<p>According to my Kindle, I’m about 60% finished w/ American Wife. Will check back around the middle of October.</p>
<p>I didn’t know about the accident in Laura’s teen years. That must have been a horrible. </p>
<p>I heard that Laura Bush is a smoker. I was really surprised to learn this but then I watched the movie “W” and Laura was smoking. In the book, Alice isn’t a smoker.</p>
<p>Countdown until discussion …wonder if future discussions should start on weekends, instead of midweek?</p>
<p>It’s October 15th already! I liked being able to read at a more leisurely pace. As it happened, I needed the extra time…We went through flu, strep throat, and colds at my house in the last month, and it was all I could do to manage a few pages before collapsing into bed at night. </p>
<p>I enjoyed American Wife very much. I went back and forth on how I felt about Alice. She seemed like a very kind, tolerant, and even-tempered person, and yet at times, I wearied of what she herself described as her “martyrish passivity.”</p>
<p>Here is a Reading Guide—jump right in if you see any question that strikes your fancy: <a href=“http://www.readinggroupguides.com/guides_A/American_Wife1.asp[/url]”>http://www.readinggroupguides.com/guides_A/American_Wife1.asp</a></p>
<p>SJChessMom: Any start date works for me—I think we chose the 15th these past few months because it was easy to remember. (Yeah, I’m gettin’ old…:)) I’m about to leave the house to run a million errands, but I’ll check in later this evening.</p>
<p>Yea! for all who read American Wife. While I won’t be participating in the discussion, I look forward to reading your comments.</p>
<p>I guess I should be ashamed to admit that I just finished The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society on Tuesday. Looking at the book club discussion - well after it was done - made me want to read the book. Anyway, thoroughly enjoyed it and at some point, may catch up to you guys, except - now I want to read Dreamers of the Day, your July selection. AND while I’ve got American Wife, it’s not been touched.</p>
<p>Great choice of books.</p>
<p>^^^ ok, let’s see if we can ignite your interest in reading this book. </p>
<p>I was reluctant to read this book, ready to put all things Bush behind me, but it certainly “enriched” my view of Laura, and probably of George W, and I enjoyed it. </p>
<p>Like Mary, I wearied of her “martyrish passivity”,her “reactive personality”.
But, she indeed prove herslef a strong woman, and not unlike that fiesty grandmother.
So question number two on the reading list caught my eye</p>
<p>“2. Alice’s grandmother passes down her love of reading to Alice. What else do they have in common? What does reading provide for Alice throughout her life?”</p>
<p>I think Alice’s Grandmother, Emilie, was a formidable woman, and in the end, so was Alice. Like Emilie, Alice managed to confront societal expectations, and broke a few rules, some of them big ones. I thoroughly enjoyed Emilie who may be the most memorable character in this book.</p>
<p>Clearly, Alice adored Emilie, and she was the main influence on Emilie’s life. </p>
<p>Reading allowed both women to break out of their small town lives. Emilie and Alice seemed to have a bond via reading which Alice didn’t have with her “non-reading” conventional mother.
When Alice helped Jessica ( the maid’s daughter) get the scholarship, it was a gift of books she brought to her. Books were Alice’s way of opening up better lives for herself, and others. </p>
<p>In many ways this was such an appropriate “book club” selection.</p>
<p>I read the book about 6 months ago. I thought I would have time to reread it but didn’t. I don’t think I would have picked it up if it wasn’t for CC. I think someone had recommended it on the book thread.
