This was one of my most anticipated reads of 2020, Curtis is one of my favourite writers and Hillary Rodham Clinton one of the most fierce yet enigmatic feminists of our time. My limited knowledge of her public persona is principally based around her and her husband, Bill's, tenure in the Oval Office which, as I was a teenager at the time, seemed immensely exotic. Her equality of purpose with her husband made them such a formidable couple, and this resurfaced as he supported her in her presidential candidacy race in 2016.

Beyond that, I knew next to nothing and do not claim any political expertise, however, the thought experiment of Curtis Sittenfeld re-imagining the life of such a powerhouse public figure if her road had turned left, instead of right had this reader completey intrigued.

By titling it 'Rodham', not only does Curtis in a sense, give Hillary's agency back to her, she makes her the heart, the spine, the nervous system of this entire book. She is her own person rather than a conduit of Bill's, and so even the title had me excited.

Rather than asking , 'Where would Hillary be without Bill?' this posits the question of how successful he would have been without her.

From the very start, Hillary's voice is firm, straight and decisive. She knows who she is, she knows her limitations and she recognises and pushes agianst systems set in place to denegrate and keep women where they belong. She states unemotionally and unequivocably the fact that women are not allowed through many , many doors in 70's American Academic circles. She makes no bones about it, instead she makes waves , slams those doors open and brings other women along with her.

This is illustrated in her refusing to accomodate her Corporation Tax tutor, who used Valentine's Day to ask all the virgins in class to come to the front of the room (his way of getting back at the one day a year women were allowed to speak up, Ladies Day. Can you ever imagine that this was acceptable?)

Hillary was one of only 3 women in the class and as such they refused to engage, and she became, to misquote Tolkien, known as a 'disturber of the peace'.

This is an unromantic romance story, in that whilst their early courtship is beautifully rendered, it is undermined with Hillary's strength of character and lack of expectation when it comes to men. She finds it hard to believe that Bill is interested in her, in fact, it comes as something of a shock that he has been watching her for over a year and knows her reputation on campus . Whether he had her marked out as a perfect political partner, whether he strategically picked her is something which can only be guessed at, but I found it incredibly tender, and so easy to believe.

This is probably one of my favourite quotes from a book littered with moments that make you want to sing for joy at the quality of writing-

''You will encounter boys and men with whom you think you enjoy chemistry. A boy or a man will find you funny and interesting and smart,just as you find him funny and interesting and smart. The pleasure you take in each other's company will be obvious, but, crucially,while this pleasure will make you feel as if you are in love with him,it will not make him feel as if he is in love with you.He might remark on how much he likes talking to you, but there will be girls he wants to kiss and you will not be one of them.''

The book leaps straight into Hillary's time at Yale, she dips in and out of her childhood reminiscences, but she is absolutely there as a young woman poised and determined, on the edge of world domination. Her forward thinking and focus is supported but an unquenchable work ethic and drive.

The rest of the story is split in to two-the relationship she has with Bill and the fallout out of her refusal to marry him.

Cleverly intertwining events, and with research coming from Hillary and Bill's own memoirs, Curtis manages to create something remarkable, timely and deeply moving. All the things for which Hillary should have been celebrated for were used as weapons against her. As a friend's father commented when she ventured forth an opinion on baseball , 'you're awfully opiniated for a girl'.

Yes she was,she knew it and never wavered.

She still is, and for everything that some sectors of society feel that she did wrong, I still feel that she is someone to look up to, for her firm political and social stances, her sheer humanity and strength of character.

As a fictionalised biography of one of history's most formidable women, I finished this novel with a tinge of regret for the first female president that we should have had. And it has made me want to read 'What Happened?' by Hillary Rodham-Clinton. To see how close her written voice is to this account. And to forever wonder if Hillary herself has read 'Rodham' and what she thinks about it.

Imagine if Hilary Clinton didn’t marry Bill Clinton. What would the world look like? Would Hilary have won the 2016 election? Would she have become America’s first female President? It’s questions like these that this book proposes and fictionalises. Sittenfeld does this so well that whilst reading ‘Rodham’ you might start to accept this alternate world.

