Rodham

Curtis Sittenfeld is the author of the Sunday Times and New York Times bestselling Rodham. Other novels include American Wife and Prep, both bestsellers and longlisted for the Orange Prize, The Man of My Dreams, Sisterland, Eligible, and the acclaimed short story collections You Think It, I'll Say It and Help Yourself. Her stories have appeared in the New Yorker, Esquire, Oprah Magazine and the New York Times magazine. Sittenfeld was also the guest editor for the 2020 Best American Short Stories anthology. She lives with her family in the American Midwest. Follow her on Twitter @CSittenfeld

This addictive novel is the SLIDING DOORS of American politics. GrippingA lot of fun. A wonderful, sad dream of what might have happenedAn explosive new bookSittenfeld's RODHAM offers the catharsis of uncomplicated regretWhile telling a compelling story, RODHAM provides an insightful analysis of the function of sexim in our political discourse. Sittenfeld is at her wittiest when recreating the men who dominate American politicsA nauseating, moving, morally suggestive, technically brilliant book that made me think more than any in recent memory about the aims and limits of fictionHugely enjoyableThis isn't just fiction as fantasy, this is fiction as therapy. A serious work of literary fiction designed to rally the spirits of liberal readers

‘An ingenious yet plausible glimpse of an alternative reality, and so involving that it occasionally comes as a shock to realise that there is a different reality, and we are living in it’

‘By tilting history on its side, Sittenfeld makes Hillary seem a fresh character and remarkably sympathetic’‘RODHAM explores the mysterious territory between the inner and outer lives of a person who has long been a source of fascination, adulation and loathing’‘Getting inside a living person’s head sounds like a colossally bad idea, but Sittenfeld makes it convincing here, just as she did with a character based on First Lady Laura Bush in her 2008 novel, AMERICAN WIFE’Deviously clever . . . Sittenfeld’s Hillary is both a player in the Game of Thrones and a romance novel heroine. She’s a brilliant badass who has found her voice and knows how to use it. She’s whoever she wants to beAs Hillary finds her groove, so the momentum and entertainment builds, as does your admiration for how ingeniously and plausibly Sittenfeld has re-written the scriptA counterfactual novel ... throbs with energyA fascinating glimpse into an alternative futurePacy... plenty of sex and gossip - and a cameo from a certain yellow-haired, orange-faced president-to-be... ripe for TV adaptationA brilliantly smart re-imaginingSittenfeld's writing is so fine, her characters so vivid, her empathy so profound that she manages to absorb the reader on a level that transcends partisanship. In 2020, that was a remarkable achievement and an enormous gift to her readersIt ends up being a love letter to a type: the female intellectual, who is given none of the licence of her less talented male peers. At the end, i found myself saying Oh My GodA triumphant feminist reinvention. Sittenfeld is the bard of presidential female adjacentsRODHAM is wide- ranging political anthropology, concerned not so much with what makes Hillary tick as it is with the culture around her and how she might have shaped events, and been shaped by them, if the pieces of reality's jigsaw were rearranged just so. It's stippled with clever mischiefA smartly structured character study and a stay- up- all- night plot . . . A captivating and durable story containing rooms within rooms. RODHAM turns into a high- speed bildungsroman about a woman of formidable intellect and self- insight.It's the genius of Sittenfeld's prose that we come to understand this ambivalence,as well as the deep conflicts in this complicated character. In the longing and loneliness, the anger as well as ambition, this Hillary makes RODHAM a compelling portrait of a future that might have been.Tantalizing . . . part thought experiment, part wish- fulfillment fantasy . . . delectably discussable, a book tailor- made for book clubs.Wildly compelling . . . What RODHAM is interested in is examining what feminine ambition looks like when it is untethered from a man. . . . Sittenfeld is free to invent, and the reality she builds is deliciously dishy.Thought-provoking and compellingA moving feat of feminist and novelistic imagination

'This addictive novel is the SLIDING DOORS of American politics. Gripping' STYLIST

'Startlingly good. One of my favourite writers.' KATE ATKINSON
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'Awfully opinionated for a girl' is what they call Hillary as she grows up in her Chicago suburb.

Smart, diligent, and a bit plain, that's the general consensus. Then Hillary goes to college, and her star rises. At Yale Law School, she continues to be a leader- and catches the eye of driven, handsome and charismatic Bill. But when he asks her to marry him, Hillary gives him a firm No.

How might things have turned out for them, for America, for the world itself, if Hillary Rodham had really turned down Bill Clinton?

With her sharp but always compassionate eye, Sittenfeld explores the loneliness, moral ambivalence and iron determination that characterise the quest for high office, as well as the painful compromises demanded of female ambition in a world ruled by men.
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'A lot of fun. A wonderful sad dream of what might have happened' GUARDIAN

'It ends up being a love letter to a type: the female intellectual, who is given none of the licence of her less talented male peers. At the end, i found myself saying Oh My God' OBSERVER

'An explosive new book' GRAZIA

'Getting inside a living person's head sounds like a colossally bad idea, but Sittenfeld makes it convincing here, just as she did with a character based on First Lady Laura Bush in her 2008 novel, AMERICAN WIFE' BBC CULTURE

'An ingenious yet plausible glimpse of an alternative reality' THE SPECTATOR

'Sittenfeld's RODHAM offers the cartharsis of uncomplicated regret' NEW YORKER

'A nauseating, moving, morally suggestive, technically brilliant book that made me think more than any in recent memory' NPR

'Deviously clever . . . Sittenfeld's Hillary is both a player in the Game of Thrones and a romance novel heroine. She's a brilliant badass who has found her voice and knows how to use it. She's whoever she wants to be' O: THE OPRAH MAGAZINE

'Of all the SLIDING DOORS fantasies offered by the last 40 years of American office, this may be the most mouth-watering. THE BIG ISSUE

'Fascinating. Rich-with-possibilities concept' SAINSBURY'S MAGAZINE