It makes you wonder how much if fact and now much is fiction.</p>
<p>I enjoyed the book, but these mixes of fact and fiction tend to frustrate me. I seem to spend so much time while I’m reading wondering if this section was based on fact or just fictional development. Now I may need to read at least one of the biographies mentioned to sort out fact from fiction.</p>
<p>I loved the Emilie character also but felt sorry for Alice’s mother–the unappreciated “worker bee”.</p>
<p>I don’t know how closely Charlie’s character follows real life George, but I kept thinking how utterly frustrating it would be to be married with someone like that.</p>
<p>Yes, it would be frustrating, especially if your politics don’t align. I guess that happens in many marriages though and people probably deal with their differences like Charlie and Alice do. </p>
<p>I had to keep reminding myself that this was fiction. The author looked at external facts of Laura Bush’s life and added internal thoughts and feelings. </p>
<p>I don’t want to assume Laura had an abortion, left George for a time, and had a gay grandmother. Definitely not “family values.” What is true?</p>
<p>I agree with SJChessMom that Emilie was a formidable woman, and I think she stands in contrast to that other formidable woman in the novel: Priscilla. To society at that time, Emilie would have been considered a black sheep—a self-educated, gay feminist, thoroughly disinterested in traditional housewifely duties! Priscilla, on the other hand, is the model of “family values.” And yet, I thought Priscilla was simply awful, and that Emilie exhibited far greater wisdom and understanding.</p>
<p>I loved this book. The thing that stayed with me almost a year later (I originally read it in hardcover when it first came out) was the end of the book when she talks about her time in the White House. “To others, I am a symbol, to myself, I have only ever been me”. And the piece at the end around page 553 where Alice says “I have often felt, observing the world, like a solitary person in a small cottage looking out a window at a vast dark forest.”<br>
But the piece that really stuck with me is at the very end “All I did is marry him. You are the ones who gave him the power.” It was fascinating to me, the idea that she loved him as a man but didn’t necessarily agree with his politics. Whether this is really true of Laura and George, who knows but the concept struck me very strongly.<br>
I kept paraphrasing it in my mind “I didn’t elect this man, I just married him.”</p>
<p>^ I was also touched by Alice’s reflections on the last few pages, especially when she held the unexpected gift of the silver heart in her hand. (“Oh, the past, the past—how the memories of the people I love sear me.”)</p>
<p>The book really was a pleasure to read. I think one of the reasons it’s easy to get lost on where fact ends and fiction begins is that Curtis Sittenfeld has created characters that seem so real.</p>
<p>First, Mary I hope you and your family are all well, now. Do you think it was the H1N1 ?</p>
<p>Mom 60 and mkm56 - I agree that the confusion about what is "real’ and what is fiction, was unsettling at times. But, visualizing Laura Bush as Alice, and George as Charlie, made this a compelling story. </p>
<p>ebeee- good points " all I did was marry him, you elected him" trying to absolve herself ? </p>
<p>It was a love story, one of opposites attracting. Did Alice need a frisky boy, to complete her matronly ways? Charlie certainly needed a maternal figure in his life, so their relationship fulfilled them, and was quite believable.</p>
<p>While not a prude, I found the explicit sex scenes very strange in this story.
Did Curtis need to include these scenes to break the “librarian/ matronly” stereotype? </p>
<p>DId anyone else find these sex scenes upsetting? </p>
<p>Also, the end of the book seemed to rush to a conclusion, which left the issue of the Supreme Court nominee dangling.</p>
<p>Did I miss something ?
Were you also, disappointed, surprised or confused that this issue was unresolved? I know Alice visited Dena and Peter,<br>
but she didn’t take a political stand, on something so critical to others,
she just ignored the issue once Gladys died.
DId Curtis just replace the abortion issue with the War and therefore gave Alice a voice on one issue, leaving the other unfinished? In other words the visit to the soldier’s father, was Alice’s rebellious, political moment, and the abortion issue just background?
.