I wasn’t quite sure what to expect with this book as I don’t think I have ever read something quite like it before. To write a book about people who most of the world at least know about, if not judge or have well defined feelings for, must be strange. I know more about Hilary Clinton from the Obama years where she formed part of his administration and then from when she was campaigning to be President. I knew nothing about her early years or her relationship with Bill Clinton during college. Due to this I found it was quite difficult to be able to determine what was indeed fact or what was fiction? But this is what made the book captivating, if a bit disorientating.

The book was split into three sections for me. College, the joy of meeting Bill Clinton and moving to Arkansas, and the coming realisations that Bill was not the upstanding character she thought he was. The middle section covered Hilary’s middle years - her career, her lack of love life and being surrounded by peers who had married and had children. The final section covers her move into the public sphere. Toward the end there are some WTF moments.

What I think did come through in this book was the authors attempt to show that people are a combination of so many things and people never get a true representation of others. Bill Clinton has that Southern charm, he had that electability in real life. But in private in this book there is a vulnerability which is shown by always needing that reassurance of having Hilary there. Certainly, there is adultery both in real life and in ‘Rodham’ and he is a prick to so many people because of this. It shows a lack of will, a hunger to make everyone like him. Maybe because he didn’t like himself.

For Hilary I’m guessing the first section is very autobiographical since this is the one which sticks to the truth the most. I think I learnt a lot about her but I won’t know until a read either an autobiography or a biography of her. Something which I really do want to do now. I think the author shows in this novel an appreciation of the real Hilary Clinton. You couldn’t write or maybe even read this book if you didn’t like her. I think ‘Rodham’ attempts to humanise the character, show real behind the facade feelings and events. The one bit I love was when describing her ‘nest’ in the evenings and the Wordsworth quote;

emotion recollected in tranquility

I believe that this shows something about this Hilary. She gives so much to people during the day that she needs that space to redefine her and redraw her lines. Everyone has that need to escape and just be themselves. I’m currently doing it now!

I loved this book. It has made me want to learn more and for me that’s the sign of a a great story! It’s realistic, full of raw emotion, speculation and alternative worlds. I enjoyed every minute of this book.

It’s hard to believe this is a work of fiction as it reads like a highly believable biography. Broken down into three parts the first part 1970-74 gives an insight into a young Hillary from her graduation speech at Wellesley to attending Yale Law where she meets fellow law student Bill Clinton. The second part is 1991 and the sliding door moment of Hillary turning down Bill’s third proposal. What follows next in part three is the alternate reality.

The author really shows how Bill’s charisma and Hillary’s intellect make exceedingly good bedfellows and the chemistry between the two is palpable. Beware, the sex scenes are something else and not something I personally wanted to picture. As they are two very real people that are well known it’s a bit like thinking of your parents having sex eurgh. Putting that aside though you can see how their attraction is very much a meeting of minds and ambition.

For me though it was part three that really hit home how dirty politics is and the lengths people go to for power. Razorgate throwing in sexual harassment and sexual orientation claims leading to a fake set up date tipped off to the media to gain popularity. It gave an insight into how much goes on behind the scenes to handle situations like these but that honesty and an apology is always the best course of action.

Trump comes across, well as Trump really, still tweeting and still not knowing when to keep his mouth shut but it’s Bill who comes across as worse. Politics in America is shown as being very much a man’s world and the fact that they have never had a female president is testament to that. For women it’s a lose lose battle, have children you aren’t up for the job, don’t have children what is wrong with you? What type of woman would rather have a career in politics than a family? Couldn’t she find a husband? The internal feminist in me seethed at those lines.

I like formidable, driven ambitious women but like a lot of women I never understood why she stuck with Bill especially after the intern scandal. She has brains and could have gone far on her own. This book shows just how far….

I read this for a blog tour.

I was really intrigued by the premise of this book - what if Hillary didn't marry Bill, didn't become First Lady and instead did her own thing?

