"Rodham," by Curtis Sittenfeld

Curtis Sittenfeld’s new novel, “Rodham” (Random House, 2020), is very timely, as the upcoming U.S. presidential election reminds us of the 2016 election, and of the sad loss of that election by Hillary Rodham Clinton. Some of us older feminists have been waiting for decades for a woman (not just any woman, of course) to win the U.S. presidency for the first time; it is disgraceful that there has never been one. We were crushed when Clinton lost. And we know that she would have done so much better a job than the current incumbent, especially during this deadly pandemic. This novel – and it is fiction -- is an artful and compelling blend of true biographical facts, especially in the first half of the novel, and the author’s imaginary story of what could have happened. I don’t want to give too much away. But the plot of “Rodham” is not the main point; the novel is full of the kinds of details we would all want to know if we could know more about the character. The over 400 pages allow a leisurely (and very engaging) laying out of the different stages of the main character’s life, and of the context of the changing political and social landscape of the U.S. over those years. Sittenfeld, the author of several other novels, has written about politics and the presidency before, in her novel “American Wife,” which is based on the life of First Lady Laura Bush. I read that novel, despite my disinclination to be interested in the Bush family, and found it almost riveting. Actually, Sittenfeld had me at her first novel, “Prep,” about life in an exclusive boarding school. I have read most of her novels since then, and will keep doing so.