I would appreciate your views, because I felt that I missed something regarding the abortion issue.</p>
<p>I felt it might be more the case of the author having strong feelings about the war issue but perhaps being more ambivalent about the abortion issue. Alice’s own abortion, of course, also affected her politics regarding abortion.<br>
I could be wrong but I felt the setting aside of the abortion issue was because it is an issue which for the author and Alice doesn’t have an easy answer.</p>
<p>SJChessMom, thanks—the kids are (almost) healthy now. Daughter with the flu might have had H1N1, but the doc took pity on her and didn’t stick a swab up her nose to find out. She just sent us home with all the usual instructions, and my daughter rolled herself up in a blanket on the couch and watched “Spongebob Squarepants” for a solid week. Ah, the medicinal benefits of bad T.V.</p>
<p>Re American Wife, random thoughts –</p>
<p>I think that the abortion storyline went about as far as it could go. Alice’s pro-choice position was clear, but the nature of her life didn’t really allow her to be very vocal about her beliefs. I did think the death of Gladys Wycomb was a bit deus ex machina. It was if the author got just a little stuck on where to go with the abortion angle—to have made it public would have greatly lessened the comparison with Laura Bush—so she had to kill off Gladys. Although perhaps “kill off” is the wrong term when you’re talking about a character who is 104 years old.</p>
<p>I wasn’t bothered by the non-resolution of the Ingrid Sanchez story. That seemed like a peripheral issue whose outcome wouldn’t affect matters one way or the other. As you say, the main focus of the novel is the love story between Alice and Charlie. And I agree they do complement each other. There are times in the book when Alice is fretting over something, but Charlie is able to see the humor in the situation, laugh it off, and help Alice shift perspective a bit. Charlie’s crudity and lack of gravity would not be my choice in a mate, but I think those qualities were good for Alice. She feels too deeply, and he, not at all. Somehow, it works. </p>
<p>As for the sex scenes…I tend to slide over those in books without reading very closely. On the printed page, descriptive sex always seems a little…silly. I have to say, though, that I just finished reading The Time Traveler’s Wife, which made the sex in American Wife seem mild by comparison.</p>
<p>What struck me was what a lonely life. Surrounded by people but few if any people you could share your deepest thoughts and fears.
Also what did you think about Charlie’s mother in the book compared to Barbara Bush?</p>
<p>Charlie’s mother struck me as probably spot on to Barbara. I grew up in New England and could just picture Charlie’s mom and that whole bathrooms at the camp stuff.</p>
<p>ebeeeee, in my mind I always imagined Laura Bush as being more liberal than George so it made sense to me that Alice would view her marriage as one where she loved him but didn’t agree with his politics. I’ve always wondered how that worked or even if it could- how you could love someone and their politics were so integral to their persona, yet you didn’t agree with them. Could you really love them? </p>
<p>The sex scenes- meh. I admit to skimming through those. For the life of me I couldn’t figure out why someone would behave as she did after the car accident. And what about the porn discovered during the birthday party? I guess I wasn’t sure of the purpose of that was. </p>
<p>The women in this book were interesting. At times I felt the men were only there for background. I felt they could have been a bit more developed. The women seemed larger than life to me. Definitely can see Barbara Bush as Charlie’s mother!</p>
<p>I do think you can really love someone whose politics you don’t always agree with. There was a balance between Alice’s matronly side and Charlie’s little boy side. Very easy to see George in Charlie for me anyway. The preppie, charming immature thing.
The guys definitely could have been more developed but I think the idea was to get into Alice’s mind. The background of the car accident, the relationship with the Grandmother, the abortion was fascinating stuff.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>True. And once Alice’s grandmother died, there was really no one with whom she could share her deepest thoughts and fears, not even her husband. After thirty years of marriage, she still finds it difficult to take their conversations to a more substantive level (“This is a way we never talk, Charlie and I.”) </p>
<p>One thing I wondered re the consequences of “sharing”: In the end, think about how many people knew about Alice’s abortion: Charlie, Emilie, Gladys, Norene (Gladys’ aide), Dena, Pete, Hank, Jessica and at least three secret service agents. I’m sure I’ve missed a few. Given that lineup and human nature, I don’t believe that the secret will remain a secret for Alice’s lifetime. Under the circumstances, was it wise to leave her daughter out of the loop?</p>