I have not read – I think there’s just the short stories left – till she writes her next novel of course, will be awaiting it eagerly!