Having read American Wife, a more straightforward fictionalised life of Laura Bush, I wasn't quite sure what to expect from Sittenfeld, whose first book was the criminally underrated Prep (which I really like).

Having said that, I really struggled with the narrative voice of Hillary. I don't know if it's based on her own written voice (I haven't read any of her own books) but I found it oddly detached and emotionless while relaying her life's events.

It made it extremely hard to relate to or connect with the character, she was so dry and distant. Maybe that's how the author felt she was as a politician and speaker. Who knows?

Hillary herself has said it took 3 proposals before she said yes to being Mrs Clinton and moving to Arkansas.

Is their marriage the American love story? I don't have a clue. She stood by him when he cheated and publically humiliated her. She seems like a very strong person. The fictionalised version certainly has that steel in her core, but it puts her at a distance to the reader and I don't think it ever shortens.

As a thought experiment it's a clever and interesting idea, as a novel it struggles with the fact that Hillary Rodham is as closed a book as the real Hillary Clinton. That's not to say it's badly written, it isn't, Sittenfeld is a great writer, but I think the subject matter is just so big and it just struggles with the what ifs of a real life.

I enjoyed aspects of it more than others and I really want to know if Hillary C reads it and what she thinks.

It’s been a while since a novel has incited such a rollercoaster of emotions in me. I mean this as a good thing! Rodham by Curtis Sittenfeld is a fictional account – although it heavily references real events – of the life of Hillary Clinton. The Hillary Clinton in this book though, never marries Bill to become Clinton, she remains Hillary Rodham.

I can’t say I know a huge amount about Hillary Clinton, apart from the same few – mainly negative – headlines that were pumped out when she ran for president in 2016. I did always wonder why she was ripped apart for things that didn’t even compare to the deeds of Trump. An issue addressed in this book.

Rodham brilliantly tackles the bias and negativity Hillary (the real one) faced for simply having the audacity to be a woman. It explores how women are still held to account for things that men just get away with and how a strong woman in a male-dominated area such as politics has to deal with so much shit that her male counterparts don’t.

As the first woman to be a presidential candidate, Hillary will always have her place in history. She is also a divisive public figure – so much has been written about her and yet, what do we really know about her? This is why I like the idea of this novel. Yes, it’s fiction, but it is rooted in reality and gives us a version of insight into a unique woman and her political career.

In Rodham, the story of Hillary’s life moves into fictional territory when she calls out Bill Clinton for his womanising ways and decides not to marry him, but is – and remains – deeply attracted to him. The novel is quite unexpectedly sexual, it delves deep into what makes Hillary tick and her character was so detailed and engaging that I had to remind myself I wasn’t actually reading a biography. (If only I was…) At its heart, the book looks at how much lives can change if just one decision is made differently.

My knowledge of US politics is basic. Before Obama, I had no interest at all in the presidency race, but given the current (terrible) circumstances, we all have to have a vested interest. So, there was a lot of political chat in the book that went over my head a bit, but the storyline kept me hooked.

As this is a US election year, it automatically draws your mind to real political events and when the orange cretin Donny Trump pops up in the narrative, I actually had to fight waves of pure anger. Curtis Sittenfeld brilliantly uses Trump’s real batshit phrases and opinions here and cleverly gives us a version of events that showcases Hillary’s political prowess.

I was not expecting to find this read so powerful. More than any novel I’ve read, Rodham has such a cross-over into real – totally topical – events that it is instantly fascinating. It’s packed full of ‘what ifs’ that evoked such strong feelings for me; such a clever and lyrically written imagining of a very different political landscape.

And the ending, oh the ending. It gave me goosebumps and made me feel so achingly sad at the same time. Has the real Hillary Clinton read Rodham? I really need to know!

