Curtis Sittenfeld’s new novel, RODHAM (Random House,
2020) is one of her best. In short, RODHAM is the alternative autobiography of
Hillary Rodham Clinton—part roman à clef, part fantasy novel for progressives
and part lamentation for the Hillary that might have been had she not married
Bill Clinton.
The novel begins with Hillary’s 1969 Wellesley graduation
speech, with its impromptu opening a response to U.S. Senator Edward Brooke’s condescending
remarks on political activism that he gave right before hers. This is a great beginning,
for it illustrates the first public blaze of political acumen for which Hillary
would later become renowned. In the fraught years following 1968, Hillary
emerges as a reflective ally in civil rights issues and a conscientious
workhorse in legal aid cases (and later as a professor and politician whose
drive to help others is a major motivation for her decisions).
The first third of the novel covers her meeting Bill
Clinton at Yale, law school, and eventually accompanying Clinton to Arkansas to
teach at the Law School at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville. Some
reviewers have cringed at the few somewhat explicit sex scenes between Bill and
Hillary, but they comprise just one piece of the larger portrait Sittenfeld creates
to illustrate the alluring “aura of Bill Clinton.” At the end of the day, her
verdict appears to be that he is a brilliant, charming philanderer—and possibly
predator—who churns out Arkansas folksiness to disarm others, and whose soft
skills and ability to work a room are otherworldly.
The novel breaks from reality as Hillary drives out of
Arkansas leaving Bill in the rearview mirror. From there, she pursues a
successful career as a law professor at Northwestern, enjoys solid relationships
with her best friend and her family in the suburbs (save her father, Hugh, who
is mean and cruel to the women in his life), runs for the U.S. Senate against
Carol Moseley Braun, and ultimately runs for president.
This novel is so enjoyable not because it excavates any
new territory about the Hillary Clinton we currently know, but because it brilliantly
imagines the Hillary that we wanted her to be. That’s a heavy burden for a
living person to carry, of course, but for a novel, it is deliciously
entertaining. Sittenfeld does give Hillary some foibles, but not many. Hillary
admits few missteps in this novel and offers no regrets.
Sittenfeld made the bold choice to write in the
first-person, and the voice she gives Hillary is relatable, crisp, sympathetic,
and keen. This choice affords us a vantage point into Hillary’s imagined interior
life that often makes us feel like we are reading a truly honest memoir.
RODHAM is captivating from beginning to end. It is a work
of great imagination that is heartbreaking, compelling, and funny in equal
turns. The subject of this book is obviously not for everyone. But Sittenfeld’s
dynamic prose and gifted storytelling is engaging for every reader.