I have to admit to having a fascination for Hillary Clinton as I’ve never been able to work out if I admire her or pity her! They say that those who make their own beds have to lie in them and I’ve never understood why a woman as intelligent as Hillary stayed with a man who was, allegedly, persistently unfaithful to her. Was it because she loved him beyond my comprehension or had she made her choices to stay with him for other reasons? Was I being unfair in thinking that she was riding on his coattails for the long run and had her own agenda because surely she had more self respect than that? A recent rewatching of the 60 minutes interview where she “stands by her man” confirmed my opinion that the interview saved Bill Clinton’s political career but that by revealing a different side to the strong minded and opinionated woman we believed her to be, she put him above her own popularity with the American public. Unfortunately it has taken a very long time for them to forget that period of political history and the part she played in it. So how would life have been different for Hillary Rodham if she hadn’t married Bill Clinton? It’s well documented that she refused his first two proposals so what would have happened if she realised that he was never going to change and continued to say no to him. Well, Curtis Sittenfeld has cleverly crafted a “sliding doors” style scenario where that happens and it’s a completely unexpected but fascinating storyline.

Told in three parts, Rodham takes Hillary Rodham from childhood to…well you will just have to wait and see! I’m a big believer in our destination in life being the same but just taking a different path every time we made a decision that could have an alternate reality and so the ending here pretty much confirmed that in some way. The first part retains and retells the information we know about Hillary and how she meets Bill Clinton while both studying Law at Yale University. Obviously there is some poetic license as nobody ever knows what goes on behind closed doors but their relationship details felt biographical, told with lots of heart and understanding. Part two was where we see the parting of ways of this golden couple and watch them both form new relationships and lives but always remaining visible to each other due to their careers. For me this was the least interesting part of the book but I think that’s because I didn’t think the alternative for Hillary was anywhere near as dramatic and engrossing as what actually took place during those years. I did feel a bit mean but I then realised that Hillary and Bill were probably much more of a good match than expected even with the dramatic events they lived through! The last third brought the reader into the updated fictional version of Hillary and the storyline became an intriguing study of this woman entering the world where she was always destined to be. It was an entertaining reimagined political landscape with a Bill Clinton I could easily imagine existing today and a certain current president of the United States of America appearing alongside his ever embarrassing Twitter feed-some things were always going to stay the same even in a parallel universe!!

I’ve been a fan of Curtis Sittenfeld and her writing since American Wife and had Rodham on preorder. Whilst Rodham has a more politically activated storyline than the character based American Wife, I still became completely engrossed by the life of this complicated woman who came across as quite unlikable during most of her encounters with others in the book. I felt her intelligence radiating off the page but at what cost to her empathy? Even a meeting with a cancer struck mum of teenage girls is channeled into a propaganda exercise to advance her own political career! Usually I would say that she was a “mans woman” but that isn’t only politically incorrect but gives the impression she is liked more than men than women and this isn’t the case-she doesn’t seem to befriend either sex successfully and I’m convinced there are attachment issues founded early on in her childhood that impact on the fictional Hillary here.

I don’t feel I understand the real Hillary Clinton any more after reading Rodham but I probably have a better idea of what life could have been like for the former First Lady and think she made the right decision even if it wasn’t all roses in the White House garden. This is a unique and intrinsically imagined piece of literature that was a joy to immerse myself in! I can highly recommend it for a thought provoking read.

Rodham is Curtis Sittenfeld’s latest attempt to reimagine the life of a First Lady, following the success of her 2008 bestseller American Wife, which was based on Laura Bush, wife of George Bush Sr. This time, Sittenfeld turns her attention to Hillary Clinton – or rather, Hillary Rodham, for in this version, she never marries Bill.

Sittenfeld uses real names for many of the main players, from Bill to Donald Trump. The effect can be unsettling. I scurried off to fact-check everything from the duo’s first date (partly true) to whether Carol Moseley Braun really did run for the Senate in 1992 (she did, becoming the first female African American senator).

The action mirrors real life for the first chunk of the book. Sittenfeld opens with Hillary’s 1969 commencement speech at Wellesley, which was written up in Life magazine, before moving swiftly to Yale, where Hillary falls for Bill, who she thinks resembles a lion, albeit an attention-hogging lion: “He seemed like a person who took up more than his share of oxygen.”
Their first date, in a closed art gallery – to which Bill gained access by charming a security guard with a promise to clean up the yard – really happened, although the ensuing erotica is all Sittenfeld, who has something of a passion for imagining the sex life of future presidents.


What follows has the slightly unfortunate air of a box-ticking exercise, as Sittenfeld endeavours to nail those Hillary/Bill characteristics we know so well. “I always hoped a man would fall in love with me for my brain,” she says to her college friends. In bed, Bill confesses his “weakness for a nice figure… like a dog drooling over a bone” in case we had any doubts where this story was headed.


Read More:

Curtis Sittenfeld on her novel Rodham: ‘I know that not everybody will approve’

Things really get going when Hillary ditches Bill, after much anguish. “You’re the best thing that ever happened to me,” she says, before getting in the car to leave Fayetteville, Arkansas, for good. Sixteen years later, in 1991, we meet Hillary again. She is a tenured law professor at Northwestern, in Illinois. She is 43, driven and single, making her an ideal candidate for the Senate in 1992, beating Moseley Braun at the cost of losing a close African American friend. Ruthless Rodham.

Sittenfeld is in her element, rattling through her counterfactual history in what for many will be the ultimate liberal revenge fantasy, as Hillary runs for the 2016 presidency. The clinch is whether all she imagines could really have happened had Hillary carved her own path.

That everything hinges on a Trump-related curveball may stretch plausibility but the thought of a Rodham presidency, especially now, will be too comforting for many to care.

https://inews.co.uk/culture/rodham-curtis-sittenfeld-review-hillary-clinton-us-politics-liberal-revenge-fantasy-433995

For much of the Western world, Hillary Clinton (née Rodham) has always been a figure of fascination: her marriage to Bill, his subsequent affair and her (still utterly confounding) decision to forgive him, has been on the tips of people’s tongues since the early 90s. But, as we all now know, Hillary has always been more than just a jilted woman by a sleazy man’s side.
Curtis Sittenfeld's searing new novel, Rodham, examines the life and character of the former-Presidential Nominee; managing to paint a picture far more vivid than the Democratic campaign was ever able to. In it, Sittenfeld brings to life the intelligence and the passion that long defined Hillary even before her first steps in the spotlight - her conviction in her ideals, her desire to do what is right, her tenacity and her follow-through. But, perhaps more importantly (and the reason behind why this book continues to be the subject of such hype), she asks the question “what would have happened if she had turned down Bill’s third (and successful) marriage proposal?”.
It is a fascinating question; one that shapes the Democratic party, and thus the fabric of American life and politics, for the decades that have followed it. It is interesting to consider how one decision made by one person can have such a difference. But of course, this is Hillary Clinton we are talking about here.
And, as the book and the readers come to realise, though behind every successful man is a woman who has sacrificed every thing, behind every successful woman is simply herself.

Early on in Sittenfeld’s sixth novel, a work of alternative history narrated entirely by Hillary Rodham and covering the years between 1970 and the recent past, the character describes the method of decision-making she’s used since the third grade: “I thought of it as the Rule of Two: If I was unsure of a course of action but could think of two reasons for it, I’d do it. If I could think of two reasons against it, I wouldn’t.”

Here’s the Rule of Two as applied to Rodham:

You are likely to enjoy this novel if:
1) You (if American) voted for Hillary Clinton or (if not) admire her and think she should have won the 2016 presidential race.
2) You are a devoted fan of Curtis Sittenfeld’s writing and, in particular, loved American Wife (her 2008 masterpiece from the perspective of a fictionalized Laura Bush) and/or “The Nominee,” a short story voiced by HRC that appeared in the UK edition of You Think It, I’ll Say It.

You will probably want to avoid this novel if:
1) The idea of spending hours in Hillary’s head – hearing about everything from how Bill Clinton makes her feel in bed to her pre-debate nervous diarrhea – causes you to recoil.
2) You’re not particularly interested in “What if?” questions, or would prefer that they were answered in one sentence rather than 400+ pages.

Sittenfeld is one of my favorite authors and I’ve read everything she’s published, so I was predisposed to like Rodham and jumped at the chance to read it early. She has a preternatural ability to get inside other minds and experiences, channeling a first-person voice with intense detail and intimacy. It’s almost like she’s a medium instead of a novelist. As in “The Nominee,” the narration here is perfectly authentic based on what I’d read from HRC’s memoirs. However, a problem I had was that the first third of the novel sticks very closely to the plodding account of her early years in Living History, which I’d read in 2018. I liked coming across instances when she was told she was too strong-willed and outspoken for a girl, but felt the need for a layer of fiction as in American Wife.

So I was looking forward to the speculative material, which begins in 1974 when evidence of Bill Clinton’s chronic infidelity and sex addiction comes to light. He warns Hillary that he’ll never get over his issues and will only hold her back in the future, so she’s better off without him. She takes him at his word and leaves Arkansas a single woman.

I was fully engaged in the blend of historical and fictional material and read the novel in big chunks of 50+ pages at a time. The made-up characters are as convincing as the real-life ones, and there are a few relationships I found particularly touching. To my relief, there’s a satisfying ending and a couple of central figures get a pleasing comeuppance. But the chronology has an abrupt start and stop pattern, going deep into one time period or scene and then rushing forward, and I was left wondering what happened next, even if it would require another 400 pages. This would almost be better suited to some kind of serial format – it’s like the best kind of summer binge reading/watching.

Ultimately, I think Rodham doesn’t work as well as American Wife because we already know too much about Hillary, from her three published (ghostwritten) memoirs and from her being so much in the public eye since 1992. Whereas Laura Bush was something of a mystery, and American Wife introduced a comfortable cushion of fiction, Rodham is a little too in-your-face with its contemporary history and its message. But it’s a lot of fun nonetheless.

Hillary Rodham was plain, studious and determined at college and, when she also displayed leadership qualities, she drew the attention of the dashing, charismatic, high-achieving Bill Clinton. She enjoyed their ensuing romance, but when he asked her to marry him, she said no.

Instead of making a formidable political partnership, then, Hillary goes it alone.

And the author speculates on what that life and career might have looked like.

In doing so, we are treated to a novel centred around an intelligent, single-minded, ambitious woman, without the usual preoccupation with love and relationships. There are liaisons, of course, and the shadow of Bill is ever present, but I thought this an empowering read.

My political knowledge isn't great, so I wasn't aware of the significance of some of the other players in the story, and I did feel rather uncomfortable about reading a fictionalised life of a living person. But overall, I found this an energising, thought-provoking and stimulating read. I very much enjoyed it.

This is a brilliant but gently flawed novel, which I found compulsively readable. The book tells the life of a fictionalised Hillary Rodham, and looks at her upbringing, until one event DOESN’T happen, her marriage to Bill Clinton. We then follow her life as it might have been - for better or worse as it were.

Both sections are fascinating, but constrain the book slightly in their own way. In the first half there are parts you think could be made more interesting but the author had to stick broadly to true events. Because this is about a real person, it’s always in the back of your mind that this person is alive and might be reading this and you are subconsciously also wondering which bits were accurate.

When the narrative shifts to a speculative bent, you are taken out of the moment in a different way, as you subconsciously try to decide and remember what happened in our ‘timeline’ . Couple this with the all too tantalising cameos and ironic developments which you chuckle at because they did happen in reality, and you have a book that is really good, but also, a bit distant.

Some of the sex scenes were uncomfortable, partly because they were slightly odd in tone and a smidge repetitive- but also because you can realllly picture the participants and you don’t necessarily want to.
It’s readable, page turning and interesting, especially the second half. Hillary is a well drawn character here, if a little too prefect, (always making a wise decision etc.) to read about. I almost feel a rework to not be directly Hillary with the same time spanning scope might have given the author more leeway to craft a little more drama into the proceedings - and a riskiness to the lead character.

My review sounds negative, but it’s not honestly! It’s Well worth a read!